Something Blue...

Several weeks ago my mother-in-law asked me to wear a gown to her 84th birthday party.  A party I was organizing and was thinking of doing a luau or retro theme with.  She said she is wearing a gold-colored Filipiniana-inspired gown - she showed it to me and I figured maybe I can get away with a colorful birthday theme in decorations and some old music in the background.

My mother-in-law kept reminding me to wear a nice dress/gown for the party though.  I do not think the party will be formal enough to wear a gown to - for me, that is.  So I thought of wearing a nice dress - then realized that all my nice dresses were predominantly black - and my non-black dresses were very casual.  I didn't want to wear black to my mother-in-law's party - people may get the impression I don't like her or something.  And since we are celebrating mass before dinner, I didn't want to wear a very casual dress - but it's not a cocktail dress kind of party either.

So I proceeded to the online shops to look for dresses that you can wear to mass and to a dinner party.  I was thinking of wearing blue since we were also doing a thanksgiving party for the continued Fatima Devotion - I have always associated the color blue with Mary.  I found several very expensive dresses I liked and was going to ask my husband to go to the department store with me, but he was returning DVDs near a discount apparel store - and I decided to see if I could find an inexpensive dress there instead.

I found this beautiful sea foam-colored (ok, so it's bluish green) dress with a brown ribbon/belt at the waist - in the exact same style as the one I was going to find in the department store - costing 60% less than the dress' sale price at the mall.  I wasn't too sure of the print at first, but when I tried it on I knew this was the one. It reminded me of a dress my mom wore in this black-and-white photo taken when she was still single.  What do you think?  Nice, right?  So I said yes to the dress and it's now hanging in my room - ready for Saturday.

I hope my mother-in-law likes it.  My husband's parents are very formal people - his father did not want him to wear jeans because in their province only farmers wore jeans - of course, that didn't stop my husband from wearing shorts (his staple attire because of the beautiful California weather).

They didn't say anything when they noticed that jeans, denim shorts and the like are my usual weekend clothes, but she always compliments me when I visit her in a dress.  And this is her day - so I'm ditching my jeans for a cute dress so everything is as she wants.  Now you know why I'm her favorite daughter-in-law!