A mother and daughter opened Grace Kelly's in 2016. The first shop was a 1,500-square-foot cottage on the back side of Lancaster. It did not stay there long. The business now fills a 14,000-square-foot building downtown on South Main Street, and the owners describe it as the largest prom dress store in South Carolina. That is their claim to make, and the floor backs up the ambition: prom racks organized by label, a pageant section, homecoming, cocktail dresses and a tuxedo counter.
The blog posts are signed in the voice of Grace Kelly, chatty and full of y'all, and the writer calls her mother Kelly her business partner and best friend. It is a family shop at heart, even at this size.
How a cottage became a downtown anchor
The jump from 1,500 square feet to 14,000 happened in roughly seven years, and the owners tell the story themselves in a December 2023 post on the shop's blog. The short version sits in two sentences.
In 2016, Grace Kelly's was born into a 1,500 sqft cottage on the back side of Lancaster, SC. Today, it has grown into a 14,000 sq ft building in the historic heart of our beloved city.
The move put the store in downtown Lancaster, the county seat. For families coming from Indian Land or Fort Mill, US-521 runs straight down into town. The store pitches itself as sitting between Columbia and Charlotte, and the location bears that out: shoppers from both metros make the trip in spring.
Size matters most in prom season because of how the stock is used. A store this big can keep several colorways of a popular style on the floor at once and still have room for a full pageant wall. Shoppers can pull a Sherri Hill, a Jovani and a Colors gown in the same size and compare them side by side, which is hard to do in a shop a tenth of the size.
Labels on the prom floor
The prom menu is organized label by label, and it covers the names Lancaster County juniors and seniors tend to ask for by name.
- Sherri Hill, the subject of its own blog post when the 2024 collection arrived
- Jovani and Johnathan Kayne, both also stocked for pageant and homecoming
- Rachel Allan and Portia and Scarlett
- Amarra, Jasz Couture and Alyce Paris
- Ava Presley, which also leads the homecoming collection
- Colors Dress, which gets its own prom section
Pageant gowns get their own collection, with Ashley Lauren and Jovani among the labels filtered there. That collection keeps long, structured competition gowns on the floor well outside of spring.
Guys are covered at the same counter. A couple can settle the gown and the tux in a single afternoon.
The tuxedo counter
Jim's Formal Wear and Geno's Formal Wear
Occasions
Everything from a senior prom to a wedding party
Color match
Tux colors matched to the dress while it is still in hand
Planning a visit from Lancaster County and beyond
Lancaster High School sends a steady stream of prom shoppers downtown. Indian Land High School serves the fast-growing northern end of the county along US-521. Buford High serves the eastern side of the county, and Andrew Jackson High in Kershaw covers the south. Those four schools alone fill the spring calendar, before counting families from York County or south Charlotte.
Gowns can be bought on South Main or through the online shop, and every sale is final either way.
On South Main
Try on downtown
- Appointments are booked online
- Several weekdays run by appointment only, with open shopping hours on other days
Online shop
For shoppers who know their style number
- Full-priced dresses ship by ground at no charge to any address in the contiguous United States
Checking the current schedule before heading downtown saves a wasted drive, especially once prom season picks up, and the try-on is where the decision gets made. The store is also hiring prom stylists for the 2026 to 2027 season, a sign of how much of the year now revolves around prom in this building. Among the boutiques covering north-central South Carolina, few put this much square footage behind one occasion.
Grace Kelly's in Lancaster: shopper questions
Which prom designers will I find at Grace Kelly's?
Sherri Hill, Jovani, Johnathan Kayne, Rachel Allan, Portia and Scarlett, Amarra, Jasz Couture, Alyce Paris, Ava Presley and Colors Dress all appear on its prom menu, with Ashley Lauren in the pageant collection.
Is there a tux counter for prom dates?
Yes. Grace Kelly's offers tuxedo styles from Jim's Formal Wear and Geno's Formal Wear for prom as well as weddings.
Does the store take returns on prom dresses?
No. The posted policy rules out returns and exchanges, whether the gown was bought online or in the Main Street store.