I am the only girl in my family and I am the oldest. On top of that I was also the first grandchild on my father's side, as well as the first girl for my grandma. My grandma had 3 rough and tumble boys so when I came a long it was blessings all around. My mom went on to have 2 more boys (well they are twins) so she and I had to be the "strong woman force" together.
1979, 6 months old at the Redwoods
Our relationship has had many crash & burns over the years.
1983 Tahoe Trip
In the end she has always been there for me. Now that I am a mom myself I appreciate her even more.
Little A's baby shower 2001 - with both of my grandmothers before they passed away.
At my first wedding my mom did a LOT of the planning and DIY details. She tied the 150 bows for the invitations, glued 300+ seashells onto little mini frames. She even created the centerpieces. She has such a special talent for those type of projects. I have been trying to follow in her lead and since I am in town with her I am sure lots of my DIY projects will be Mom & Me projects instead.
When it came to finding a MOB dress for my mom none of the traditional options really fit with our wedding style. The long formal dresses with jackets are very nice, and she has worn those type of dresses to the 3 previous weddings (my 1st and each of my brothers). That formality just didn't fit in with our backyard/at home venue. It also would have been odd for her dress to be longer than mine, and since mine is tea length she wanted to find one similar.
She found a few options online at jcrew and David's Bridal in the bridesmaid sections. None seemed perfect though. She wanted to try them a few on before purchasing anything. Last month my dad had a business meeting up in Phoenix so Mom took that opportunity to go look for a dress at the Malls over there.
She was very disappointed at the first Mall that she went too. It was a very upscale Mall and she felt very out of place. She found a dress she liked at the Mac's there but they were sold out of her size and the sales lady didn't even offer to look up online :( She walked into a Chico's as well and was completely ignored, so she walked back out of there. While on the phone with me, sounding very discouraged she walked by an Ann Taylor and saw a dress in the window. She started describing it to me and I started looking on the website for it. I told her I liked it, so she braved the store and went to the rack to look for her size. No luck! They didn't have her size.
Not to be disscouraged I looked on the website to see if the Ann Taylor in town had her size. It wasn't in town, but there was a store at the Mall a few miles away from where my mom was in the Phoenix area. She hung up the phone with me and headed that way.
Her experience at the next store was VERY pleasant. The sales lady was very helpful, and helped zip up the dress and then complimented her on how great the dress looked on her. As did a few of the other customers in the dressing room. I wish I had been able to be there with her to take a picture. Since I wasn't, I will just show you which dress from Ann Taylor she picked
It has multiple different shades of blue, so it will easily tie in with Mr. B's shirt & shoes and the petticoat on my dress. It will also be VERY comfortable for her with the sleeveless design and the fact that it is cotton. Since there isn't a bridal party we don't have to worry about the pattern being too busy with other dresses. As a bonus she will also be able to wear it after the wedding, which she wasn't able to do with any of her other MOB dresses.
Did your mom find her dress in an unlikely place?
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