Every Ring Bearer needs a Flowermaid!

I was looking forward to spending some quality time with my mom, sister and niece this week.  We planned to spend an entire today doing wedding stuff together and first on the list for things to do was find my niece a Flowermaid Dress!   

Well, what the heck is a "flowermaid?" and why would she need a dress?  Let me explain...

From the beginning I was torn about whether or not to include my niece and nephew into our wedding, and there are two reasons for this.  1) We are not having children at our reception and 2) My niece is 9 years old, and tall for her age...so I knew she had outgrown the "flower girl" title.  After thinking about this topic since I asked my bridal party to be a part of our big day back in October/November, Mr. Hess and I finally agreed about what we would do.

My niece, Kayla.  I absolutely LOVE this pic of her!

Since Kayla is my ONLY niece and Cole is my ONLY nephew, it only seems fair that they should be a part of our big day.  The bridal party is well...traditionally about the "bride"...and for this reason I wanted to include them both into our ceremony, and I'm SO happy to officially announce:  

 Cole is going to be our Ring Bearer (and I can't wait to see him in his cute little tux/suit!) and Kayla is going to be.....a FLOWERMAID!  

My definition of the flowermaid title is "the role you give someone you love in your wedding when they're in between the age of a flower girl and a Jr. Bridesmaid."  I didn't really want there to be a Jr. Bridesmaid in my party because Lord knows we already have 9 beautiful bridesmaids there!  Since she is taller, she wouldn't have really gotten away with a Flower Girl title either...so out of no where one day it hit me - I can call her a FLOWERMAID! If it doesn't exist, it's not a problem because you know what?  It's OUR day and Mr. Hess and I can do whatever we want at OUR wedding!  :)

I really enjoyed getting to spend some girl time with the girls in my family.  We started off the day by going to have lunch at the cafe my caterer operates and finally put down a deposit with him! (AHHH FINALLY! This deserves an entire new post, so you can expect it in the next week or two when we go back to pick out linens and do a tasting!) After that, we picked out a few stores we wanted to try to find the perfect flowermaid dress for Kayla!  I had already browsed online and looked over the flower girl sections of Priscilla's when I was there last and had a few ideas.  We were right by the Millenia mall, so we figured we would start with a shot in the dark at David's Bridal.  Now - ladies, I'm not knocking this store...but the first time I ever attempted to go here was in the very beginning of our planning process...I walked in and saw the MADNESS...and walked right back out.  In no way did I want picking out my dress, my accessories, or my bridal party dresses in a stressful environment. SO, believe me I thought this would be a shot in the dark to say the least...

Ready to pick out our dress and color! SO many options...

We walked into DB, and surprisingly this time it was busy but not crazy. We signed in at the front and got assigned someone to help us.  At first, we found a few options in the flower girl section, but of course we all loved the dresses that came in white or ivory only.  Seeing that I didn't want Kayla to LOOK like a flower girl, I knew this wasn't an option. We pulled a few "doable" options, but then our consultant had the amazing idea to go look at the Jr. Bridesmaid section - the WHAT?! I didn't know that existed!  I'm so glad she mentioned it, because right away we found EXACTLY what we were looking for! It has similar material of my dress, and is very complimenting to the girls' dresses as well.  We chose to have the color different from the bridesmaid dresses because it wouldn't match exactly to their dresses and didn't want it to clash.  So, we settled on a pewter grey color and are going to accent the color in with accessories!  Kayla loved the dress, but I think half of the reason was because she tried on a bright blue color, which obviously is NOT in the wedding color scheme.  Eventually, she'll realize what her dress will look like, and I'm excited to see it all together with me, the girls, and accessories!

Do you like how I put in a bouquet to hide what her dress actually looks like? ;)

I had such a good time with my family, just taking a day to grab lunch and go shopping.  We really don't have enough days like that to just "hang out".  After the dress shopping we hopped over the Millenia mall and enjoyed the bouncing from one store to the next.  My mom even got her make-up done at MAC and she looked beautiful!  Hopefully that was just a preview for her of what her treatment on my wedding day will be like... :)

So there it is, the definition of a flowermaid.  Don't be surprised if you see this term a few more times, and even on the program at the wedding ceremony.  I'm extremely happy with the decision of including the two into the Bridal Party, and I'm even more excited to see how cute they look on the day of our wedding!

LOVE YOU BOTH!! <3

Kayla and Cole - Flowermaid and Ring Bearer! <3

113 days to go, my beautiful ---<-<-@ maid,

Presh