Brittany Randall's March Blog: Prom Shopping

My Prom Dress Experience

     Sunday, 12 o’clock; Wichita, Kansas; the dress shop Parrot-fa-Nalia. You know, that store all the girls talk about, that supposedly has the BEST dresses ever. It is THE place to get a dress for any occasion. Every girl, it seems, gets her dress here. So I went there to find my prom dress, and it (almost) wasn’t worth driving hours to get it.  First, my mom and I couldn’t find it because our directions were wrong, and we ended up on the wrong side of town. When we did find the store, it was in one of the scariest neighborhoods I have ever seen. Trust me, you probably don’t want to be there after 4:30 in the afternoon. This store is so shady, they keep their door locked 24/7, and they buzz the customers in. You can’t even see most of the dresses because they are all covered in plastic and crammed into their little clothes racks. It literally took me ten minutes to navigate to the dressing rooms, all the while I was stepping on dresses that were on the racks because they encroached the aisles, making it impossible to walk. As I waded through the sea of sequins, silk, and plastic, I had to sign up to get a dressing room. Then I discovered that the dressing rooms didn’t even have doors, Just short  flimsy curtains that wafted as someone walked by. And believe me; girls were walking by my room quite a lot. The assistants there didn’t help at all. They just wanted me to buy a super expensive dress and didn’t care if it looked absolutely hideous on me. They made me try on a yellow dress that looked like Big Bird from

Sesame Street.

  Not only were there about 50 other girls milling around this store, but an entire bridal party was there looking for the bride and bridesmaids dresses. Trust me, nobody hogs the spotlight or mirrors more than a bride-to-be. Eventually, my mom and I found a dress we both liked that was within our price range. (Somehow, I magically tried on a dress that was almost $1,000! You can’t trust those sales associates.) Moral of the story, other people might LOVE a store to get their prom dresses, but that doesn’t mean you will have the best time shopping. I’m never going to go there again for a dress, even though my dress this year is terrific.