Although many dread junior year because of the frequent sleepless nights and the large amount of homework, there is one thing that many look forward to: prom. As soon as the weather becomes warmer, some junior girls develop an intense case of prom fever. Without thinking, many juniors, like myself, jump into the prom preparations without even preparing themselves.

Last week I went dress shopping for the first time and was surprised at how unprepared I was. I have compiled a list of things that I wish I knew before I went and that every girl should know before shopping for prom for the first time.

1. Know your dress size. This will make the shopping process move along faster. In some stores, it is hard to find the same dresses in different sizes.
2. Know your price range before you start shopping. I made the mistake of not looking at the price tag before trying on the dress. Now I have a jaw-dropping dress with a jaw-dropping price tag.
3. Research styles before you go. When your searching through the millions of racks of dresses, it helps to know exactly what you want.
4. Keep calm. Hundreds of girls will be arguing with their mothers and aggressively grabbing dresses in a dress store about the size of a classroom.
5. Keep an open mind. After spending hours on Pinterest, browsing through the many pictures of dresses, you may think you’ve found your dress, but while you are trying on dresses at a store, you may decide the dress that you’ve dreamed of might not be the dress for you.
6. Take as many dresses as you are allowed into the dressing room. The more dresses you try on at one time, the less time you will spend waiting for a dressing room to become available.

If you follow these tips while prom dress shopping, you will be less stressed and spend less time searching for your perfect dress.