Prom for girls is synonymous to fun. And why wouldn’t be? It’s the time in a girl’s life where she has a whole month or two to prepare for a special night. In the preparation process you will mainly have to secure a prom dress. It’s one of the main event so a lot of time is usually allotted to this part of the process.

Prom Dress Shopping Tips

Next is the date. Depending on your school’s rules and your need for companionship, bringing a date is another concern. You can choose to have a friend, a classmate or a another peer to go as your date.

That’ll be a totally different topic that warrants a lot of discussion as we all know teenage dating years can prove to be very awkward.

After bagging or not bagging a date, you need to pick a set of accessories that’ll match your dress. This includes shoes, jewelry, bag, hairstyle, and makeup. It’s basically the little things that make up your look besides the dress.

We would have wanted to go on longer with the other items that make up prom but since this article is about fashion and shopping, we thought we’d cut it to the chase and suggest that you take it to the next level with your prom dress shopping process.

Here’s a short video you can use as a guide to prepare yourself for prom:

If you have the time and resources to do something beyond what girls regularly do in preparation for prom then get ready because we’re about to teach you how to do it.

Prepare 6 months ahead

That’s right. Instead of just spending the regular 1-2 months preparing for prom, we urge you to try preparing 6 months ahead. 6 months is a long time and it’s good to have high expectations of the outcome. This will challenge you even more to make better decisions since you have plenty of time to prepare.

5 months before prom

By this time, you would have already chosen a few select dress style that took you two weeks to brainstorm. You’ve considered your body measurements, best assets, preferred styles, and skin-complementing colors. Have the photos for these select dresses ready for the dress hunt.

3-2 months before prom

1-2 months will be the amount of time you will spend looking around at boutiques, online shops, and designer houses to see if they have the dress that you’re looking to wear. A good start of the hunt would be to visit stores such as Prom Dress Shop. It’s a specialty store that sells a wide variety of prom dresses and other formal occasion dresses such as homecoming, Bat Mitzvah, cocktail evenings, and weddings.

If you are planning to shop online, make sure that you only look around at secure sites. You don’t want to waste your time and money on unsecure online shops. Get a double take of the size charts as not all shops have the same exact size measurements for size charts. Lastly, check the material the dress is made of. If you can’t touch it yet, the next best thing to do is to research the material to see if it will feel comfortable in you.

If you are getting your dress custom designed by a designer, make sure to get yourself measured at a time when you are at a weight that you ideally want to be in during prom night. After that, all you need to do is maintain that weight which means you will need to exercise and eat a proper healthy diet.

If there are alterations that need to be made, take it to your seamstress or tailor immediately. Once the alterations are done, try the dress on right away so you still have time to have extra alterations done in case it wasn’t right the first time.

2 months before prom

This is the perfect time to start pampering your skin. Get a facial during this time and make sure to do masks every week. This will help keep your skin in tip top condition in preparation for prom night. You might also want to up your water intake so as to keep your skin hydrated and your metabolism stable.

You might also want to start experimenting with different accessories during this time. Your dress should have already been finalized by this time which makes it easier for you to pick accessories that match your dress. Go neutral if you’re wearing a busy printed dress or opt for intricate if your dress is sleek and simple.

If you’re wearing a glamorous short dress, you can go crazy with the accessories such as your shoes. Think strappy and shiny. This distributes the attention throughout your whole look. As for jewelry, we recommend wearing the real deal to match your sparkly shoes. We’re talking diamonds. You can either borrow one from your mom’s jewelry box or buy a totally brand new one. Just be sure the style of the diamond jewelry is versatile enough to be worn more than once.

During this time, you should also figure out which hair and makeup up you’re going for. YouTube gurus is a rich source of hair and makeup tutorials for the clueless girls out there. Or better yet, you can hire a professional makeup artist to do it for you. Be clearly transparent with the look you’re going for but also listen to your hair and makeup artist’s suggestions. Who knows, you might just even look better thanks to their idea. Ideally, you would do a test session where you try out different looks together with your dress and accessories to see which one looks best.

1 month before prom

Around this time, you would have already booked your tickets and your mode of transportation. You can opt to get a ride from your parents or friends or hire a limo for your date or your group.

Double check the important things like your dress and accessories. The dress should fit and the accessories should hang on your body properly.

Practice your poses in front of the mirror and if you feel like performing a little fantasy, why not also practice your prom queen speech. Pretend you are the queen of the night in your emerald one shoulder prom dress and throw out waves and flying kisses.

Back to reality. It’s prom time. Get your camera ready, call your date, call your friends, gather around, take pictures, go to prom and breathe in the awesomeness of this event.

Watch as your friends and classmates sashay in their most formal attires. Enjoy the moment of acting like a formal adult of society in this one moment of your teenage life.

After prom night, it’s time to make an evaluation of your plan versus what actually happened. Make sure to include everything from the dress style draft down to the limo rental. Did everything go as planned or were there some misses?

Take note of the hits and misses and tally them up. If you got your preparation right to at least 80% then take yourself out for a treat. Go shopping or go on a vacation. If you have barely met any of your plans, you can still reward yourself. After all, you have worked so hard on this so you still deserve a treat. Take yourself out to a full-day spa. You deserve a day of relaxation after that long 6 months of prom preparation.

After the post prom evaluation is done and the rewards are enjoyed, it’s back to reality again. Secure your photo album so you have something to look back later on when you’re older. You’ll smile knowing you were able to make the most out of that one moment in your life and enjoyed the process that led towards it.

That is how you take prom preparation to the next level. Did you have other suggestions? Let us know in the comments.

What Prom Dress Shopping Tips Do You Have To Share?

/*The views and opinion expressed in this article are of the guest author and does not reflect the opinions and views of this blog as a whole.*/