When I was little, I used to be obsessed with the wedding section of the JC Penney Catalogue. (Who’s surprised?) I’d carefully sort through the phone book-sized tome till I got to the section with little girls dressed in taffeta, and then I’d while away my time dreaming of what sort of poufy pink dress I’d get to wear if I was a flower girl. While I think we can agree that wedding style has vastly improved on almost all fronts since my childhood in the eighties, the one area that hasn’t improved much is flower girl dresses, and I think I have a pretty good idea as to why. When getting hitched, you have two options for clothing your flower girls. One: you can ask their parents to pick out a dress (which almost always results in some sort of mini-bridal costume with a huge colored sash). Two: you can ask the flower girls what they want to wear. In my clumsy effort to not be a controlling bride, I tried the latter with David’s then-twelve-year-old cousin, which resulted in conversations like, “So, that’s a cute dress, but it’s actually a terry cloth beach cover-up, so I don’t think it’s going to work.” And, “Even if I was fine with you wearing a white mini-dress, I’m pretty sure your dad is not.”
Today’s post hopes to give you a third way: hip flower girl dresses that you can pick on your own. I quite enjoyed whiling away my afternoon (grown-up style) picking these out. My rules were these:
- No mini-bride dresses.
- Dresses just as stylish as ones I’d pick for myself, but child appropriate.
- Nothing that cost $250. I’ve been known to try to convince myself that $250 is not the worst price ever for a party dress, but if you can avoid spending $250 on a dress that won’t fit next month, it’s probably for the best.
