The flower girl dress

Many months ago in a little shop in Stow on the Wold I saw the dress that I wanted my flower girl, Darcey to wear. The dress was ivory coloured with a full netted skirt and inlaid purple daisies in the skirt and around the waistband. I sent a photo to my cousin for Darcey's approval, which was granted. It was then a waiting game until nearer the wedding to get the dress close enough to the date to insure that Darcey wouldn't change size too much. Unfortuantely this backfired when I looked on the website and found that the ordering time for the dress from the shop exceeding the amount of time left before the wedding. Step in google and in a few minutes I had on order, for delivery a few days later the dress I wanted. It arrived last week and we arranged for Darcey to come over on Wednesday to try it.

With purple polished nails Darcey arrived very eagerly on Wednesday accompanied by Louise and my Aunt, Sue. We got her into the dress and she loved it. It was the perfect length and the body is large enough to allow some room for growth before the wedding, without swamping her if she doesn't grow. In essence it was perfect and Darcey certainly seemed to agree. She was most reluctant to take it off but was persuaded to do so out of fear of damaging it. Thus she was released into the garden to play in her normal clothes. There followed a failed attempt by Louise and I to sneak upstairs unnoticed to see Darcey's present. She was reluctantly persuaded to stay downstairs but as soon as Louise and I came down she said she wanted to come up to see what I'd shown Louise. With a bit of improvisation I took her to see my shoes and the table plan which she thoroughly appreciated. We then admired the mural of African animals that adorns our spare bedroom wall and when we returned downstairs Darcey announced that she was staying. While I fundamentally like the idea it wasn't particularly practical this week due to my night shifts. Although we tried to persuade Darcey of this she very cleverly replied that James would be able to look after her. Sue told her that James couldn't cook but unfortunately this didn't work as Darcey remembered James cooking for her and countered that of course he could. She was eventually persuaded to leave and did so with a parting gift - a hand drawn picture of her in her dress complete with flowers on the skirt which I have stuck up in the wedding room (yes I have taken to calling the smallest bedroom the wedding room given that it houses everything from dresses to table plans to jewellery and presents).