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How To Create & Plan a Prom Night Timeline | Part 1 of 2

by Mark Douglas April 04, 2018

How To Create & Plan a Prom Night Timeline | Part 1 of 2

Let's go to Prom, they said. It'll be fun and easy, they said. Fun? Define Fun. Easy? Think Again.

(*Guys, please follow along! There are plenty of tips and time-saving tricks in here for you. But for the most part the ladies have a lot more pre-prom to accomplish. As such, you'll notice these two blogs have quite a few more female notes. Adjust accordingly.)

The proper day-of timeline starts way ahead of Prom Night. It promptly begins when the latest Prom Dress styles are released in December and January. It's at this time you'll need to begin scouring the internet to see what new styles work well with what you have in mind. Maybe you'll find something more fresh and colorful than what you had initially envisioned: Perfect! That's exactly what we were hoping for! Our chosen designers are constantly striving to create styles that flirt with the cutting edge while effortlessly mingling elegance, beauty, sass, and power. 

Finding your Perfect Prom Dress! Style, Color & Size

  • December: Early Bird Prom Dress Shopping on AllDressedUp.Me
  • January / February: Prime Time Shopping at All Dressed Up Hixson, TN - 5450 Hyw 153 STE 152
  • March: Regular Time Prom Dress Shopping at ADU
  • April: Late Prom Dress Shopping at ADU

ADU Prom Dresses Website Page

Once you see a few styles you like you'll need to begin visiting the stores to see what they've pre-ordered. Remember there will always be a disconnect between the styles you have in mind and what you'll find in the store. For example: Let's say you've chosen three styles from the ADU Prom Dresses website. Let's say each of these three styles are sold in two different colors and 10 different sizes, 00-16. Let's do some math: Your favorite three styles times the two available colors each equals six. Now, six times the 10 different sizes equals 60. Here's the disconnect: you might think there is no reason in the world your favorite dress shop shouldn't have at least one dress in your perfect style, color and size. But your chances are one in 60, right? Wrong.

Let's say there are 100 total styles available in Brand A but the shop only ordered 35 of it's favorite. Your chances aren't 35 to 100; there's 100 times two colors, times 10 sizes totaling 2,000... your chances of hitting this jackpot is 35 to 2000. You're now a little closer to understanding why Special Orders are so important.

Let's walk through the process: you found your perfect style; let's say you found it for Brand A. Visit our shop and try on a Brand A dress for fitting sake. If you fit nicely into a 10 and it's a similar style to your favorite you can rest assured a 10 will be perfect in the style and color of your dreams. Even with a pro measurement nothing compares to actually trying on Brand A's size 10. It might be completely different than Brand B's size 10. And now you're ready to ask the sales associate to look up your original favorite style in the warehouse to see if it's hanging. If so it can be booked and shipped for delivery within 7 days. Aren't you smart! Seriously, it sounds easy and obvious. But in comparison to what the majority do each and every year? You're a genius. One last note: if you're a fickle person when your Special Order arrives you're in for trouble no matter where you shop. Special Orders are Final Sales. There's no crying in baseball, and there's no trade-ins or give-backs on Special Orders. 

Now it's time for Alterations.

Don't put this off! And also, don't gain or lose weight after your visit! Not funny. If you're an early bird we trust you've already got your ship together. Your seamstress will be delighted! Ahoy!

4-8 Weeks Out: Book/Schedule your Pros!

Scheduling Prom Night Pros

Of course you'll first need to work out the day-of timeline, see below. With that in mind you'll make a list of Professionals and begin making pricing phone calls. You'll need a day-of

  • Photographer
  • Dinner Reservation (concrete reservations w/ optional Valet Parking)
  • Transporter(s)

At this point you'll also need to book your Hair-Professional appointment for 4-5 days prior to Prom Night.

4-6 Weeks Out: Book your Tuxedo!

ADU Tux Collage - Jim's Formal Wear

Your Tuxedo needs to be booked early because top styles get booked up fast! We use Jim's Formal Wear for all our Tuxedo Rental needs. We have a huge rental preview on our Tux Page. The newest contemporary style is the slim-fitting look and even better, the ultra-slim fitting look. The jackets and pants come in Black, Grey, Blue, and more. Our Tuxedos are available with colored vests and ties, either Bow or Windsor. These colors are vast and can easily be matched with a companion's color theme. 

Week-Of To-Do List:

  • Nails - pre-schedule or walk-in / wait
  • Hair Removal - walk-in / wait
  • Hair Cut / Barber - walk-in / wait

Week-Of Wednesday: Tux Try-On

If you've booked your Tuxedo rental with ADU we'll be ringing your phone on Wednesday afternoon. That's usually when our tuxedos arrive. We want you to try it on so that if the shoes don't fit, we overnight the right ones, including Tuxedos! 

