All dressed in white

                                             

On Lora Leigh's third birthday, we gave her as magical a princess-themed birthday party as we could without traveling to Florida.

All her invited friends were asked to wear their favorite princess dresses for the occasion. We served them all a fancy princess dinner with little flower-shaped finger sandwiches and magical macaroni and cheese. The cake was a gorgeous castle-shaped concoction that broke my heart just to cut into. And we rented a castle-shaped bounce house.

Lora already had dozens of dress-up costumes, including several princess gowns that she loved to wear to the grocery store. But on the morning of her birthday, I surprised my perpetually pink princess with a brand new pink Sleeping Beauty gown -- the nicer one.

As I tucked her into it and closed up the back,  she stared at herself in the mirror in wonder. "Is that really me?" she seemed to say.

I saw that look again just the other day when my now grown, no longer pink princess of a daughter walked out of the dressing room at Pearl's, the same bridal salon where I purchased my own wedding dress 30 years ago.

For a long time, Lora has insisted that she wanted to wear that long, straight beaded gown that I absolutely adored and that has been tucked away in a sealed box since January of 1995. The problem is, my sweet baby girl who was adopted at birth has none of my genes. 

 I was and still am 5-feet-2 inches tall. She is 5-feet-7. And we have very different body types.

So my dress, which is in perfect shape after we carefully peeled it from the sealed box, does not fit.

Originally, we thought we might be able to alter the dress. I have the 6-foot train of satin and beaded lace to go with it, so perhaps an adept seamstress could use it to add some girth to the dress to make it fit -- plus some length to the bottom. Can it be done?

We took my dress back to Pearl's to ask -- but the indifferent bridal specialist (hmph) told us they don't do alterations. Haven't in a long time. Well, it has been 30 years since I've been there, so...

... but here's a rack of dresses in your size.

We carefully combed through the gigantic poufs of white and ivory tulle, satin, and lace to see if there was something she could try on. 

There was....

She took the first one into the dressing room while I waited in the chairs.

"Do you need help?"

"No. I got it."

And then she came out, all white lace and promises, to stand on the little podium.

And I'll never forget the look on her face as she looked in wonderment at herself in the mirror.

"Is that really me?" she seemed to say.

And so did I.

"Is that really her? Is that my little princess all grown up? Is she really about to be a bride, all dressed in white (or champagne)?"

Yes.

She did not say yes to the dress that day -- although the wild bridal party in the other half of the salon apparently did, judging by the screams, yells and cheers.

On our side, my daughter and I just shared a smile and a memory.