Allowing choice of Bride's Maid Dresses

Good, bad and oh-so ugly can be redeemed -ideas on what you can do with an old brides maid dress. It includes shortening it so a little girl could use it, perhaps a flower girl dress now? It's nice for the bride's maid allowing them to choose their own dress, so they don't end up with a bunch of dresses that are one time use like the cute movie 27 Dresses. For matching the colors and theme of the wedding, that's a problem.

Chinese Girl's Dresses - QiPao's

I am always working to learn more about Girl's Chinese Dresses, QiPao's. I just bought a small book on them, Chinese Clothing - Costumes, Adornments, and Culture. And at a trade show today I saw a nice book, but it was $65!

Ao Dai Coloring Picture

Ao Dai Coloring Picture. It's been a bit of a challenge getting this right going through a few changes (I hope the artist is not upset). The final drawing is wonderful! It's one of three wonderful coloring pictures I had done.

Thanks for the Call! Customer Feedback on Girl's Formal Dress!

A customer called and gave the most wonderful feedback on the dress she just bought for her daughter. She was astonished at the price and even at the list price of $48, it was a great deal and she got it for a lot less since it's on clearance. The customer appreciated the reasonable shipping ($5.25) and how fast she got it. She appreciated the fact that we sell girl's formal dresses that are age appropriate, formal that allow her daughter to look like the young lady/little girl she is, and not like a child. It was a wonderful call and my husband enjoyed speaking with the person. I was impressed she had a seamstress take her daughter's measurements and when she saw the dress, was astonished at the price. This was one A+ Mom helping her daughter out! And with the money she saved she could spend it on the shoes and tiarra for her daughter.

Thanks so much for the call and I look forward to getting your daughter's picture in the dress!

Lillian

Wedding Coloring Pictures

I was doing a bit of searching today and nobody has for free very good wedding pictures for coloring. I did see a cute book you could buy of coloring pictures, it was labeled emergency wedding coloring book.

Update! I got three wonderful coloring pictures done! They are wonderfully done! I may in the future do some wedding pictures. Currently I have a cute coloring pictures of a Flower Girl, as well as an Vietnamese Ao Dai and Chinese QiPao Dresses.

Clearance Update - Girl's Dresses

This morning I updated the short descriptions in the clearance section for girl's dresses so you can just look and tell what size is left of the dresses. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for customers to find the right girl's dress and as quickly as possible.

Clearance Girl's Dresses

I am disappointed that my Clearance Section for Girl's Dresses has not sold more girl's dresses. May be because I just created the section last week. I do need to make it easier for customers to figure out what sizes are left for girl's dresses. I have added it one you see the full product description, but I need to add it to the short description. I did finally get a photo up of Girl's Purple Traditional Chinese Dress/Pants Set!

Vietnamese Girl Dress for Dolls

There are larger dolls that can be dressed in a Size 1 or 2 Ao Dai Vietnamese Girl's Dress. Here is one site that sells Vietnamese Girl's Doll Dresses.

Middle School Graduation Dresses

Does 8th-Grade Pomp Fit the Circumstance? from the NY Times, asking what level of ceremony and celebration should there be for the eight grade? At many schools there are lots of new girl's party dresses for graduation resembling what you would go through for the prom. For my daughter there was a graduation dance and there was also ceremony. The fear is some students may think that finishing middle school is good enough. And with the high drop out rate at some schools (60% at some schools) I see why there is the fear, but I think it's overblown.

Frustration on Finding Modest Dresses for Girl's

An area of frustrating is trying, and the word is try to find a dress that is modest.

Why is it so hard to find a dress:

• with Long sleeves?
• Without spaghetti straps?
• To find a dress that does not make my daughter look much older than she really is?
  

Whatever happened to stores carrying dresses that are designed for little girls, instead of a smaller version of a dress a 20 something might wear?

It seems like it's a chicken or egg issue, where the dress designers and department stores are having a herd mentality on girl's dresses.

Or may be they are trying to save on the cost of fabric with short sleeves, skirts, and tops. What is a Mother to do?

Even as a dress buyer, I am not seeing the type of girl's dress I really want to stock yet out there. I figure eventually I will just need to have some dresses custom designed. The dresses I carry are pretty close to what I want, the one area I would like is some dresses with long sleeves.

All the dresses I carry have short sleeves because this is all my suppliers have. I do have several different types of sleeves, from cap sleeves to sleeveless to a regular short sleeve.

Finally - My Newsletter is out!

There always seems to be one thing or another that has come up recently blocking me from finishing my newsletter. The good news as each challenge gets solved, it improves EliteDresses.

So this morning I decided no matter what, I am finishing it. I am also getting some articles and pictures done! That was last nights project.

Clearance on EliteDresses

I just added a clearance section. I thought I had one, but obviously not. So there is one now! I am putting orphan products in there. Products I won't be receiving any more of including girls flower girl dresses and some other girl's dresses on clearance with some good discounts.

Coloring Picture Update

I asked somebody to do the coloring pictures of an Ao Dai and QiPao. Hopefully in a week or two I will have some wonderful news...

Update! I got three wonderful coloring pictures done! They are wonderfully done!

Orphan Dresses - Frustrating...

Sometimes I just have a few dresses left of a particular style. So some customer wants to buy a size 6, but I only have a size 14 left.

It's annoying and I need to do something about it.

