Kids Make Weddings Memorable

So many details go into planning a wedding and so much effort goes into making it perfect. And a few months later, nobody remembers much of what happened.
Why is that? Maybe because it went too perfectly.

Unless you had a daddy-daughter dance that went viral on YouTube or you wrote a scathing Facebook post about all of your friends not ponying up thousands of dollars when you asked them to, you and your spouse might be the only ones who remember any of the special touches you poured your heart and soul into.
Unless, of course, the kids did something ... well, something kid-like.
Maybe your flower girl dumped all of her petals at the entrance of the church and had nothing to carry down the aisle. Or maybe your ring bearer tossed the pillow and started playing catch with one of the groomsmen. Or, lord forbid, one of them got sick from eating too much candy during the photo shoot before the ceremony.
Hopefully, they made the event memorable just from being soooooo darned cute in their flower girl and ring bearer outfits. Just what goes into finding a memorable outfit for the little ones involved in your wedding?

Flower Girl Dresses

Age might play a factor in how you decide to dress your flower girl(s), so you might need to keep that in mind as you're shopping. Younger girls are willing to be all princessy, but sometimes if you have an older flower girl, she might be more comfortable dressing like a junior bridesmaid. Either way, here are some ideas to get your started:
• Bride Lookalike: Dressing your flower girl similar to the bride always is a proper idea, unless your wedding gown is a little too sexy for a 3-year-old. Still, you can match fabrics and accessories.

• Bridge: Your flower girl also can act as a transition between bride and bridesmaids with a white dress and sash to match your maids.
• Scene Stealer: You can go so all out, poofy princess-style, bling-loaded, ruffled skirt dress that your flower girl could draw attention away from the bride (though in that case the bride is probably full-on princess as well).

• Junior Bridesmaid: Your flower girl could wear a color and style to match the bridesmaids but with an age-appropriate look, especially if she's in that tween stage where she's too old for princess and too young to look like a woman.
• Casual Comfort: If your wedding preference is more laid back, you can find appropriate girls' attire to match the mood.

Ring Bearer Outfits

Age again can be a factor in style choices for the little guys, especially because they probably don't dress up much and might create a fuss if they must. But again your choices can run the gamut:

• Groom Match Tuxedo: Most tuxedo companies will offer ring bearer tuxes to match the guys, and you could choose to aim for an exact match to the groom or to the groomsmen.
• Unique Tuxedo Look: Your ring bearer can stand out with a different look. A full tux with tails and bow tie looks super cute for the little guys.

• Dress Down: If you think your ring bearer will fuss in a tux, you can opt to dress down a little bit with a cute outfit with suspender and bow tie or vest and tie, so they won't be too far out of their comfort zone. If they are really young, a short set or knickers will draw a lot of ahs.
• Casual Comfort: If your guys are dressing down, your little guy still can look adorable in jeans and nice shirt. Of course, a bow tie still will add that touch of charm.

Whichever route you decide to take with your flower girl and ring bearer, you can get things lined up early but will be better off waiting to order their outfits a month or so before the wedding. Those little ones can grow in a hurry.

Is the Two-Piece Still a Thing?

When two-piece dresses began appearing on the prom runaway several years ago, we knew it would take a year or two before our Kansas girls would be willing to follow the trend.
But now the two-piece dress has become a fixture for prom, and it doesn't appear the trend is going to fade away anytime soon. Even though it's only fall, girls already are talking about the kinds of two-piece dresses they will be hunting for Prom 2019.
Because Kansas can be rather conservative, we knew the two-piece dresses would first have to pass the Dad test, or maybe the Grandma test, and for the most part they do. Most are not too revealing and some are actually downright modest when compared to the plunging necklines some of the single-piece dresses are adopting.
Let's look at some of the variations you can expect to see in the two-piece lineup for Spring 2019:

Tops

Of course, a two-piece dress is going to have two components – top and skirt. The ideal for retailer and customer is the option to mix and match tops and skirts, but that's a bit of a nightmare for manufacturers to outguess customers and keep the right inventory, so in most cases you'll need to be content with top and skirt that come together.
Tops will vary by color and the amount of bedazzling, but you'll find just a few basic styles:
• Halter: With a strap around your neck and a strap across mid-back, a halter will give you plenty of back exposure, if that's the look you desire.

