Bo­bie-lee Dixon

It's every girl's dream to wear the most beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed dress, flaw­less make­up and trend-set­ting hair­do to her high school grad­u­a­tion. For the guys, look­ing crisp and cool in a three-piece suit, Sta­cy Adams sig­na­ture shoes, and rock­ing a trendy hair­cut gets the nod every time. But ar­riv­ing on the night as the belle of the ball or the cock of the walk, takes a lot of prepa­ra­tion and mon­ey, as par­ents can tell you. Sta­cie Corn­wall an in­te­ri­or de­sign­er, is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing her first grad­u­a­tion has­sle with daugh­ter June­sa Comis­siong, 16, who is grad­u­at­ing from St James Sec­ondary School. She says prepar­ing her daugh­ter for her grad­u­a­tion is like prepar­ing a bride for a wed­ding. "Right now I am feel­ing like it's a wed­ding I am deal­ing with. She wants every­thing, from jew­el­ry to pro­fes­sion­al make­up, to Cin­derel­la-type shoes."

She said they went as far as Princes Town search­ing for an ide­al gown, but when they couldn't find one, she opt­ed to have the gown cus­tom-made. Corn­wall says the ma­te­r­i­al to make Comis­siong's gown is cost­ing her close to $400, hair and make-up $650, shoes $300-and that doesn't in­clude ac­ces­sories. "It is cost­ly, I will ad­mit that, but you on­ly get to have one high-school grad­u­a­tion, so I will close my eyes this time around to the fi­nances in­volved,"she said. Comis­siong's grad­u­a­tion is card­ed for Ju­ly 3 at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. "I am very ex­cit­ed," she said. "Just think­ing about the dress, ac­ces­sories and the whole pack­age is ex­cit­ing for me." Comis­siong said she found a hair­style she adores in a mag­a­zine and made a print of it to give to her hair­dress­er. Be­ing even more am­bi­tious, she de­signed her own dress, us­ing a par­tic­u­lar fab­ric and colour scheme to match that of her date. She says she is look­ing for­ward to spend­ing one last night with all her friends.

Out­fit­ting a boy

Gail Danglad, moth­er of two, felt the fi­nan­cial pinch of prepar­ing for a grad­u­a­tion when her daugh­ter Carey Danglad grad­u­at­ed four years ago. She is breath­ing a sigh of re­lief this time around as she doesn't have to break her pig­gy bank with her son's Frank Danglad's grad­u­a­tion. "Carey's grad­u­a­tion cost me well over $2,000. Her dress alone was $1,000. Then there were the ac­ces­sories, shoes, hair, make-up, nails...the works. I al­so had to hire trans­port for her," Danglad said. She says her son's grad­u­a­tion is not cost­ing her much at all. "Prepar­ing for a boy's grad­u­a­tion is not much has­sle and not very cost­ly ei­ther. All he has to get is a suit, shoes and a hair­cut, re­al­ly." She said Frank's suit, if she de­cides to buy one, will cost her $1,300, his shoes are $400 and her last ex­pense will be ar­rang­ing trans­port to get him to and from the event. Frank, 16,will be grad­u­at­ing from St Au­gus­tine Se­nior Sec­ondary School. He said what he was look­ing for­ward to the most was en­joy­ing him­self on the big night with his class­mates. "I am feel­ing a bit anx­ious, but I am not re­al­ly stress­ing too much. Mom is han­dling every­thing so I don't have to wor­ry about that," he said.