Flower Girls Practice

Anything worth doing is worth doing right, especially being a flower girl. Boo and Roo are practicing all week this week. They have green construction paper hearts and a cute basket. D. sings "This is the way we throw the petals, throw the petals, throw the petals. This is the way we throw the petals because we're flower girls!" The idea is for them to share one basket and they're doing very well with it.

They're very good flower girls. My ring bearer is watching youtube videos to get the idea of his job too. I fully expect them to be entirely unpredictable two year olds. I'll still be married whether a single petal hits the ground or pillow gets carried. I'm glad my little friends are part of my day.

Flower Girl Books

I got a bunch of books from the library about being a flower girl. I was stunned that there isn't a Fancy Nancy where being a flower girl is more than mentioned. Not surprisingly, there were also no my mommy and daddy are getting married books. Nevertheless I found a few good ones.

Daisy Jane, Best-Ever Flower Girl by Megan McDonald. Daisy's babysitter is getting married and she's the flower girl. It's an outdoor wedding and everything goes wrong when the weather turns bad so Daisy saves the day, but helping make the living room reception better. It's cute and relatively short. Riley enjoyed it, but it's definitely been out shined by some of the others we got.

Lilly's Big Day by Kevin Henkes. Lilly is a precocious little mouse. Her teacher is marrying the school nurse. She desperately wants the flower girl gig. I like Lilly. She and Fancy Nancy would get along great. It has lots of colorful illustrations. In the end Lilly looses the job to a younger girl related to the couple, but saves the day when the little girl has stage fright.

Eloise At The Weddingby Margaret McNamara. This is hands down Riley's favorite of the bunch. She was vaguely familiar with Eloise from some of her holiday specials, but was the first of her books we read. It's a very quick and fun read. Riley was quoting it this morning! We may have to buy a copy. Eloise ends up saving the day by filling in for the sick flower girl at a wedding in the ballroom of the hotel she lives in. Two thumbs up.

The Flower Girl by Laura Godwin. This one is very cute. It's "here is the church, here is the steeple" but it goes through a wedding day. The little blonde main character looks like Riley. It starts "This is the girl who carries the flowers." Then on the opposite page "This is the dress she dreamed of for hours." I really like the flow of the rhyming pages. Near the end the kids in the illustration look just like Roo, Boo and Miss E. Cute.

Isabelle the Flower Girl by Ellen Weiss. This is a Babar book. Isabelle is Babar and Celeste's daughter. It's a good realistic story line. She's worried about what the job entails and if she'll do it well. She does stumble and her petals rain down like snow. Everyone thinks it's beautiful. In the end she has a fun. Perfect.

Junie B. Jones is (Almost) a Flower Girl by Barbara Park. This one is a little too old for my two year old flower girls. It's funny, but we're getting through it slowly because it has minimal pictures and Riley gets impatient. So far my favorite part is Junie's re-write of the bride song.

Here comes the bride
All dressed and wide
Her name is Clyde
She reads TV Guide

So, if you have an older flower girl this one is fun, but I'd skip it for the younger crowd since I'm enjoying it more than Riley.

Reluctant Flower Girl by Lynne Barasch. This one is about a little girl who's much older sister and best friend is getting married. She's sad about her sister moving out and makes a few comical attempts to prevent the wedding. In the end she saves the day when the ring flies out of the best man's hand and only she sees where it lands. It ends with a sweet note from her sister and new big brother inviting her to come for a sleep over when they get back from their honeymoon. It makes me tear up every time! It's Riley's second favorite of the group. It has great pictures too.

Dress Fitting Jr.

This:

Plus:

On this cutie pie

Equals

Both the dress and shoes are a size too big at the moment so they will fit exactly right (fingers crossed) in 3ish months. I think both girls are a fans of their attire. I think the flowers wreaths will be a beautiful finishing touch. I also think seeing it all together that skipping wings is the right call.

Wing-ing It

Today I ordered the flower girl shoes because the website was having a black Friday sale plus free shipping. Fingers crossed their feet don't grow too much before March. So that leaves wings, because they're my little fairies. I started looking around again and came up with a few options.

I started with Etsy and was immediately drawn to these:

They're sewn from cotton fabric. They made me wish I could sew. Great idea, durable washable wings. I love how different they are. That being said they're not quite as whimsical as the rest of the ensemble. Apart from that they weren't offered in an appropriate fabric. They attach around the front with big bows. Which is adorable for dress up and more comfy than elastic, but I want something more discreet for the wedding.

The next pair of wings to catch my fancy were:

These are on sale right now. I like that they're small and the copious color options. I just hate the big flower in the middle. At this point I decided to look else where.

I found these on Amazon:

No big flowers and they're reasonably priced. I like the triple wing design. They're budget friendly, but they're a little boring. The other option is to DIY some and I found a tutorial, but I'm on the fence about at least until I enlist help.

