Prom fever sweeps Britain
June 17, 2008
Oh, my goodness. I never thought that our sometimes grossly extravagant tradition of prom would take on such a life of its own in England. This Wall Street Journal article talks about proms becoming popular thanks to “movies like “American Pie” and television shows such as “The O.C.,” and they want the chance to dress up and rent limousines themselves.”
P’raps I’m just an old fuddy duddy now, or our prom just wasn’t that fun, but I can’t recall prom feeling like it was worth more than a couple hundred, all told, much less willingly spending the kind of money these parents are spending on their high school children for a single night:
Sue Clarke and her husband at first balked when their 16-year-old son, Michael, begged them to rent him a bright yellow Lamborghini plus driver for prom night. But they gave in after their son promised to study harder in return.
“We didn’t have proms or things like that when we were younger,” says the 39-year-old Ms. Clarke, who, all told, spent $1,180 on Michael’s prom. She says it was worth every bit of it to see her son so happy.
yeah–ridiculous. my dress was $60, my hair and nails were done for $35 more, and my date drove his own car. we went out to eat at olive garden. š
Not stuff of the usual prom fantasy–i think the brits are over-glamorizing the experience ’cause they are using the TV version of it as a template…
I grew up in England and we didn’t have those then for sure…. but I did have a Barmitzvah, mine was pretty cheap but some were definitely extravagant… though probably not be recent American standards.
I think my dress was $150…I drove my car (green Lumina, sweet!) I don’t know where we ate, but he paid. I think the tickets were like $20 or something like that….and I thought it was overrated! š
I spent $100 for my dress. Maybe $30 for the ticket and $25 for dinner. I didn’t have to pay for the limo my so-called “date” rented. He was a jerk anyways. He went to watch the basketball games on tv during dinner … and then ditched me again at the dance.
prom is so overrated!
sense: Too true, I wonder if our own teens don’t ramp it up based on the tv version as well.
moom: I’ve heard that bar mitzvahs, at least in Florida, are quite the show.
savingdiva: Wow, our tickets were something like $60 and it was at some place just off a dank beach. Yeeechh. Totally not worth it.
sfordinarygirl: Half our group went dateless, me included, we didn’t want to bother with half-arsed dates. š Our HS boys were simply too immature.
That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
It’s like weddings – it’s a bloody DANCE, get over it.
And if they dont have the cash – it’s even worse, if they did – why not, but … seriously.