Here's the Part 1 timeline in the form of a .jpg file. You can save it onto your computer or cell phone for later use and printout. 

How To Create a Prom Night Timeline, Part 1

This week's corresponding Video Bonus just went LIVE!: #7 Prom Night Perfection | How To Create a Timeline Part 1 | 'Puttin On The Ritz w/ DJ Mark!'  

Video Dialogue:

Mark: "This week's episode, "Prom Night Perfection, How to create a timeline! Before we begin let's take a look at this beauty, it's a Colette 18304 Size 10, on the floor right now. Come and get it ladies. Let's start by doing a quick recap overview of the timeline that got us here. As we discussed in video #1, When to begin shopping, your prime time for prom dress shopping is January and February. Early bird shopping actually begins in December. It's at this time I personally begin uploading and publishing all the styles for each designer we carry. Sometimes certain designers want me to wait until January in order to stifle overseas counterfeiters who troll the internet looking for new styles to copy and produce. So March shopping can be considered regular-timed shopping, and April is late as your perfect style, color, and size will most certainly be gone and you'll have to settle for what's left hanging.
Bank on the dress needing alterations! Alteration pro's aren't just sitting around waiting on you to arrive two days before prom so you can be VIP'd. They are slammed with other customers making the exact same strategic error. Give your seamstress time to meet your needs and everyone wins. So now that we have our dress and it's alterations we need to start scheduling. No need to scribble everything down... I've uploaded this sample timeline to our website and it's available for download; just check out the corresponding blog that goes with this video. First up: Scheduling your day-of Prom-Night professionals. These pro's include... Your Pro Photographer. Your Pro Dinner. If you plan on waiting in line for a table at Applebee's you're not comprehending the entire point of creating a timeline in the first place. Find a place that offers concrete reservations. Valet Parking is a huge plus! Your Pro Transporter. If you are not using Pro Transportation you'll have to find places to park: Scout This Out! If you go downtown you'll need a plan, then you'll need a backup plan! What if the lot is full? Are you going to make your date walk a half a mile? Figure this out ASAP! These Pros get booked so fast it will make your head spin. Next Up: Hair: Cut/ Color/ Removal. Ladies, you'll need to schedule well ahead of time with your favorite hair professional. And guys, you'll need to get on the ball as well. Get that mop cut and don't forget about styling gel. Your entire future and life path is depending on it! Notice I mentioned hair removal: Ladies, I'm just gonna say what needs to be said here: the hair on your upper lip needs to be removed. I don't know how it got there, you don't know how it got there. But it needs to go. I'm gonna just leave this right here, go look it up: "Threading." Schedule this on the week-of, not the day-of. Next Up: Companion Tuxedo Rental: For those of you in need of Tux you'll need to get sized and pick your styles at least 10 days prior. This will give the warehouse a chance to lock you in to what's available. I say what's "available" because there are hundreds of other proms going on during your exact same Prom Night Saturday. So let's just be on the safe side: Get Sized EARLY! Maybe even a month in advance. And if you're not using ADU for your tux rental you may need to be a bit of a nag here... Make sure your sales associate actually goes to the tux rental portal and reserves your tux. Some shops will take your order and your deposit, look at the 1-month away date and procrastinate your entry and reservation. Then you may get a call on the week-of notifying you that your style tux got booked up, when in reality there is a real chance they didn't reserve it in time. All Dressed Up books immediately in the portal. So you've pre-ordered the tux and it arrives a few days before the event: no worries, this is normal. Our Tux rentals arrive here on Wednesday afternoon. That's the time it takes for the previous week's gentlemen to return their suits on Sunday, the tux company to pick up the suits from the shops, dry clean them, organize with the new week's orders, and send them back to the shops for another cycle. We want all our clients to come in on that Wednesday to make sure everything fits. And we're not unreasonable! If it doesn't fit right and we did our part to have you fitted correctly we'll simply pay the overnight shipping to get you the fit you deserve. Scheduling: Week-Of Event: Pro-Nails. Thirdly: We are now ready to talk day-of scheduling!
Ladies and Gents, I'm cutting in right now to keep this video short. Be sure to catch Part 2 next Wednesday! And Ladies, we're interested in your timeline! Would you like to be featured in one of our blogs or episodes? Share your event and timeline with us directly from our website, alldressedup.me. It's easy to find in the footer section and I'll place a link to it in our corresponding blog. We will see you, next time."

Will you share with us your event pics and/or timeline? Get Featured!

You've reached the end of Part 1. 

Here is your hyperlink to Part 2.

 

Questions? Contact us and one of our representatives will be happy to assist!

ADU is owned and operated by Mark and Cheron Douglas.

Visit All Dressed Up today to get started on your Tuxedo Rental and Prom Dress shopping.

This is an original blog post from All Dressed Up - Bridal Prom Tuxedo.

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Mark Douglas
Mark Douglas

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