If you've got a teen who's been bugging you about going to prom, then you probably already know this: prom is much more expensive nowadays than when you went oh so many years ago.
USA Today business reporter Hadley Malcolm (right, above), who still looks good in her original senior year high school prom dress, reports that the average prom spending is - sit down moms and dads - over $1,000:
Read the rest of the report over at USA Today: LinkProm is the new wedding, and spending on the springtime high school dance is climbing within reach of celebrations of holy matrimony.
Mary Stirsman says she couldn't imagine buying her 17-year-old daughter Madison the $500 dress she found at an Indianapolis boutique on one recent shopping trip, because Stirsman only spent $800 on her own wedding dress. But a higher price tag is the new norm for an increasingly lavish event for which teens and their families are dropping loads of cash on one-of-a-kind dresses and tuxes, limos or party buses, hair, makeup, jewelry, flowers, dinner and dance tickets.
This year, families with teens are expected to spend an average of $1,078 on prom, up from $807 last year, according to data from a survey released today by Visa that includes results based on a thousand telephone interviews conducted at the end of last month.
"This is social-arms-race spending. It's extreme," says Jason Alderman, director of Visa's financial education programs.
I agree about the lingerie... why bother wearing underwear when you are just going to be going at it like a couple of baboons as soon as you are in the limo. I mean I guess you can just wear your mormon undies... if they are good enough for god than they are good enough for prom.
Though I don't know if you are legally allowed to use the words "Utah" and "fun" in the same sentence.
Methinks some people are idiots.
Social arms race indeed. The Prom is yet another one of the first world problems that only serves the purpose of being divisive among the students in the school. The haves and have nots, the well-to-do and the budgeted. The vapid, shallow, self centered and those who's eyes have opened just a little to the greater world.
Thank you grunge era.
Even in the intervening decade or so the cost has gone up significantly. Andrew is right most of it is inflation.
According to one inflation calculator, "What cost $250 in 1978 would cost $826.10 in 2010." $100 then is $330 now.
This 'unimaginable' $500 prom dress is well within that range.
Assuming the mother got married 20 years ago, that $800 wedding dress would now cost $1230. I found "In 2012, the average cost of a wedding dress is between $900-$1,280."
The relative costs of prom dresses and wedding dresses hasn't appreciably change over the last few decades, only the price tag.
wow. she looks remarkable on the left, there, in her classy suit and tie...
Now I have three girls in high school. I will have to re-sharpen my sewing skills.