• Choker: This style normally features a triangle shape coming up from the bodice, either in front or front and back both, with a bejeweled choker wrapping around the neck, leaving the shoulders exposed. This style appears to be very popular for 2019.
• Strapless: These normally feature a heavy bodice with strong boning to hold the top up. As with most strapless dresses, these are not too common right now.

• Illusion Straps: These mesh straps, with or without beading, provide stability and allow the corset to be less ridged, so they continue to be popular.

• Off the Shoulder: These continue to be a popular style as they give some of the security of straps but leave the shoulders exposed.
You'll find many tops that overlap these various styles, but these cover the basics.

Skirts

Two-piece skirts tend to follow the mold of the one-piece dresses. One thing to remember about a two-piece skirt is that they are designed to be worn at the narrowest point on your waist, so expect them to ride higher than, say, your blue jeans.
Here are the basic looks you can expect to find:

• A-line: Typically, this style will be made of chiffon and is designed to flow over your hips and down. It's probably the most common style for two-piece dresses, but as such, designers are trying to stretch beyond this style.

• Ball Gown: These fuller skirts flare out wider than the A-line and feature layers to tulle to make them as big as you'd like. The fabric normally is a chiffon or organza outer layer, but taffeta also has made a big statement the past couple of years. Taffeta is popular because they stiffness also allows the designers to include pockets. The chiffon ball gowns seem to be making a bigger statement for 2019.

• Mermaid: The mermaid style features a taffeta or jersey fabric that stretches over the hips and then drapes to the floor. Some of these skirts have a higher waist that can add modesty.

• Fit and Flare: Like the mermaid, this skirt will curve rather tightly across the hips but then flare at the bottom with a layer or two of tulle. One note of caution about the mermaid and fit and flare: You may think you want your skirt to be hugging tight across the hips, but you also want to consider that you will need to sit down at some point.
Whatever you dream about in a two-piece dress for your prom, we'd love to help you find the perfect dress.

Helpful Guide to Prom Dress Fabrics

Many factors will go into your choice of a prom dress – color, form, price and maybe even label. But the most basic choice you're facing will be the fabric of your dress.
When the sales person starts throwing out such terms as shantung, charmeuse or jacquard, you're eyes might glaze over or else you'll start looking for the easiest route to the exit, rather than expose your lack of knowledge about formal wear fabrics.
Rest easy. With this brief primer on fabric choices in prom dresses you'll feel a little more confident as you undertake your search for the perfect dress.

Most Common Fabric Options

Before we get into all the complexities you might encounter, let's cover the basic fabrics first, which is where your search is likely to start and finish:

• Chiffon: A flowy, empire waist dress, probably your most common option, likely will feature chiffon. Chiffon is lightweight, transparent fabric, normally polyester but it could be silk, that folds easily around itself and flows as you move about.
• Satin: A soft, smooth fabric with a sheen also creates a flowy appearance. Most chiffon dresses will have a layer or two of satin under the chiffon.

• Taffeta: A shiny fabric like satin, but one with more weight and stiffness to create the fuller look for a ball gown. An added luxury of the taffeta dress is that many designers are incorporating pockets into the taffeta skirts, as the fabric is stiff enough to hide bulges your contents might create.
• Tulle: This loosely woven mesh fabric creates your poofy ball gowns. Tulle can be lightweight and soft to create the outer layers of your skirt or the popular illusion tops or it can be heavy and stiff to give you skirt that great volume. Fortunately, your ball gown will feature a satin lining to protect your skin from the stiff, scratchy tulle layers.
• Organza: Falling into that middle ground between chiffon and tulle, organza has the transparent feel but with a stiffer body, making it a good fit for full ball gown skirts.

