Dress Dilemma

Weddings...weddings...weddings everywhere!  Did you get the memo?  This is the year for weddings...or at least here in Wade World!

A cousin is getting married in less than two weeks and asked Elijah to be a part of her wedding party.  Then my baby brother is also getting married in June.  He and his fiance (loving this girl!)  have asked for our two littlest girls to be the flower girls.  (Yes, I warned all brides that they take BIG risks when they ask for Wade kids!)  So all the talk at our house seems to be about wedding apparel and shoes and ties and...

Elijah is a Wade boy - long and lean.  Finding boy-sized, dress pants to fit has been quite a challenge.  Then the bride and groom selected a beautiful shirt in a champange color with thin pinstriping in the fabric.  Uhm...boys' dress shirts are never that pretty.  So they bought a small men's sized shirt and hoped it might fit him.  Let's just say that the seamstress I recently discovered in town may end up hating my family!  She's going to improvise and take it in a bit and shorten the sleeves for us.  More "fitted" would just be too hard and expensive.

Keziah and Hadassah needed white dresses.  Doesn't that sound simple enough?  First Communion season should be the perfect time to find matching dresses!  One problem...Keziah is growing and making the jump from little girl sizes to big girl sizes, but Hadassah is still tiny.  Did you know that most First Connumion dresses are only in the big girl sizes?  So I found some dresses.  Hadassah's is a little big but really cute on both girls.  I have the bride's okay, but maybe she will grow some in the next three months?  Now we'll just get to tackle shoes and accessories!  Wait for feet to grow a bit more or buy white shoes before Easter?!?

Now that I've got the major players planned out, all my other kiddos have started asking and whining about what they will get to wear.  UGH!  So would matching ties for all my guys be a crime at my brother's wedding or understandable for a woman with too many men in her life?

Wanna hear the real reason I'm writing today?

ME!

So I told the world in an earlier blog post that I've been losing weight.  Haven't stopped!  My goal is still a healthier me.  This is not at all linked to any wedding or temporary, singular event, but I do have to wear something to these weddings. 

Since I spend Sunday mornings being crazy with kids, I no longer dress up fancy for church.  I have some dresses in a variety of sizes in my closet that I've kept over the years as I've traveled up and down my bathroom scales.  I had even cleaned out my closet recently and sorted them in size order so I knew what I had.  I picked out one that I planned to wear to the March wedding and thought I'd buy something new and special for my brother's big day.

PROBLEM!!!

While I was supposed to be packing for a trip to San Diego for the INCM's CPC conference (children's ministry...gotta post about that later!), I got distracted and decided to try on the dress.  It looked horrible!  It was too BIG!  What should have been somewhat fitted looked like I was wearing a garbage bag!  Remember my new seamstress friend?  I decided I'd just have her take it in a bit, instead of trying to buy a new dress.

However, I still have another wedding to plan for...

So today while everybody was at school, I thought I'd go try on a few dresses and consider buying one for the big day.  I loaded my arms full of choices in two sizes - the one I thought I could wear and the next size smaller, just to see how it fit since the wedding is still three months away.  I sorted through all the dress pairs and started trying them on, biggest size first. 

Hmmm...an unusual phenomenon occurred with that first dress.  The bigger size was too big!  The smaller size FIT!  Surely it had to just be that dress...right?  Nope!  I was wearing a size smaller than I thought I could!

Now I've got a brand new HUGE problem!  Three months until the wedding, and I'm still losing weight.  In my mind, I would have allowed myself to buy a dress in the "smaller" size because I was confident that it would fit by the wedding.  I'm totally freaked out though at the thought of attempting to go another size smaller!  If I bought a dress and then hit a plateau and couldn't wear it, I would be horrified.  If I buy one at the size I am now and continue to lose weight, I could end up with a brand new dress that I can't wear and possibly can't return.  How do I explain that situation to my seamstress? 

For now, I'm going to wait.  Maybe I'll try shopping again in May, before all the kids get out of school for the summer.  UGH!  The thought of being in a rush to find the "perfect" dress just weeks or days before the wedding sounds stressfull! 

I truly never imagined myself in this strange new situation - I've become the incredible shrinking woman who doesn't have clothes that fit properly!

At least I can work on clothes for the kids...hmmmm...how many of them do you think will hit a growth spurt in the next three months?