Three Dresses and a Wedding

Some of us Blue Rose Girls (Grace, Libby, and I) have been preoccupied in recent weeks with what we’re going to wear to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet this coming Sunday.

Grace wrote this post asking for blog readers' advice about three dresses she posted images of at Blue Rose Girls. She wanted their recommendations about which of the dresses she should wear for her big night at ALA.

Then Libby returned a beautiful pink silk dress that Grace had given her some time ago—telling Grace, “It’s perfect for the Newbery Banquet.” Read about it here.

Libby wrote a post about her “obsession” with finding the perfect dress for the ALA event. She posted pictures of a black silk Marimekko cocktail dress and a long emerald green dress (also Marimekko). But she hated the way the green dress—that she had bought on eBay—looked on her. After dress obsessing, Libby came to some conclusions about herself and decisions about what she should/shouldn’t do in the future.

Then there’s me. I had to find two dresses—one to wear to my daughter’s wedding in July and one to wear to the banquet in June. I was so happy when I found what I thought was the perfect mother-of-the-bride dress at a boutique in a nearby town several weeks ago. (I wrote about the dress here and here.) I ordered it in purple and waited for it to arrive.

Note: The dress pictured below is really a lovely deep purple color. I don't know why it looks blue in the photograph I took.

My FIRST Mother-of-the-Bride Dress

Then it was on to finding a dress for ALA. I looked and looked and looked—and finally tried on a style of dress that I never thought would look good on me. Long story short: The black dress looked much better on me than I had expected. I bought it and a short black chiffon evening jacket to wear with it. Both my daughter Sara and my husband liked it better than the mother-of-the-bride dress that I had already bought. Sara told me she thought the black dress was slimming and more flattering to my figure. She decided she wanted me to wear the black dress to her wedding.

The Black Dress

That didn’t leave me with a problem. I had two lovely dresses for two very special occasions. But in the back of my mind I began to think I looked heavier and wider in the purple dress than I did in the slim-fitting black dress. So…I went shopping again to see if I could find a dress that would be more “figure-flattering” than the mother-of-the-bride dress--a dress that I could wear to the ALA banquet. By luck, I found another slim-fitting dress—in purple—in my size. (It was the only dress in that style in the store.) I decided to buy it and get my daughter’s opinion. I tried it on last Sunday for Sara's and my husband's approval. They both liked the third dress best. So I’m wearing THAT dress to the wedding and the black dress to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet. And the first dress I got is going to have to hang around in my closet—a dress in waiting for another special occasion.

The Third Dress

P.S. I'm not going dress shopping again...for a long, long time!!!