OP, I think you’d see a large difference if you requested that posters specify M/F.
I always go to a place that’s just a few blocks from here. IIRC they charge $8 and I give a sawbuck.
My suggestion is that you spend the money if you can afford it. Take Nick aside and tell him that if your bride ends up looking like Stacy London, there’s an extra $20 in it for him. Make that $50. No, $100. Rawrrrr!
$25, tip included. What can I say? I’m a dude.
IMHO, women shouldn’t get a radically-different hairstyle for proms or weddings. We fell in love with you the way you looked before, not with this weird hair… um, thing you’ve got going on for a special occasion!
…and then there was that great moment in “All in the Family” when Gloria wears the wig. Suddenly “Meathead” is all horny for her and she has to say that she refuses to be the “other woman” in her own marriage.
I wouldn’t discourage a woman from changing her appearance, spicing up a relationship. I wouldn’t discourage men, either, but I’m a guy so we’re expected to be constant…I think.
I’ve noticed lately that Nick always says something like, “You’re going to lose a lot of hair” or “We’re gonna go really short”. Friday there was some woman on WNTW that hardly had any hair to start with, and he still said it to her!
He helps the heck out of anyone I’ve ever seen, though, so I’d let him go crazy on my head. 
Personally, I probably have spent no more than $15.00, tip included. Male, 34. When I was a kid, my mom probably paid $25 or $30 for my haircut, tip included. I’ve “cut” (i.e. shaved) my own hair for about 15 years now, so my hair care budget is about 5 bucks a year.
My wife has been known to spend over $100. That’s fracking nuts, but she likes the results (though a $30 stylist could do the job, IMO), and she makes more $$ than me, so I don’t care.
Joe
By all means, but not for a prom or wedding. If you (or she) hates it you’re stuck with it in the photos and in your memory forever.
If you’re still interested in what people spend, I spent £15 on a set of trimmers 10 years ago and cut my own hair every 2-3 weeks. Call it 500 times over the period, that’s 30 pence per cut!
On a haircut - $60. It was in the early to mid-90s, and I was ecstatic to find that my hair had finally come into style (I got the “Rachel” cut, of course.) But I found that after the high-end place had cut it, anyone could trim it - my hair grows pretty evenly, so it was just a matter of taking a ruler in with me, getting agreement on what “half an inch” really means, and having each hair cut by that length. And the Rachel cut wasn’t really a hard one, anyhow.
The most expensive hair appointment for me was about $180, and that was color correction on hair down to the middle of my back. A series of unfortunate events had left me with *horizontally *striped orange, white and pink hair, and it took 3 processes at a high end salon with a color specialist to get that fixed to a beautiful auburn. Never got it back to the golden blonde of my high school years, but it looked good.
But my makeover worthy haircut - the one that looks fabulous and requires no and I mean no maintenance and is growing out gorgeously - was a trade for two hours of babysitting. Such a steal!
About $30, at the Harmony Barber Shop on Main Street at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. $17 for the haircut, plus about $5 more for red, white & blue paint, and I rounded it up to $30 for the tip.
Three times a year I go in for color and cut and it’s 90 bucks, including a tip. I’ll just go to Super Cuts or something to get my bangs trimmed for about 5 bucks when they get too long.
The only one I didn’t like was where he went clown red bob with thick blunt bangs. She didn’t seem too happy either.
It is a little more expensive when you fly the barber in.
About $25. I don’t tip.
Many years ago when I was young enough for women not to run off screaming when ever I took off the iron mask(Long story,an older brother told me that it would make me more mysterious and interesting to women, but no matter i’m going to get plastic surgery when I get around to selling my shares in the Brooklyn Bridge)
I went for a haircut,in an age age when long hair was the norm.
My hairdresser was unexceptional looks wise but had an enormous chest.
She was friendly enough and chatted(I remember about Halloween,it was that time of year)
and kept accidently rubbing her attributes across my head,my arms and anywhere else within reach(Cynical as I have always been I thought she was trying to boost her tip,older and uglier I now know she was just winding me up)
Finally she got to a reasonable hair length for the fashions of the time and asked me if it was O.K.
Luckily for me the bib designed to keep cut hair off of my clothes covered my lap and also the uncontrollable male reaction to having her huge chest rubbed against various parts of my body.
I played it cool “Er no a little bit more please” and then desperately thought about mountain streams,glaciers and even geting kicked in the bollocks during a fight to no avail because cutting my hair even shorter seemed to necessatate her draping herself over me even more.
This happened several times before I admitted defeat,by this time my hair was so short I had to become a “skinhead” for several months(I didn’t mind the clothes but I totally HATED Reggae) and limped up to the till with my manhood desperatly displaying itself through my trousers before the eyes of the amused blokes waiting for their turn.
I just hope that they got their turn.