Australian school formals morph into weddings

Dec 3, 2009, 10:57 GMT

Sydney - An ivory Bentley takes its turn to drop off guests beside the fountain at Sydney's plush bayside Le Montage. Inside is a banquet for 190 people, so over the top that even the chair covers have chair covers with bows of contrasting colours.

Video screens relay images of dressed-to-the-nines arrivals as they slip passed trees bedecked with twinkly lights and smile for the cameras. There is a dais for the speeches and a massive cake to cut.

It's not an industry-night-of-nights, a send-off for a retiring chief executive or a wedding reception but a leaving party for pupils at a state high school that is costing some parents a week's wages.

Australia has taken to what Americans call proms and what was once just a private school endgame is now the biggest date in the calendar for many 17-year-olds.

Formals are big business for events centres like Le Montage and have spawned a host of industry hangers-on that range from firms providing beefy blokes looking after security to consultants offering the gawky and the awkward tuition in deportment and table manners.

'It's a pretty big deal, it's about saying goodbye,' said Christina Smith, who worked for months with other students to organize the formal for her Year 12 chums.

It is trite to say the formal is a rite of passage, that kids arrive on the big night as school-leavers and depart as grown-ups. It's mostly about dressing up, about staying out all night, about parents outdoing other parents with the costliest dress, the longest limousine, the most professional video of the event.

'The formal is about 95 per cent hype and hysteria and about 5 per cent actual formal,' said Nina Ubaldi, who left school earlier this year. 'The 'magic' of the formal was a myth invented by the formal committee 10 months before the night to persuade stingy teenagers to fork out up to 120 dollars a ticket to eat dinner with the people they see at school every day.'

The magic has certainly generated money. The run-up to the night includes massages, manicures and fake tans. Preparations start months before the red carpet is rolled out.

John Klein, who puts on annual School Formal Fashion Shows at Sydney's upmarket Queen Victoria Building, said that the effort that once only went into weddings now goes into formals.

'They're not going to get married until much later in life, it at all, so it's an opportunity for them to get really dressed up and make it a very big night for themselves,' he said.

Oddly enough, the focus for many of those associated with the formal has shifted from the event itself to what goes on before an after it. For the parents, there is the pre-formal where families gather to preen and parade their sons and daughters while awaiting the arrival of the hire cars.

For many of the kids, the real action is at the after-formal parties that go on until dawn. A new development in the after-formal is that it requires a fresh wardrobe and sometimes a hotel room booked for the changeover.