Last month, I walked to the Grove to pick out a gift from my friend's wedding registry at Crate & Barrel (did you know they give you cash back on all returned gift registry items?! yes, I'm a newbie so I just found this out but wow!). It was a nice, sunny day as the weather in LA doesn’t seem to change much (or ever) although the leaves are starting to turn a golden mustardy yellow which is nice. But because it was still considerably warm, I wore a polo shirt and a jean skirt purchased my freshman year of college when I was working at Abercrombie & Fitch and made a trek to the Grove. I didn’t think too much about my outfit until I ran into one of my friends from highschool next to the fountain there. He was a year older than me and had sat in front of me in German class and we had talked a lot – mostly about my friend whom he had a crush on. But now, eight years later, there he was with his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter in the stroller. As I bent down to say hi to his little girl, I realized two things. One was that once you get married all past relationships don’t matter. All those crushes, past girlfriends/boyfriends were all just that – the past. Only your grown-up relationship matters. Two was that my skirt was way too short. It wasn’t the now-Abercrombie-length short but it was still too short. I felt awkward just saying hi to him with a short skirt in front of his wife much less bend over to say hi to his daughter in the stroller. The skirt, sadly, needed to go and so did a lot of pieces in my wardrobe.
My parents are visiting me next month and during that week here, my parents and my fiance’s parents are to meet for the first time at the official engagement dinner. Eek~ I’m a bit nervous! But this brings me back to the clothes issue. I realized that a lot of my clothes had to go – mostly skirts and shorts that were so short that they looked like they were a part of my under garments. I was no longer in highschool or college (although I did keep a few skirts that I could wear in places where no one knew me hehe). But I did it. I gathered all my school age clothes and made a trip to Buffalo Exchange on La Brea and sold most of them (although I did exchange one of the skirts for a nice black coat!). The rest I took to Goodwill and donated it (holler tax deduction!). Now only my ‘grown-up’ clothes were left and although my closet got smaller and it had been hard to convince myself that my Barney tank top from 4th grade no longer fits, it felt so refreshing! This brought me to my next question, what should I wear to this engagement dinner with the parents? I know clothes in this case is not a huge deal (there are much more important things to worry about – like what the heck should I expect? Should I make a list of questions to ask so the dinner isn’t an awkward silence? Do I introduce my parents to my fiance’s parents or will they just introduce themselves?), but I can’t tell what’s exactly ‘appropriate’ to wear. I don’t want to dress like a nun, but as shallow as it sounds, I do want to look nice enough for the occasion.
I got an e-mail in my inbox today that the new J. Crew winter line is out so I went to take a look. J. Crew, you really never fail! Here are 4 looks I picked out that seem appropriate.
What would you choose to wear to your engagement dinner?
And any tips on what to expect/traditional customs (Korean ones too!) to know before I go to mine?
