Jovani’s own retailer page for New Jersey counts four authorized Jovani stores inside Manalapan Township, and all four are on U.S. 9. Freehold adds two more a few miles up the same road; Old Bridge has two more past that. Shopping this corridor is not a matter of picking a town. It is picking between storefronts a few traffic lights apart, which means the useful question is not what a shop stocks but how it operates.
At Lola’s, you cannot walk in and try on a gown. Prom, junior prom, sweet 16, bat mitzvah, pageant and eighth-grade dance shopping is all by appointment, one shopper per appointment, and the store says the reason is fitting-room capacity in its busy months. You can bring as many people as you want along; if two girls in the party are both trying on, that is two appointments. The store carries Amarra, Clarisse, Jasz, Jovani and Terani, and it special-orders many styles rather than selling the floor sample, so the dress that arrives has not been zipped onto fifty other people first. In-stock dresses can be bought off the rack and taken home the same day.
Alterations happen on site, by the store’s own seamstresses, including on dresses bought somewhere else. Work is tracked on a yellow ticket with an estimated completion date written under your name. In 2024 the shop added what it calls Bridal Reconstruction — rebuilding a mother’s or grandmother’s wedding gown into something wearable for a shower or an after-party, or into a robe or clutch — priced at $1,000 to $1,500 for a full project and $350 for a clutch, and sometimes taking up to a year.
Things worth knowing before you book
- A parent or guardian at least 25 years old has to be present for the whole prom shopping appointment. Not required for retries, alteration fittings or pickups.
- Everything bought or ordered in the store is final sale. No returns, no exchanges, and that holds even if the event is canceled.
- The website shows a fraction of the floor. The store is explicit that in-store inventory is larger.
- Photos and video during your appointment are fine; photographing tags and style numbers is not.
- January through April the store is open seven days. From May through December it is closed Sundays.
- Out-of-state shoppers can book a FaceTime appointment at $100 an hour, credited toward a purchase.
The store, and the Lola it is named for
Lola’s opened in 1993. There was a real Lola — Lola Berent, who worked as a dress designer in the New York garment center for close to two decades before opening in central Jersey with Bruce Berent. They ran it until October 2020, when Melanie Gibson, who had been working there since January 2015, bought it outright at 23. The store still sells more than gowns; its longer history in town includes back-to-school clothes, tops and jeans for high school and college students.
One practical warning from the shop itself: there are unaffiliated businesses in the area using the name Lola or Lola’s. The one you want is 357 Route 9 South, in the Towne Pointe Shopping Center on the southbound side, with cross-access to Tennent Road. The plaza also holds a jeweler and an Edible Arrangements, so it is easy to identify from the highway.
Who is driving here
The Freehold Regional High School District puts six high schools within reach of this plaza — Manalapan, Marlboro, Freehold Township, Freehold Borough, Colts Neck and Howell — and about 10,000 students among them. Manalapan High School on Church Lane shares the store’s 07726 ZIP code. The district runs junior and senior proms, and its handbook is strict about the surrounding days: students have to be present for the full school day before prom, the day of, and the day after, or they risk the privilege entirely. Plan the final fitting around that, not against it.
Bat mitzvah work is a real share of the year here, not a sideline — Manalapan and Marlboro have long-established Jewish communities, several congregations within a short drive, and the store recommends shopping six to eight months ahead of a simcha so a special order and alterations both fit in the window. Prom dresses, by contrast, are carried year-round rather than only in season.