Bridal Gown Appointments

This weekend, the girls and I went with Auntie Caitlyn to her bridal dress appointment at Anthropologie. 

I should have known, from the start, that the trip was not fated to go well for Madeleine.  For one, she had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on as we got in the car to drive to Anthropologie.

MADELEINE: Wait.  Mama.  Where are we going?  To the wedding?


With that expectation in mind, it's no wonder that watching Auntie Caitlyn model one dress after another was a huge let-down to Madeleine.  While both kids held together well enough, I had to continually remind the girls that they needed to act like civilized human beings and not splay themselves across the dressing room couch like this:

Julia was eager to try on dresses herself, as she feels confident that she will have a say in the various decisions concerning Auntie Caitlyn's wedding.  When the wedding dresses had all been tried on and examined, it was finally time for the bridal party to try on some dresses.  Julia immediately collected an armful of gowns and made a beeline for the dressing rooms.

Here's the problem, though: the dresses were all adult sizes.  Not only were they way too big on Julia, but they were clearly not made for someone pre-pubescent.  I mean, Julia can rock a LOT of different fashion styles, but there's really no way to make built-in bra cups work on an 8-year-old:

Seeing as there was nothing suitable for Julia, we didn't even bother fitting Madeleine into anything, which, of course, led to bitter tears of disappointment.  After all, she had waited through the wedding dress try-on with constant reminders to sit up straight and stop showing flashes of underwear to the store (thank goodness she was wearing a skort rather than a skirt, at least) only to discover that there was nothing for her to try wearing.  However, the verge of tears was my cue to get the kids out of the store, with promises that they could look at some dresses online when we got home.

The next day, Auntie Caitlyn had a dress appointment at David's Bridal, and she offered to take the kids along and let Ethan and I stay at home to relax a bit.  Turns out this was especially appealing to Madeleine, who apparently announced, upon arrival at the store: "Good thing MAMA'S not here to make it boring and HARD."

Harsh.

At any rate, it appears the girls had the time of their lives modeling various junior-bridal-party dresses:

Clearly, the fact that the girls had a blast had NOTHING to do with the actuality that there were actually dresses in their size, and was instead because I wasn't there to make things boring and hard.  Right??