Sugar and Spice

I found a dress for the bridesmaids after looking for about three or four hours. My own dress search lasted as long as it took for me to try on three dresses. The search for a dress for my flower girls, though, was not so easy. In fact, it's been the hardest choice to make since we've started planning.

There were a few things that made it so challenging. First of all, all of my sister's kids, in addition to my sister, are going to be in the wedding. My sister has two sets (yes, TWO SETS) of twins, so that would put my sister out the cost of her dress plus the cost of two flower girl dresses and two little ring bearer suits. This is asking a lot, especially when you take into account that a lot of flower girl dresses are more expensive that the dresses that I picked out for the bridesmaids. 

This Barijay dress in ivory was my first choice, but it 

was over $100. Yeah, I think we'll pick something else.

Secondly, my nieces are eleven. A lot of the options I found were too little-girlish, a little too baby princess for two super-cool girls. These girls listen to punk rock and carry Harajuku Lovers bags. They aren't the super-frilly type of girls.

Aren't they beautiful?!?! Love them!

I set a budget of forty dollars for the dresses and started hunting. I looked at Easter dresses, Communion dresses, I even searched Modcloth in hopes of finding something I could alter for them (they are both little for their age and would drown in extra-smalls). It seemed like such a hopeless search, and one of my crazy bridal nightmares involved me digging through racks at JCPenney on the day of the wedding searching for anything that would look decent on my gorgeous girls. 

It took about three months of searching, but I finally found a dress that I thought would work. Sister-friend showed it to the girls and they both seemed to like it and it came in right on budget. My sister did voice doubts about the girls being able to keep an ivory dress looking good for a few hours, but I kind-of-sort-of ignored her. I thought this part of planning was done and I moved on to other things. I should have known better.

Sister-friend sent me a facebook message about a month after the dress had been chosen, letting me know that the dress was out of stock in one of the sizes she would need. After whisper-screaming a few choice curses, I started looking again. I didn't search that long before inspiration struck. Earlier that month, I had been wandering around the mall with Bridesmaid Mary when I saw this sitting outside of Hollister:

The Warner Springs dress. It's cute, and it's totally

on clearance right now. 

The image of the dress came back to me, and I started searching Hollister and Abercrombie for something that would work for the girls. This trail of crazy led me to Abercrombie Kids and the perfect dress for the girls:

Abercrombie Kids Katarina Dress

It's navy, it's got polka dots, it has a cute little bow belt, and it's just the right size for the girls. It was slightly over budget at almost sixty dollars, but I volunteered to pay for one of the dresses because I just loved them so much. Best of all-the girls love it too and can't wait to wear it.

Was choosing a flower girl dress a challenge for any of you too?