To dress 6 year old dd in a bridesmaid type dress to a wedding

[Notthinkingclearly]

Dd is 6 and has always loved the beautiful frothy dresses in shops designed as bridesmaid dresses. We are going to a family wedding in a few weeks and I spotted a beautiful dress from john Lewis in a charity shop for £10. Very similar currently selling for £60. I bought her a cheap pink bollero cardigan to wear over the top. It is cream with a bow at the back. Now worried that I will offend the bride as I guess it was designed as a bridesmaid dress but I just thought it would be a chance for dd to wear a proper princess type dress.. I don't even know who she has as bridesmaids as I don't know her very well and would never have expected her to ask dd. Should I let dd wear the dress?

Charlie, you could be right there. I think what we're both saying - albeit from different sides - is that there's too much similarity between the types of dresses.

I imagine it's quite difficult for parents of girls because whilst little boys pretty much dress as an adult male does, it wouldn't be appropriate for little girls to dress as an adult woman would at a wedding... so you get the pretty dresses and each one is more outrageous than the next.

Allied to which we have a generation of 'don't care' parents who take their cue from 'gypsy weddings' and the general 'look at me' culture and it's trickling down to the choices that they're making for their children.

For me, white/cream really aren't suitable for weddings for anybody but the bride really but people do wear it, with flashes of colour but still there is no inner yardstick that would stop some people from wearing what they want anywhere they want.

To be fair I think it's worse to underdress than overdress if you see what I mean. At a friends wedding another friend brought her kids dressed in trakkis and old t shirts. That's so dismissive.

I think monsoon do girls dresses well. Not too floaty and frothy but pretty.

But surely it would be OK unless the girl has a bouquet or has a flower wreath on her head?

Ipity - simply because I felt that with it being my wedding day it was my day to shine. Selfishly maybe, I wanted to be the only one in a fancy dress in the limelight. No-one else. I didn't want anyone else to come close, and small children dressed in cute little outfits have a habit of taking over!

Jane I didn't call you a liar.

I think anyone who goes out and purposely buys a net/lace white dress for their dd to wear to a wedding rather than 'Brook her disappointment' is attention seeking.

Walter as I said this dress was dds choice. I tried hard for her to wear the other one. Perhaps you are well enough to have these kind of battles with your children. I am not. I was more concerned with getting through the day without collapsing and really making a spectacle of myself. Because that would have been embarrassing for me and very distressing for my child. And she didn't have a clue what a bms dress is/was being only 7. I see no correlation between the choice of dress and Brooking her disappointment. That wasn't what I said at all. Had I wanted to brook her disappointment in this sense, I would have bought an actual bridesmaids dress form the actual next bridesmaids dress range. Attention seeking is in my case is complete piffle. I often struggle to get my DD to school and put food on the table due to my chronic illness.

That's not fair Jane. You did say you bought a white lace/net dress for a wedding and now a few people are it wasn't your choice and you're too ill and tired to say no. Why battle? A 7 year old can accept 'no' when it needs to be said surely? Mine certainly could.

Oh come off it Jane.

Being sick is no excuse to buy your child a white, net, lacy dress because she was disappointed in not being a bridesmaid.

Plenty of posters have chronic illnesses, myself included.

That's absolutely no reason to bring your child to a wedding purposely looking like a BM because she wanted to be one.

Your posts seem to be implying that because you're ill you should be able to do whatever you want.

I think it's sad that a bride would be bothered. I told every parent of small girls coming to my wedding that they could be a bridesmaid or have a matching bridesmaid dress, even if they didn't want to come down the aisle. I bought ten in the Laura Asley sale in all different sizes and seven got worn. I think it all went back to me not being picked as a bridesmaid at my godmother's wedding, when I was seven.

Charile Walter. What I expect is for my posts to be taken at face value. I see that they clearly cannot be by some posters. Until you have walked in my shoes, you cannot judge me for doing the best that I am able even if it is not good enough for you. You are putting words into my mouth, which simply are not there. I shall say no further on the subject.

So that was your choice Hipee, as the bride, which is the basis of the argument.