Article Ideas

I was just looking at the site for Pageantry Magazine and some ideas for articles to add to the two I already have:

Pageant Components
Pageant Tips

Some of my new ideas:

- Hair Tips
- Make Up Tips
- Modeling Tips
- Recycling your pageant dress
- Choosing the right pageant dress

Hair Pieces for Flower Girl's

I used to carry head pieces when I just started selling discount girl's dresses, I carried some head wreaths, but they were too small. I am also concerned about shipping them so they don't get crushed. There are also clips, pretty chopsticks, headbands, and bows available. Right now I am not selling any accessories, but I should start.

Coloring Picture Searches

I was doing a few today and amazing how little is out there for what I have in mind... The question is which ones should I have done...

Classic Styles, Vintage Clothes, and Hand Me Downs

My 4 year old niece was over last night, and my Hubbie commented on what a cute jacket she was wearing. He was making a bit of a joke... My daughter used to wear the same jacket a few years ago. It's a nice, multi-colored jacket that is perfect for little girls.

Vintage clothes are like that, some are just classical and are timeless. Some clothes just go out of fashion so quickly. I try with my girl's dresses to choose ones that are timeless.

Petticoats - Why so hard to find?

I am still looking for petticoats. I guess their is such low demand for them that they are only used for weddings.

Flower Girl, Pageant, and other Articles

I have a few Articles and References for Girl's Dresses, but may be I need to make them easier to get to. May be just one long list verses how they are done now.

Dressing up for Father's Day

Father's Day is a great excuse to dress up your Little Princess in a beautiful girl's dress. This way when you go out to that special breakfast, be it at home or outside, and take a few pictures with her Father, you will have a wonderful memory.

For Mother's Day, my husband found out some places need reservations because they were packed... My reservations for Father's Day were made a couple of weeks ago.

Practice helps keep flower girls and ring bearers on track

Practice helps keep flower girls and ring bearers on track. Makes sense, so it becomes a habit and gets over the fear issue.

Some articles from EliteDresses for Flower Girls:

• Choosing a Flower Girl
• Flower Girl Responsibilities
• Flower Girl Tips

Return Policy

My return policy is meant to be fair to both the customer and me. Returns are 100% guaranteed, but there is a time limit and some conditions. If it's my fault or manufacturers defect, I pay the shipping. Otherwise the customer does.

I will make exceptions to the return policy in order to be fair and get to a win win solution. My goal is not to act as a lawyer going 100% by what is written, but do what is right in order to provide great customer service! I enjoy shopping at places that provide great service on returns, such as Costco, but I do understand when they updated their computer return policy to 6 months because people were taking advantage of them (buy a computer, then return it in 2 years to get a new one - not very nice in my opinion).

My Experience:
I had some returns that were not fair, so I updated the return policy. This was after a customer waited several months to return a dress. Another time a customer returned a dress because their daughter had ripped it (so why should I bear the cost for this?). Then I had a person who stored the dresses because they got them on sale for two years, and after opening them had a manufacturing defect, so I replaced the dress at no cost since they did not know until their daughter had grown into the dress and tried it on. This was a sale when I was just starting, before I checked every one of those style for that defect before shipping.

Graduation Notes

I went to Graduation at my daughter's school to help out the Booster Club. They had some reserve seats and needed people to help keep them for the people who had donated 90 or so hours to help out the school and the families. So I got to nicely ask people if they had a ticket. Most people were very nice about it, a few were rude (I feel sorry for them). On the plus side, there were these two twins that were so cute playing with their mother and grandmother! Oops, getting off topic again.

What I noticed was most of the parents and relatives were not dressed up, and neither were most of the kids. Most of the graduating students were wearing nice clothes, with the ladies wearing nice girl's party dresses. And many of them were still arriving after the graduation ceremony had already started! I was surprised, since to me it would be so important to be there for my daughter's graduation. They have worked so hard for this special day. I try so hard to be at all my daughter's concerts, recitals, and other events. Even the ones I get little notice about. The only one I could not make was the one my husband found out about 3 hours before the concert.

Ivory, Sage, and Lilac Flower Girl Dresses

Popular colors recently have been Ivory/Cream, Sage/Green, and Lilac/Lavender. Some of these have been as Flower Girl Dresses and others Party Girl Dresses. I am going to add some more cream and white dresses tomorrow. I just need to do, light, camera, action! Easier written than done :-)

Flower Girl Articles

A couple of articles about Flower Girls on my site:

• Choosing a Flower Girl
• Ettiquette for Flower Girls
• Flower Girl Responsibilities
• Flower Girl Tips

Orphan Dresses

I have a couple of dresses where I only have a few sizes left. I would put them on eBay, but the recent changes give me pause. So I am going to move them to my clearance section and label in the title what sizes are left. Like this cute yellow dress, that is only available in a size 2.

A thread discussing the changes - Sopranos Meets eBay in Feedback Extortion Scheme

These are some competitors that I need to look at:
Overstock.com, OnlineAuction.com and www.oodle.com

Suppliers discontinuing some colors

And dress on my web site I have in stock because I hate apologizing to customers about not being able to get their daughter or granddaughter's dream dress. For a few colors that are favored in weddings, I do allow back orders if I can get more stock. Weddings order more than one dress, so sometimes they can go through my entire stock of a size with one order. I do need to be careful, since my suppliers are discontinuing some colors.

A sad article showing how important a job is supplying wedding dresses is Brides stood up by New Port Richey dress shop