Oaks Day Decisions

To my readers that hail from the Bluegrass State, you get how big of a deal the Derby festivities are.  If you're not lucky enough to be a Kentuckian, let me explain.  Derby is basically a huge party 'round these parts.  A lot of Kentuckians are like me and have actually never been to the Derby.  It's on my bucket list.  But I have attended many a Derby party, bet on my fair share of horses and cheered on the ponies.  Instead of going to the Derby, the last couple of years my mom, her sisters, my Meemaw and my sister have all gone to the Kentucky Oaks--the race day right before the Derby.  It's a special day, where Churchill Downs honors breast cancer survivors with a survivor parade and most people will be sporting pink in some form or fashion.

For me, it's an issue.  I love the meaning behind the pink....but I loathe the actual color.  Always have.  While Miss Avery wouldn't have a single problem in this world wearing pink head to toe for the day, I struggle.

My girl loves her pink.  I'm not sure where she came from.

Every year, I'm scrambling to find a pink-ish dress or a pink hat last minute because I don't own a single stitch of pink clothing.  And it seems like I struggle every single year.  The first year we went, I was on a pretty strict budget, so I went to Roses and bought a floppy hat.

Being my first Oaks experience, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I immediately decided that the next year, I'd spend a little more money and buy an actual Derby-like hat.  The floppy hat belonged at the beach, not at the racetrack (I'm telling you guys.  There's rules to this whole "Derby week at the races" thing.).

So last year, I bought myself a sufficient Derby hat from a friend.....but then weather was basically dismal the day of Oaks.  I worried for weeks about what to do about the forecast.  I didn't want to freeze, but IT'S OAKS DAY, Y'ALL, and I didn't want to look out of place if I didn't wear a dress.  In the end, I went for comfort, so I opted for pants and shirt so I didn't freeze my rear end off and a giant pink hat.  It wasn't great for selfies...

....but it worked.

Now this year, I have a different issue alllllllllllllltogether.  I'm pregnant.  Comfort is #1 right now, but I also want to look cute.  If you've been pregnant before, you feel me, right?  You're already feeling uncomfortable and gigantic and swollen, but you still want to be just as cute as everyone else around you.  It makes dressing for any kind of special occasion a big deal.  My cousin's wedding is a week and a half for my due date and I'm already worried about looking like a giant whale and not looking cute at all but that's an entirely different issue all together and not the point of this blog post.  *deep breath*

When I first started looking at dresses for Oaks, I immediately went to pinkblushmaternity.com, my favorite go-to website for clothes this pregnancy.  Probably 80% of my maternity wardrobe right now is from this website, and I plan on buying some more shirts and dresses for the last couple of months of my pregnancy when we're reaching summertime temps.  

My anti-pink choices automatically led me to this dress: 

It's Kentucky blue and it looks ridiculously comfortable, right??  I would actually wear this again after the races.  But I wasn't sure how I was going to make this work with pink.  I'm not exactly a bold color choice person.  I put it up on Facebook and, through suggestions from all you lovely friends, I had decided that it would look great with pink accessories.  I went as far as to make a collage of the pieces I would wear with it. 

(Earrings: Compass Earrings;  Necklace:  Acai Rope Necklace;

Bracelets:  Everlast Bangles and Raja Bangle

It was all set.  And it seemed like a win-win situation.  I would find a fuchsia fascinator and call it a day and feel pretty darn good about myself.  But here's the thing about being indecisive:  it takes you a ridiculously long amount of time when you can't make decisions quickly.  So buy the time I decided that this was the route I was going, I went to the website to order the dress.....and they were out of my size.  FIGURES.  

So, back to square one!  Fortunately, Pink Blush carried the same dress in a fuchsia color.  Not my first choice, but one of the biggest things that attracted me to the dress in the first place was how comfortable it looked.  I went ahead and ordered it, because I wasn't going to run into the same situation again of the dress being out of stock. 

Now, to find jewelry and a fascinator.  I've decided on a fascinator because I already have extra weight all over my body and I don't think I'd feel all that great in a giant hat.  A fascinator is still Derby-ish, but lightweight.  Ideal, I think.

(Side note: please type in "fascinator" into the search bar in Etsy and then filter from high price to low price.  Then go ahead and pass out that there are 1. People selling hair accessories for that much and 2. There's the potential that there are people out there spending that much on hair accessories.  Oy.)

I haven't decided yet, but these are a few of my top choices: 

Fascinators all from EyeHeartMe on Etsy

Mint Green Fascinator; Black Fascinators

Well, at least this gets me started.  I won't even begin to think about jewelry right now.  One decision is all my indecisive little head can take for the moment.....