Dressing for Success

I have to admit, I never realized how much wedding planning involved clothing.  I mean, I always knew I'd need a dress - but I never really thought about all of the outfits you have to pick out. It doesn't seem like that much when you start to list it: girls' dresses, guys' tuxes, my dress, his tux.

But, then, there are all these perfectly valid questions that people are asking us - what color shoes should they wear? What color should K's mom & my mom & stepmom wear? It hasn't come up yet, but what about my brother who's going to play guitar during the ceremony?  I honestly never thought about all of the things before people started asking me about them.  Dude, I have enough trouble dressing myself!

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I really appreciate that everyone is asking & interested. I was a bridesmaid once & the bride wanted to be flexible, so she kept telling us to do whatever we wanted. The problem was that our goal was to create the picture she envisioned, and we couldn't do that if she didn't communicate it.  I love that people are excited enough about the wedding that they're already starting to think about it. I know I don't normally plan this far in advance. :-)

One of the decisions we haven't made yet is what the kids will wear. That's really a post-Q4 decision, so I haven't spent too much time on it. I do want to be prepared, though, so the kids & I can work together to find something that works well in the wedding.  Here's what K & I have thought about so far:

S - One of S's biggest concerns about the wedding was that he really didn't want to wear a suit or a tux.  At all.  Not even a little bit. No matter what K & I pointed out to him about having never worn a tux before, he wasn't interested. So, about a month ago I told S he can wear whatever he wants to the wedding. We want him to be happy; we want him to be there & in to what's going on. That is SO much more important than what he's wearing. We did tell him that we're going to rent a tux for him - and he has to get measured for it - just in case he decides that's what he wants to wear.  He told us it's a waste of money & we told him we're OK with that.  So, we'll see.  I don't think this will be decided until we're in the moment.

C - We haven't talked a whole lot to C about what she wants to wear. She brings it up periodically; she's concerned because she's not really a dress girl. I remember being about her age and trying to figure out who I was & what kind of clothes felt right to me. (Sorry to my parents for all of the money they wasted on clothes I didn't wear while I was trying to figure this out) Plus, she's a little big for girl sizes, but she's not quite mature enough for junior clothes. In the end, though, we're just going to have to look around & try things on to find something.

I've told her we want her to be comfortable and that everyone else will be dressed up, so she might be more comfortable in something dressy. I pointed out that she can wear a shirt & skirt instead of a dress as well. I just went to a few websites and found a couple dresses that I think might work well for her, but I'm not sure if she'll like them or not:

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P - The first thing P told me about her outfit for the wedding was that she wanted to wear a big white dress. I told her white probably wasn't going to work, but that we could find something pretty. As I'm looking around, I'm surprised by how difficult it is to find blue or brown dresses for the girls. There are a surprising number of black dresses, which seems too old for the girls. Here are a couple that I found to run past P:

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