Dress for a do.

As I’ve mentioned my own 40^th I think it only fair to mention Ingrid’s. Now, I know what you’re all thinking (apart from you can’t possibly both be 40) – how does this relate to charity shopping and bargain hunting? But we are the Prudent Pair - everything relates to charity shopping and bargain hunting.

 A good few months ago now, when Barnardos had just started pricing everything at £1.99, I popped in for a browse. I found a Coast dress, in my size for £1.99. I couldn’t believe it! You can’t get much for two quid and here was a Coast dress for under that. I had one problem though, where would I wear it? It was a nude dusty pink colour, fitted bodice, a-line skirt; perfect for a wedding but not quite right for the school run. I’m at the age now where weddings have dried up, there’s the occasional christening…but then I remembered, Ingrid and Graham’s 40^th birthday do – that dress was mine.

I loved it. I used to try it on in the evening on the pretence of trying jewellery or shoes to go with it, but really just because I wanted to wear it – I knew I didn’t have jewellery of shoes to go with it. But what a good excuse to go shopping and when you’ve only paid £1.99 for the dress you can afford to splash out on accessories. Or so you’d think, but I got some lovely grey jewellery from (you’ve guessed it) Barnardos. It’s quite a girly dress and definitely needs heels so I thought that grey snakeskin shoes would go brilliantly and give it a little bit of edge. I have bought shoes in charity shops before, but only if they look like they’ve hardly been worn. The chances of finding them in good condition and in your size are slim and I had very specific shoes in mind. So even I conceded that on this one charity shops were not the way to go. So I went to TK Maxx. Amazingly I found just the shoes, my outfit was complete. That was, if I could find a bra that didn’t show underneath it, all of mine did. A friend told me that she hunted high and low for a bra to go under a dress for a wedding. When she finally found one she was so relieved she bought it without looking at the price tag – it was the best part of £100. This could have happened to me and it seemed wrong to have a bra that cost so much more than the dress, after all no one would even see it. Then I realised, it wasn’t the fault of the bra but the fault of the dress and a couple of stitches across the top of the bodice soon sorted that.

 So I had a great outfit for next to nothing that I felt great in. The party was fabulous, dancing, drinking and good friends. The birthday girl looked stunning in a beautiful halter neck dress that she made herself. Amazing! I’m sure we can get her to tell us all about that at a later date.

Sophie x