Another Prom On A Budget

Last year I shared how we did Prom on a budget.  We got the dress at Dillards and I did pay full price for it (ouch) as I believe every young lady deserves that shopping for a prom dress experience.  But just once.  I'm not about to make it and experience every time a dance rolls around.  But first Prom is special and I feel the dress needs to be as well.  It was, and still is, a gorgeous dress and she is still very much in love with it so my goal was definitely accomplished there.

This year we did things a little differently and much thriftier as well.  Her dress came from a thrift store and we bought it last summer.  In fact, we bought three of them.  The store had a plethora of beautiful formal dresses on the day we shopped and as my daughter is rather tiny it can be difficult to find her clothing outside of the children's department.  Fortunately for us we found a lot for her to choose from and managed to find three beautiful gowns that fit her nicely, required little alteration and would work for any dance she might be attending.  I made the decision to buy all three and the total bill was less than $20.

We cleaned the dresses at home and they came out beautifully.  The one she chose to wear for Prom is a beautiful teal color, which she loves and looks lovely in, and has a shimmery sparkle within the fabric.  It fits her perfectly and only required a little bit of a hem once she chose the shoes to wear with it.  She found her shoes at the mall at Payless.  They were 70% OFF as the store is closing and clearing out all of their inventory.  She paid less than $10 for them.

The next accessory she wanted was long sating gloves.  She found what she wanted on Amazon and I ordered them for her.  They were less than $7 with free shipping.  As we did last year hair, makeup and nails was done at home.  She priced having her hair done up at a salon, but the style she wanted was $45 to $65.  She opted to save that money for college and we did her hair at home.  Instead she invested in a new tube of mascara as well as a can of hairspray and called it good.

And, as we did last year, I was the photographer and we got some wonderful pictures.  The location was a little wetland we have in town, one I didn't even know existed until Saturday..  Beautiful little park setting.  I printed the photos off at Walgreens and I think they turned out rather well.

So if you have proms or dances coming up in your not too distant future I hope you find some tips here that help you make it affordable as well as memorable.