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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Promposals add to cost of prom

Fancy way to ask date to the dance gains momentum

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Parents are accustomed to being treated like human cash machines during prom season, spending close to $1,000 to guarantee that a high school dance doesn’t become an emotional catastrophe. A hundred bucks for tickets and hundreds more for fancy clothes. Even the corsage costs $20. And before any of that begins, your kid wants $300 for a promposal.

Wait, a what?

A promposal, an elaborate way to ask someone to the prom, is a concept that first gained Web traction in 2011 and now is an institution alongside limo rentals and after-parties. Asking someone to the prom has been tradition for as long as there have been school dances, but promposing took on new life in the digital era. Teens now plot grandiose events to gain the attention of not only their potential date but everyone else on social media, in turn generating YouTube channels, Twitter and, of course, listicles.

Students lucky enough to experience a promposal are sometimes on the receiving end of an outrageous and often complex feat of planning. One promposal that went viral involved the purchase of rapper Kanye West’s popular sneaker, the Boost. Another promposal, less expensive but much more difficult to pull off, involved Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz reading a promposal script on behalf of a teen. For the rest, it can involve expensive cosmetics, Beyonc? concert tickets or even a puppy. One thing they all have in common is parents picking up some or all of the tab.

Brands get on board

Predictably, brands have gotten in on the action, looking to further capitalize on the already expensive event. National Promposal Day, March 11, was registered this year by Men’s Wearhouse, which rents tuxedos for the occasion. A branded social media campaign about the day reached more than 2 million Facebook and Instagram users, and a promposal themed SnapChat filter, geo-fencing more than 18,000 high schools, was used almost a million times. It’s unclear how many teens ended up with dates that day, but Men’s Wearhouse is hoping it will lead to a boost in sales and rentals.

Not to be outdone, prom dress retailers are latching onto the phenomenon in store and posting about promposals on company blogs.

“We know our customers are receiving promposals, and they like reading about them,” Devin VanderMaas, director of marketing for Faviana, a New York City-based special occasion dress retailer, said. “It’s also one of the more searched keywords right now. Girls who are most likely going to buy our dress are also Googling promposal stories. That’s another way for us to find new people and have them discover our brand.”

Golden Asp, a Pennsylvania prom dress retailer, also published promposal-themed blog posts, including the “Ultimate Promposal Guide.”

“When you see a trend like this, that just adds to the significance of prom,” owner Jon Liney said. “It has to help sales.”

You know something has arrived in the teen consciousness when credit card companies take notice. Visa, which tracks prom-related expenses in an annual nationwide survey, added promposal costs to the total prom bill for the first time last year. The company found the average U.S. household with teens spent $324 on promposing. Promposal spending varies around the country. New England families with teens came in at $431 per promposal, compared to $342 in the West, $305 in the South and $218 in the Midwest.

Total spending on the prom, which includes the cost of clothing, transportation, tickets, food, photographs and the after-party, is down since 2013, when it was $1,139, according to Visa. In 2014, it fell to $978, and last year it was down to $919. Conventional wisdom would assume wealthier families spend more on prom and promposals, but Visa found that families making less than $25,000 per year spend $1,393 on prom, compared with families who earn more than $50,000 spending just $799. Visa referred to the finding as “disconcerting,” but the study didn’t explain why this might be the case. In fact, low-income families are often encouraged to turn to charitable organizations such as Operation Prom for free prom dresses and tuxedos. Even the New York-based nonprofit is considering expanding those services to include promposals.

Operation Prom founder Noel D’Allacco said she is working on a making her organization part of the process. She is considering whether to encourage wealthier students to use her organization for their promposal, and help fund prom expenses for those less well-off.

“We’ve been trying to get creative for what we can do to help that promposal come true,” she said.

At the other end of the spectrum, getting a professional to plan a promposal costs an extra chunk of change. Sarah Glick, a proposal planner at New York City’s Brilliant Event Planning, charges $495 for a concept design and a minimum $2,500 for executing the promposal. The company has been approached about a dozen times to plan a promposal, but the clients chose not to move forward due to price. The Heart Bandits, a Los Angeles-based proposal planning firm which charges $1,000 for promposal services, has received about 30 inquires for promposals and has planned at least five, founder Michele Velazquez said.

Despite the growing trend, not all teens are wooed by promposals.

“I’ve seen on Twitter where boyfriends buy their girlfriends hundreds of dollars worth of makeup to ask them, which I think is ridiculous,” said Meghan, 16, from Pueblo, Colo. “People buy their girlfriends fishes, and puppies and clothes. All kinds of stuff. It’s crazy.”

Meghan, identified only by her first name at the preference of her parents, was promposed to more simply: Her date purchased a Starbucks coffee and wrote ‘Prom?’ on the side and carried a poster reading ‘This is hard to espresso … but I’ll take a shot.’ ”

With promposals on the upswing, parents find themselves more willing to foot the bill: In 2014, parents surveyed by Visa said they were planning to pay for 56 percent of prom costs. The next year, parents upped the amount to 73 percent.

“Teens have no incentive to cut cost with parents still subsidizing this much of the total prom spending,” Visa reported.

Planner Glick said she expects the trend will affect the traditional proposal market in the coming years.

“It sets the bar so high for these girls. Where are they going to go from here for their own marriage proposal?” she said.

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