Buying Your Prom Dress Online
– The Do’s and the Don’ts
You are used to doing everything else on line from chatting to friends and homework to downloading your favourite band – so why not buy your prom dress?
Well, there’s no real reason why not, but you should think it through. Prom Night is going to be the biggest event of the year, your red carpet moment and That Dress is going to the most important purchase yet – so you want to get it right!
The Upside of Online
A quick Google search will reveal a vast world of prom dress sites from the cute, crazy and slightly scary American web sites to some pretty good home grown ones. And what they’re great for is showing you just how many hundreds of styles and colours are out there – no single store in your home town is going to do that!
Also, despite the obvious stick thin models, there are some designers, particularly the UK ones, who show ‘normal’ size girls – so you can get an idea of how certain styles might look on you. There are plenty to choose from; the traditional A-line Princess Gown, the Fishtail that hugs the body and fans out below the knee, the Slinky and the ‘now’ dress for prom 2010 – the Short and Flirty.
Once you’ve identified the style you think will suit you, it’s a good idea to go into a store and try a few on, that way, you can see firsthand whether or not it’s you.
Then the exciting bit is finding The One online. You are likely to get a much better price than in a store and look out for extra discount vouchers and promotions that might drive the price down even further.
Also consider looking at sites specialising in selling ‘worn once’ prom dresses – especially if you know the particular designer you want. eBay might also be worth a look and they have rules and rating systems to give you added confidence when making your purchase.
A really important thing to remember is sizing. Measure everything from your bust, waist and hips to your leg length. A lot of the popular prom dress sites will exchange e-mails so you can send over your queries about size, colour or fabric.
But Beware…
If you’re buying from an American site the sizing is completely different to the UK! Also many sites charge shipping and handling fees that can see the price tag go up considerably.
You also need to leave plenty of time for any alterations that may need doing, (which is likely), and build in the cost of these too. Girls have found that by the time they’ve paid for the shipping and alterations they could have bought a similar dress from the high street!
Many girls are really pleased with their online dresses and certainly you get a fantastically wide choice. However, you do miss out on the whole prom dress experience of taking your mum or friends into the store, being fussed over and attended to and getting the opinions of people you trust to tell you whether ‘ your bum looks big in this’!
Quite a new thing that both on and offline stores are now doing is a dress register so that anyone else from your school or college will know that a particular style and colour has already been chosen. No embarrassing moments on the night!
Whichever route you choose – online or in store – enjoy the whole experience. Prom Night is special and so is your choice of dress, shoes, accessories, make-up, hair style etc. etc. etc. So there’s loads to do and right now – plenty of time to do it in. Happy shopping!
