The big wedding up the road...

Texas girls all dream of getting married in a field of bluebonnets. Or at least having their bridal portrait feature bluebonnets somehow.

I don't blame them. The same brides also eagerly look forward to plopping their babies into a clump of the flowers and catching the baby blue eyes reflecting the beautiful blue flowers. If no human baby is available in the household, a dog will do.

(I haven't seen any cats pictured thusly yet. And my boy cats disappeared when I suggested a photo op once they understood it would involve a car ride.)

As more children get added to the household, they likewise are dragged to the flower patches each year. The result of this diligent attention to seasonal wonders is a visual journal of childhood. Many family have similar yearly pictures (the family in front the the Christmas tree comes to mind) but frankly I think a picture in the bluebonnets patch beats them all hands down.

One little Texas Miss is getting married next month. She is planning an outdoors wedding, a casual event. Her engagement ring features her fiance's great grandmothers' diamond surrounded by two round sapphires, a perfect nod to a bluebonnet color theme wedding.

But...lucky girl...she is able to take the theme one step further. Fourteen of her girlfriends will be at the wedding collectively known as "the house party." Personally I would really not want to see fourteen bridesmaids step---step---stepping down a makeshift aisle. The house party will instead just collectively gather about the bridal couple, providing a decorative backdrop and color cue for the event.

To assure the success of this tactic, the bride's mother has had dresses designed for each girl. The styles are each a bit different, and the color range is created to mimic the colors of blue to lavender shades of the Bluebonnets and rich coral red of the Indian Paintbrush, the sassy side kick bold flower friend of the shy demure bluebonnet.

Each dress has a hand fashioned rosette, and an antique silver buckle adorns the dresses with belts.

Frankly, I think these dresses sound adorable.

No word on what Jenna's dress looks like; she and her fiance claim to be traditionalist, and he will first see her dress at their wedding.

We do know that Oscar de la Renta is the gown designer. I love him and his designs. After studying the lives of the most famous contemporary designers in college, let me just say that most of them should be socially shunned by ladies of polite society.

Mr. de la Renta is a gentleman with class and style.

Our local paper showed several "possible" dlR bridal designs suitable for an outdoor wedding.

Boy do I love this one. So Jane Austen; the hat, the flowers tucked in the sash.

This was my second favorite. It was nice to see several dresses that were not the same-old-same-old over done to death strapless ball gown.

The paper also did a short article about other Presidential daughter's weddings. I remember this one:

I think she had sixteen, (or was it 24?) bridesmaids. How very conservative her dress looks now! I also remember when Trisha Nixon got married in June in the White House rose garden in a sleeveless gown. I was scandalize. Brides always wore sleeves!

I remember the press talking about the reason she was sleeveless was because they realized it would be terribly warm in the garden.

Isn't that funny?

Nowadays, brides dash through blizzards in backless strapless plunging neckline bridal gowns.

And nobody says a word.