It occurred to me during my research today that 2yr old girls may not want to wear wings. I had thought a couple pictures and the ceremony weren't too much to ask. Now I'm worried that the girls won't keep them on long enough for pictures, which would be so sad. I mean am I just kidding myself with this idea? They'll have the flower wreathes, dresses, tights and shoes without considering wings. If they're attached with elastic Riley won't last more than 10min. Hmmm...

Dresses for my Fairies!

They arrived Monday afternoon via UPS. The first picture is the dress in sunlight:

This is the dress in the middle of my dining room.

I think they are going to be gorgeous on my pretty girls with fairy wings. It is really starting to feel real now. I'm so glad my kids will be at my wedding. My favorite colors, flowers, food and people. It's going to be an amazing day.

Glass Slipper Jr

I'm also looking for flower girl shoes. It's harder than I thought. I found these they're $12 and in the same style as the ones the bridesmaids are wearing. I'm just not sure if silver goes with sage. I want them to be able to wear the shoes again and be comfortable. They only have that one in silver and gold. Ideally, I thought a lavender ballet slipper would be sweet, but I'm a sucker for sparkly. Silver seems like a color they'd wear again. Hmmm...

So, here's a lavendar ballet slipper covered in lace. I think a flower on the dress and the shoe might be too much. These are handmade so they're a lot more ($30).
Upon further reading they too have cloth soles and won't stand must wear and tear.

This one is a lavender ballet flat/mary jane and the rose on the toe has tulle in it for $14. It'd be a lot sturdier than the other purple shoe with the cloth sole

Basic black plus sparkle? When I look at the shoes all lined up I'm less in love light purple.

Opinions?

Flower Girls

A friend of mine who has been following the blog offered me a wonderful gift yesterday. She sent me a link to a website and told me to pick out my flower girls dress. I was so excited. I searched the site for about 15min before I had it narrowed down to my top two.

This one was my first choice. I'm not head over heals about the flower, but it's detachable if I wanted to lose it. I like the fabric and the cut of it. It's simple so they'd be comfy and it's flowy like a fairy.

I know this one went a whole other direction, but I really like it. It only comes in pink, red or silver. Not really my colors, but not awful.

After consulting the other flower girl mommy we were sold on my first choice we just needed to work out color. It came in champagne, ivory, sage and lilac. All valid options. My little guy will be wearing an adorable black suit with a lavender paisley bow tie. So, I was leaning toward the sage dress with the lilac rose. Maybe one girl in the reverse?

In the end we decided they should match so they'll be in sage with lilac roses.

Dress

Flower

So, now all my beauties need are shoes and fairy wings. I was sure I'd find wings at Halloween and I didn't. Maybe I'm being overly picky. I think it'll be easier now that we have the dress. I told my ring bearer he had his choice of shoe. I think sneakers would be cute. It's only fair when you ask a 2yr old to wear a suit. I think I'll find some cute slip-ons for the girls or raid their closets post Christmas and find some cute shoes. I'm not worried (any more). Thank you again, Jean.

Puttin' On the Ritz: Kiddo Edition

Fairy Flower Girls

Ring Bearer

Fairy Girls

So, over the years of being unofficially engaged, officially engaged and then postponed I started joking that I "had to grow a flower girl first." Even before Riley was born I pictured her being pulled down the aisle in a flower filled wagon wearing a pair of fairy wings.

Something like this image from my wedding notebook. (Thanks, Lara for photographing my notebook for the blog.) The baby is so tiny the wings are the length of her entire body. So, sweet.

We're past the point of needing the wagon at this point, but I'm so excited that my flower girl will be my beautiful Riley. I also decided I want her to share the job with her best friend Boo. They love each other so much. Now I picture them holding hands down the aisle and tossing petals. My beautiful girls.

Boo and Roo at the zoo (18mos). My little flower girls.

This was the dress I had to have in 2008:


Watter Girls collection, style #45970. I called about it the other day (after showing the picture to Boo's mom) and they told me it was discontinued in January 2011. I was so bummed. I hope it's not the first of many consequences of postponement.

The flower girl dress was the only attire I wasn't flexible on. Seriously, even my dress I have more of an idea of how it should look more than exact plan. I was completely deflated. However, I called Boo's mom to break the news and she said "oh, Katie you're going to find something better." She also confessed she found the dress a little plain for the fairies I'd described.

Shortly after the pep talk I found this dress :


It's also a Watters, style#46231. Having two flower girls, one who isn't my biological child, I hesitate to fork over $200 per dress. So, I'm looking for something similar or at least similar fabric. I love the color (they call this green apple), the spray of flowers above and below the sash and the tulle. Picture it on the two prettiest 2yr olds you ever saw with ballet slippers, fairy wings and flower wreaths on their heads.
This is the flower wreath I'm after. Maybe I’ll do one with lighter purple and one with darker purple flowers. Beautiful.

This is actually an ad for a photographer. Her wreath is all baby’s breath, but I love the shoes. It's a great picture of the sweet little flower girl surrounded by the bride's skirt.

It turns out Riley's already practicing for the shot:

(photo by Lara Coughlin) I didn't have a sweet little face peering out from under my skirt when I bought it. I think I like it better this way.