• Jersey: This comfortable knit fabric continues to gain popularity for fitted style dresses as it stretches and moves with you. Weights can vary from light to heavy so it's perfect to transition from warm to cold weather, too. An exciting option coming on strong for 2019 is sparkle jersey, which is just what it sounds like, a nice jersey fabric with shiny bits woven into the fabric.
• Lace: A delicate woven fabric with designs, often floral. At one point, lace was all handmade and therefore expensive, but machine-made lace has gained in quality and brought the price in line with other common fabrics. Some laces now are made of stretch fabrics as well, making them ideal for fitted dresses. 

Some Other Fabric Choices

Of course, designers are never content to stick with the standards, and as long as there are creative people out there, which we hope will be forever, you'll get other fabric choices and new choices coming along virtually every season. Here are some more choices we know you'll find available for 2019:
• Jacquard: This soft, silky fabric has a pattern woven into the fabric.
• Brocade: A type of jacquard, brocade is a heavier fabric with a raised woven pattern, often floral. Traditionally a fabric associated with royalty, brocade is making a strong trend pitch in 2019. (Just as a humorous aside, we noticed one manufacturer's line sheet referred to this is barcode for one dress, so we were envisioning a lot of stripes.)
• Damask: Another jacquard style that features typically floral designs woven into the fabric in the same color, creating a tone-on-tone look.
• Charmeuse: Similar to satin, charmeuse is lighter weight and often found as the lining.
• Velvet: A heavyweight fabric with a cut pile finish has been gaining some popularity the past couple of years, but is limited to a winter fabric by its heavy weight and warmth.
• Shantung: A middle-weight satin fabric is distinctive for its nubby texture.

We hope this guide will give you a little more confidence as you head out to look for your Prom 2019 dress. We also can lend our expertise in helping you choose the right fabric and right style to make you feel beautiful in your prom dress.

Is Strapless Dead?

The strapless formal dress is not dead yet, but it certainly appears to be on a dying trajectory.

Once a staple of the formal dress market, the strapless dress has fallen out of favor with the ascension of illusion tops and other strap styles over the past few years. Girls looking for a strapless dress are finding fewer options each season.
Illusion tops, in case you haven't been paying attention to the formal wear business, are those with mesh that span from wider straps to cap sleeves to full sleeves. The mesh can be plain or embellished with beading, embroidery or applique, but the sheer appearance provides the illusion of the strapless dress. Halters, chokers, traditional straps and off-shoulder straps also are taking a greater slice of the market.
Before we bid goodbye to the strapless dress, let's at least take time to examine the advantages and disadvantages of this once common style:

In Favor of Strapless

The primary advantage of the strapless dress has to be the opportunity for ladies to show off their shoulders and neck. No matter how women feel about their arms or their torsos, they generally are pleased with the shape of their shoulders.
The strapless dress, depending upon the length of the dress's torso, changes the proportion of the woman's torso to create the desired two-thirds effect, either shortening or lengthening the appearance.
A corset back also is a prominent feature of strapless dresses, allowing women to highlight their slender waists without the costly alternative of altering the waistline.

The Drawbacks to Strapless

Achieving the proper fit in a strapless dress is a primary disadvantage. Because every woman has a different shape – varying bust to waist ratio, different torso length, broader backs, etc. – reaching the perfect fit on a strapless dress required either the corset back or extensive alterations.
Because of this challenge of getting the proper fit, women often feel their strapless dress is falling down and must be adjusted constantly throughout the night. This issue also is a result of women never receiving the proper instruction in how to wear their strapless dress.
The illusion top gives the security missing from a misfit strapless dress, which probably explains its growing popularity. However, you likely will need some alterations on the illusion top as well as few torsos provide the exact fit.
If your dream remains to wear a strapless dress for your prom, wedding or other formal event, you still have options as strapless cannot be declared dead yet, but it does seem to have moved to the back seat in favor of the illusion top.