Apr 2, 2015 3 min read

I never saw so many bedazzled frocks in one place, rack after rack of dresses all crunchy inside their stiff plastic covers.

My daughter had four in her arms and I had two more, which added up to the six she was permitted to take into the fitting room. She took her friend with her and closed the door; I took a seat in the waiting room. She was excited to be trying on gowns for her first prom. My heart was racing for another reason.

Please, let this go well. Please, let her find something age-appropriate. Please, let me get out of this store for under $350.

Turns out those were tall orders.

When my daughter told me she was invited to the prom, we held hands and jumped around the room. This was a big, happy moment. The high school rite of spring would provide a night of glamour – as well as weeks of happy anticipation.

Just two days later, we were driving far up the highway to the dress store. I suggested she wear some dressier shoes, so she put on her newest, whitest high-top sneakers.

She was looking for pink, so that narrowed things down a bit. Each time I pulled something from the rack to show her, she would turn up her nose and declare it teither “hideous” or “gross” or “old ladyish.” I tried not to take that last comment personally.

Is there anything so certain to crush a person’s sense of “cool-mom” mojo as dress shopping with a daughter? The dresses I was choosing were pretty, or they wouldn’t have been hanging there, right? We were in a sea of gowns designed and marketed specifically to teenagers. How could anything here be “old ladyish?”

“No way,” she would say as I held up a hot pink chiffon number. I’ve known this child from birth and still know nothing about her tastes.

Apparently, she was thinking Hollywood and I was thinking “Little House on the Prairie.” I was so intent on keeping things modest I neglected the price tags. And once she had the dresses on her body, it was too late for that. She fell in love with a slinky, gold-beaded number. I vetoed it because of a $650 price tag.

Half that price felt about right for a high school event. I know girls who will wear thousand-dollar dresses, but that just seems wrong. In a survey a few years ago, Visa found couples spend an average of $1,140 dressing for and going to a high school prom. That’s insane. A student paying for that herself would baby-sit or lifeguard most of the summer to cover it.

Of course, it’s most likely not the students who are paying.

I decided to stay under $350; it’s reasonable for 2015, but still feels outrageous.

We didn’t find the perfect dress that day. Limiting the price thins the pool a bit. But she’s a teenager, young and lovely. I told my girl she would look beautiful in almost anything.

But she has her standards. And so let the shopping continue.