This previous weekend my kind friend invited me to a purity banquet at her church. I was, of course, delighted and excited to come. One of the parts I looked forward to was, none other than...dressing up. I'd never worn a formal dress out in my life. Never. Their church generously offered us the loan of closets full of formal dresses. I found a black dress and although it had a square neckline and a serged hem, it fit me perfectly and had a full, flowing skirt. Not to mention, it was comfortable. But black isn't my color, so just to be sure we couldn't find anything else, we stopped by a thrift store.
We found one. A pretty pink floor-length dress. My family thought it was great. My parents said they would buy it, even if I didn't wear it that weekend. Mom thought the pink one looked best. Addy pretended to cry as she envisioned me leaving for college one day and insisted that she would shred any acceptance letters that dare come near our mailbox.
Still, I wasn't sold; so we left the store and I tried on the black one again. The next day we went back to the thrift store and I tried on the pink one again. Maybe I've read too many books, but somehow this dress didn't seem very poetical to me. I told dad that I'd never read a book that had a dress made out of polyester and adorned with fake diamonds and sequins in it. He said, "There's one in your book."
In the end, after trying both dresses on again, I decided on the pink one you see in the pictures with a white sweater, silver shoes, and a yellow daisy in my hair. The evening at the banquet went fine (with only a few embarrassing moments that I couldn't slip by without ;). I only stepped on my dress once, somehow managed not to drop food in my lap, remembered to sit up straight half the time, and laughed in abundance with friends.
And that is the story of my first formal. Dad was right; there was a pink, formal, polyester dress in my book. In chapter fourteen.
