American 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.
Tickets, fancy clothes, a corsage— and, before any of that begins, your kid wants $300 for a promposal.
Wait, a what?
A promposal is an elaborate invitation to the prom, a concept that gained web traction in 2011.
Asking someone to the prom has been tradition for as long as there have been school dances. But the concept of promposing took on new life in the digital era.
Teens now plot grandiose events to gain the attention not only of their potential date but of everyone else on social media, in turn generating YouTube channels, Twitter, and, of course, listicles.
One promposal that went viral involved the purchase of Kanye West’s popular sneaker, the Boost. For others, it has been expensive cosmetics, Beyoncé tickets or even a puppy.
One thing they in common is that parents are picking up some, or all, of the tab.
Predictably, brands have gotten in on the action.
National Promposal Day, March 11, was registered this year by Men’s Wearhouse Inc., which rents tuxedos for the occasion.
A branded social media campaign about the day reached more than 2 million Facebook and Instagram users. A promposal-themed Snapchat filter was used almost a million times.
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 proposals, and they like reading about them,” explained Devin VanderMaas, director of marketing for Faviana, a special occasion dress retailer. “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.”
You know something has arrived in the teen consciousness when credit card companies take notice. Visa, which tracks prom-related expenses in an annual survey, added promposal costs to the total prom bill for the first time last year. The company found the average American household with teenagers spent $324 on promposing.
Total spending on the prom, which includes 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 again last year by 6 percent, to $919.
Spending too much?
Conventional wisdom would assume wealthier families spend more on proms, and promposals, but Visa found families making less than $25,000 per year spend $1,393 on proms, compared with families that earn more than $50,000 spending just $799.
Visa referred to the finding as “disconcerting,” but couldn’t explain it. In fact, low-income families are often encouraged to turn to charitable organizations, such as Operation Prom, for free prom dresses and tuxedos. The New York nonprofit is considering expanding those services to include promposals.
At the other end of the spectrum, getting a professional to plan a promposal is 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 Heart Bandits, a Los Angeles proposal planning firm that charges $1,000 for promposal services, has received about 30 inquires about promposals, according to founder Michele Velazquez.
Despite the growing trend, not all teenagers are wooed by pricey 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., whose parents requested that she be identified only by her first name.
Meghan 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 seem more willing to foot the bill: In 2014, parents surveyed by Visa said they planned to pay for 56 percent of prom costs. The next year, parents upped the amount to 73 percent.
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