Monday, June 09, 2008

Prom Dress take 2: Meeting Lovella's Challenge

After I posted this picture of myself in my Senior Prom dress, my fellow blogger and dear friend Lovella decided to up the ante.



In my post I mused about today's high school graduates, and how we could still celebrate graduation if we wanted to, by painting our graduation years on our car's back windows.
A simple user friendly suggestion.

Never trust a Mennonite...they look sweet and innocent, but they are really wile crafty gals.
Lovella later emailed me and said that my post had inspired her to get out her graduation dress, and to try it on again.

She didn't have a prom dress, there was no dancing for her back then, dancing which could lead to you-know-what according to her church at the time. I danced; I must have done something wrong because it sure didn't lead to anything more than a gentle hug from my date. Fine with me...he was my brother's best friend and when no one asked me to the prom, he took pity on me and offered to be my escort.

Anyway...Lovella then merrily emailed me that she had tried on her dress, it fit perfectly, and she was going to post a picture of herself in her graduation dress today.

Humph.
Will see about that...

I marched straight into my guest bedroom and pulled my prom dress out of storage.
Unzipped it, and stepped into it.
It was a tiny bit snug in the hips, but not too tight.
Ta-dah! It still fits!
Well, almost. The ta-ta parts have gone from girlish to matronly, whoo hoo...cleavage at last.
I couldn't zip up past my rib cage.
Like I care...if I had had ta-tas back then, I probably would have had some guy asking me to the prom. Silly me, silly times; no Victoria Secrets to secretly add alluring curves to those who were lacking.

Lovella's lovely yellow dress was sewn by her mom, my pink gown was likewise sewn by my mom.

That tradition has fallen by the wayside in my family; my own daughter's prom gown was a stunning black dress created just for her by a professional seamstress. My alteration skills just were not up to the challenge.

Lovella has posted her encouraging and thoughtful reflections on her post today, as have other bloggers with fond memories and pictures of their prom/graduation dresses.
I hope you will visit her site, she has a message for all of us that shouldn't be missed.
And I hope you take a moment to see some of the other dress links on Lovella's site.
****
Bernie is out of town right now. We had talked about taking a picture of me in my gown with him in his tuxedo escorting me to the prom as should have happened all those years ago.
We planned to put on some music, and dance to the songs that bring back memories of our high school years, at different school and at different places in our lives.
It would be lovely to dance with him in this dress.
And to see if maybe the Mennonites were right about what dancing would lead to after all.

11 comments:

Lovella ♥ said...

Oh Jill. . .such a great post. . I laughed and smiled and teared up a wee bit. . I love your ability to have fun. It is often a rare commodity.
so .. the dress looks beautiful on you. .I bet you are glad you had such a classic style. oh. . that that crazy bug you had. . well, it was good for something. .look at your flat tum tum. .to go with the better than before ta ta's. .
still smiling.

off to get groceries.. . .

Anonymous said...

Oh, what fun! Your way of relating stories and memories keep me in stitches! If I still had my dress and if I had attempted to squeeze this overweight body into it, and if I had been wearing it while reading your post, it would have exploded! Not a pretty picture.

Nevertheless, your dress looks gorgeous still and you are so fortunate that it still fits... well, er, sort of...where it doesn't fit is a blessing. Right? (tee hee)

Julie said...

Ohh, Jill you are such a hoot !! I love your way with words.. I always laugh when I come to visit you ! I Laugh but come away with something too !!

Your dress looks gorgeous on you ... you need not have admitted it didn't quite zip up, did you ???? the camera didn't record 'behind the scene'. smile

Sara at Come Away With Me said...

You could have done what I did back then for those "ta-ta's" and stuffed your bra with nylons....not that it led to anything remotely exciting! My friend used to tease me that I was a carpenter's dream - flat as a board!

The fact that your beautiful pink dress is only slightly tight in the hips is something to "woo hoo" about for sure.

Ditto on what Julie said - I love your way with words and your sense of humor.

A Lady said...

Uh, I thought you were going to throw in a picture in your poofy pink princess dress to add to the fun...
You look even better now than you did then, love you much

A Lady said...

Oh, and you should post a picture from the back too....

L&D said...

Brilliant post. And I full on snort giggled when you wrote "ta-ta's." That is why I love you so, Jill. Hee hee.

I love the pink dress on you. What a great color. How fun that you could still throw that baby on and be more beautiful than ever. The gloves are the perfect touch.

I see you already read my "graduation post" about my sister. I thought about participating in the wear-your-dress-event, but since I only graduated 10 years ago and can still easily fit into my dress, I thought it cheating a bit. So instead, I wrote the post about my sister. I figured it'd be a better read than me in some fairly recent dress.

Thanks for the laughs. I love reading you tons and tons.

Anonymous said...

Wow--you still fit, even if a little rearranged. I could never fit into my size 4 now that I have blossomed into a 20WP. It just wouldn't work. I would split everything...especially where the ta-ta's are and the blooming hips are.
Oh well. I am just giving the sizes anyway. I never even went to the prom...just one homecoming dance and that was enough for me. I just wasn't the socializing type back then. It was hard enough to get me to speak, let alone dance. It was before common diagnostic times, or I would have been termed "autistic"--instead I just got comments like "socially retarded" and "will not interact with other children" and "too much of an individual"on my report cards.

You look stunning in both the before and the after photos. Chalk that one up on your wow list!

Judy said...

Now that is too funny! But you are so right about the Mennonite girls not having prom dresses back in the day...they were simply called 'grad dresses' lest anyone think we were up to something...that might lead to something.

Your pink gown looks lovely on you...all these years later! Who cares about the back view? My daughter also had a stunning black dress..created by someone other than myself.

Marg said...

This was a great follow-up post.
Way to keep Lovella on target.
You made a lot of fun about us Menno's.
You won't even want to hear my story.
It's so sad, but we need some humour and away we go. We need to overlook some things and move forward.
"Don't look at what you lost, but look what you have left."

Marie said...

Loverly!!