my daughter's homecoming was last month and I'm still kind of recovering from the whole dress situation honestly. I don't even know where to start with this. I guess at the beginning? She'd been talking about it since like August which is insane because the dance wasn't even until October. Every time we went to the mall she'd drag me past the formal dress stores and just look. Not even go in half the time, just look. And she'd be on her phone constantly—Pinterest, TikTok, all of it. Her feed was just sparkly dresses for weeks.

So we finally sat down to actually shop and I thought okay this will take one night maybe two. Ha. That's funny now. We must have looked at hundreds of dresses. I'm not exaggerating. Hundreds. She'd scroll and scroll and every once in a while be like "what about this one" and I'd look and it would be this huge ballgown situation that made her look like she was going to a wedding. Or the opposite problem where it was basically a tank top with sequins glued on. Nothing seemed right. She was getting frustrated and I was getting frustrated and honestly we should have just stopped and tried again the next day but we both get stubborn.

We ordered a few online. Three I think? Maybe four? I actually can't remember now because some of them just blurred together. One came and the color was totally different from the picture. Like not even close. It was supposed to be black with silver sparkles and it showed up looking more like dark blue. She tried it on anyway and it fit weird in the shoulders. Sent that one back. Another one had a really pretty skirt but the top was so scratchy she couldn't even stand still in it, let alone dance. That one sat in her room for like three days before we even bothered returning it because we were both annoyed at that point.

And then there was this black sequin one that I almost didn't click on because the main photo was so dark. Just a black blob with some dots on it basically. But she zoomed in on her phone and pointed at the bottom and said "look the front is shorter than the back" and I squinted at it and yeah okay that was actually kind of cute. Put it in the cart. Didn't have high hopes honestly. By then my expectations were pretty low. We'd had so many misses.

It came in one of those crinkly plastic mailing bags—you know the ones that make that terrible noise when you open them. She took it up to her room and I was in the kitchen doing dishes or something. Then I heard her coming down the stairs which was fast so I knew she was excited or it was a disaster. Sometimes you can tell from the footsteps. She walked into the kitchen and just stood there. Didn't say anything. Turned around. Looked back at me. Her face was doing that thing where she's trying not to smile too big.

It looked way better on than it did in the listing honestly. The top part was all these little sequins—they caught the light from the window and some of them looked almost silver depending on how she turned. She kept spinning in place and watching them change color. The skirt had that high-low hem I mentioned earlier, so the front hit above her knees and the back swept down longer. She walked back and forth across the kitchen like three times just watching the skirt move. I asked her how it felt and she said good and I asked if the sequins were itchy and she said no which was surprising because most of them are.

Here's the thing I forgot to mention about her—she's picky about texture. Always has been. Tags in shirts drive her crazy, certain fabrics she just flat out refuses to wear. So if she said the sequins didn't bother her that was a big deal. I actually made her let me feel the inside of the top to check and it had this soft lining underneath so the sequins weren't touching her skin directly. That was smart actually.

I also did the thing where you rub your hand across the outside to see if any sequins fall off because that happened with one of the other dresses we ordered and I'm still finding tiny sparkly circles in my carpet. Nothing came off. I rubbed pretty hard too. She was like "Mom stop you're gonna ruin it" but I just wanted to know if it would hold up. The satin part—the long flowy back part—had some weight to it. Not like heavy heavy but enough that I could tell it wasn't the super cheap kind that wrinkles if you breathe on it.

The zipper went up easy which I know sounds dumb to mention but we had one return where the zipper literally would not go past the middle. She had to wiggle out of it and it was just ridiculous. So easy zipper was a win.

She ended up wearing silver sandals she already had from forever ago. Like she bought them for some other dance and they were just sitting in her closet. I was glad about that honestly because I didn't want to spend more money on shoes. She also had this tiny silver necklace that she put on. I didn't even know she had it actually—she must have gotten it somewhere and never told me. Her hair she did herself. She didn't want me helping. I offered like twice and she gave me that look. You know the one. The teenagers know what I'm talking about. So she came down with these loose waves and I was kind of surprised because it actually looked nice. I mean not that I thought it wouldn't, I just didn't expect her to pull it off so easily because the last time she tried to do her own hair for something it was a whole disaster.

We took pictures outside because our house lights make everything look orange. We have this old swing on the front porch and a bunch of pine trees in the yard. She stood by the trees and on the swing and I just took a million photos on my phone. Some of them were terrible because she kept making dumb faces but there were a few really good ones. The green from the trees behind her made the black dress pop and the sequins would catch the sunlight when she moved. Even my husband said she looked nice and he never says anything about clothes. Usually he's just like "yeah you look fine" and goes back to whatever he was doing.

She left for the dance and I didn't hear from her for a while. I texted her once just asking if she got there okay and she sent back a thumbs up which is basically how she communicates now. When she got home it was late. She had her shoes off already and was walking around barefoot. She told me about the dance and who was there and some boy she danced with.

But later, after she'd changed and was just hanging out, she came into my room and sat down on the edge of my bed. She told me she was really nervous before she got there because she was afraid nobody would like her dress and I didn't even know she felt that way because she didn't say anything before she left. Then she said once she got inside and saw everyone else and got a few compliments she felt a lot better. She said it was actually fun. She said she felt good in the dress. Not like show-off good but just like comfortable good.

I don't know. I'm not trying to sell anybody on a specific dress here. Just saying that whole process was a lot and it worked out for us eventually. If your daughter wants a black sequin homecoming dress I'd say look for something with a lined top so the sequins don't scratch. Maybe a high-low skirt if she wants to dance. And just—buy it, try it, see how it feels. Return it if it's not right. You might have to return a few. We did. But when you find the one you'll know. My kid knew. She was spinning around in my kitchen and I could just tell.