Dresses for the Ball

I am thinking about dresses this morning for the Willow Manor Ball. I don't have enough information to properly credit these images. I just typed "1940's ball gowns" into Google and these images appeared. Fantasy fairy dresses and sleek 40's silouettes fire my imagination. Click on the link and take a look.

I am also thinking about dresses from my real life. They exist only in my memory now.

I never saw the first dress. My mother only mentioned this dress one time. She was raised with her sister in Grandfather Children's Home in North Carolina and she had very few possessions of her own. One day before the school prom, she found a beautiful dress laying on her bed. It was a deep pink rhododendren color and someone had donated it to her. She said it was beautiful and fit her perfectly.

The next dress also belonged to my mother. It was a beautiful golden brown matte sateen, ballerina length, with a wide off-shoulder collar, and trimmed with brown velvet ribbon on the collar and at the tiny waist. I asked my mother to give it to me and she did, though my father objected.

I had only one prom dress but I loved it. My friend found it at a local dress shop but was not able to get it. I told my mother about it and we went to buy it. It was an ivory chiffon column dress with floating ivory panels off the empire waist. It had spaghetti straps and beautiful pale aqua sequins on the top. I wore the dress twice but I don't have even one picture. My friend later borrowed the dress to wear to an event. I wonder if she has a picture.