Our First Pageant

We are currently getting ready for our first pageant. She is entering the local Preliminary for America's Cover Miss. Cover Miss is a glitz/modeling pageant organization-- however, the prelims are NOT glitz. You are not counted off for being glitzy, but the level of competition at the prelims is pretty low. Its the typical "mall pageant".

Cover Miss has been around for 20 plus years. I remember their system from both myself and a few friends of mine back in the day. At the prelims, you compete in beauty/formal wear ONLY and the rules about what is and what is not acceptable (Sunday dresses are generally fine) are much more loose than at the state/National level.

I felt this would be a great way to start. Low pressure-- we don't have to do anything other than just pluck a prom dress out of her closet. Gives her the opportunity to practice her walk, and to watch others and get an idea of what this world is all about.

Entry fees to prelim pageants are generally low. The mandatory fees tend to be in the 25-100 range, with optionals ranging from 10-25 per event. This particular pageant has a $40 mandatory beauty fee and the optionals (hair, smile, personality) are $10 each.. OR you can get the "full package" for $95. We're going all out and doing the $95 package, for kicks. In most pageants we do, we will enter all optionals (except talent), just to give moms an idea of the TRUE costs of pageantry.

The only expenses we have for this pageant are the following:

Entry Fees: $95
Shoes: $15 (we got some inexpensive shoes at Payless.. these won't work for later pageants but this one is small)
Nails: $35. We went with a mani/pedi this time. Will have to go acryllic when we start doing the glitz pageants
Dress: $0. We are using a dress that she had picked up for homecoming but decided not to wear. It is a floor length formal. Not a traditional "pageant" dress, but still a lovely formal.

So--$145 total is our cost on this pageant. We will have no hotel expenses and nominal gas expenses (its only 10 miles from our home). This is a VERY inexpensive pageant compared to some of our others on our list... but we will save that for a later edition ;)

Stay tuned for the next episode, where we will discuss the pageant, the results, and our initial impressions.