My son is about to finish his junior year in high school. The expenses in preparation for his senior year and graduation have already begun. Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to save money on items such as senior pictures, announcements and all those other expenses and still make it nice? We already plan to make our own announcements. I appreciate any feedback.
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Go to your nearest walmart for decent senior photos, they give you quite an assortment and you can get them also on a disc to share or print out when you want to. Mid summer is good as a slight tan always looks better. search ebay for tux when time is closer to the prom a young man can grow rapidly. or ask a family member if they could share (for the cost of a cleaning) bridal shops also have rentals. also check walmart for your class rings. they order form same places as the school does. Good Luck! (no I don't work for walmart or ebay)
My youngest daughter graduated a few years ago. We printed up her announcements on the computer. We bought some nice looking plain cards at the office store, designed a nice looking announcement and included what she would be doing after graduation. If there is not enough room in the actual card you can add a little piece of paper. Because many of the friends and the family couldn't come to the actual graduation, it gave them an idea what she would be doing (going to college) and what to send her as a present.
She had a friend in photography class take her graduation pictures. She had many to choose from that way and they were really "her". They turned out very nice and we were able to get them printed at a photo store for a reasonable price. She included one of the photos in each announcement.
She has always been unusual so all were pleased with the announcements and photos. We had lots of positive comments.
There isn't much you can do about the cap, gown and tassle, they usually require you get them from the school. If they will let you use your own, you may be able to find one in the school colors at the local thrift store.
-Susan
For my senior pictures I found a photograpy major at the local University. They were more than willing to do it, they just had to use me for examples in class and I ended up paying about $25 just for the poses and then went to walmart with the Kodak picture maker and printed them out, my pictures turned out amazing by the way!
This year we took pictures of my oldest grandaughter. Between her Mother and her paternal grandfather, we had about 200 to pick from. I printed them out on my computer. She wanted some taken at different locations in town, and that would have got quite expensive if we had a photographer do it. She is really into tie-dyed stuff, so one thing that we did was, being I had one of those pre-lit palm trees on my patio, I borrowed a shoer curtain from a friend that had a tropical beach scene with palm trees on it, so she sat on the glider on my patio and two people held the shower curtain up in back of her.
She was wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt on this pose. It turned out really nice. Someday she wants to have a Harley, so she had some pictures taken on her grandpa's Harley and some standing beside it. She also wore the tie-dyed shirt on the Harley ones. We also took some pictures of her pretending to set the grandfather clock that my late Dad made several years ago. There are lots of fun ideas that a person can do, if you do it yourself. I was in charge of clothes and jewelry. She doesn't like make-up, fancy hairdos or big jewelry.
My grandaughter got a good buy on the invitations at the local WalGreens. These were the ones that had a picture on one end and the wording on the other end. They fit into the regular business size envelope. My grandchildren didn't get class rings because of the cost, even at WalMart. In fact when their Mother graduated in 1983, we got her a nice ring from a jewelry store, that was still cheaper than a regular class ring. Most people that I know only where their class ring for just a few years.
For proms, now, several of the larger newspapers in my area publish prom pictures in their online paper, and I enjoy looking at them. It amazes me how some of the kids dress for proms now. Some of the guys wear plain suits, some dress pants, shirt and tie, some even appear in khakis and jeans. I think some of the girls picked out their formals and got dressed and out of the house before their parents saw the dress, because they are so revealing. When I graduated and when my daughter graduated the guys just wore suits. One of my grandsons rented a basic tux at Men's Wearhouse for $75.00, this was about 4 years ago.
I got my son's class ring at Walmart for $110. Personalized exactly the way he wanted it. We took his school's order form for class rings and matched it up perfectly.
I agree with going to Wal-Mart for senior pictures, im a senior this year (2007) and thats where i wen. They were cheaper and they turned out great =)
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