The Nielson 5: Jordyn's First Holy Communion & Confirmation

Sunday was such a Blessed day! We celebrated Jordyn's First Holy Communion & Confirmation into the Catholic Church. She was so beautiful as were all the rest of her group. In order to fully understand how this day came together, you must understand the turmoil it took to get her to this day.

At the beginning of April, I decided to start looking for dresses for Jordyn. Specifics I had were obviously, the color HAD to be white and I wanted it to be a very meticulous and beautiful dress. Jordyn rarely has the occasion anymore to be special and the center of attention so I wanted to make sure this day was absolutely perfect. I went to eBay and searched the sites. I chose several different styles of dresses and then let her pick the one that she liked the most. On April 11th, I purchased her favorite dress in a size 8 since that was what was being offered.

On April 12th, after putting on her Easter dress which I believe was a size 7, I realized that a size 8 would be much too large. I immediately emailed the seller and asked if I could get the dress in a size 7 instead of 8. Before they ordered it, she wanted me to send her Jordyn's measurements so I could get the absolute correct size. Within the next week, I took her measurements and she registered oddly. She had the height that would require a size 8 but everywhere else, she was measuring a 6!!! She's such a skinny little thing! We decided however that since the dress is designed to be full-length that we would get a size 7 so that it would be long enough and then we would just have it altered a tad to fit her in the waist and chest.

On May 1st, the seller finally received the dress from their supplier. At this point, we have three weeks before the big day! She sends it out and we received it May 5th. The minute we get it, we take it out of the box and try it on and as luck would have it, she was SWIMMING in it. It was huge!! I ran downstairs, emailed the lady and asked if I could send it back Priority Mail on the 6th and have a size 6 sent to me. She wrote back saying that would be great. Brad sent the dress out on the 6th with a Delivery Confirmation number saying they should receive it by the 8th.

On May 10th, I still had not heard anything from the seller. I email asking her if she had received the dress and if she had sent the size 6 out. She emailed me later that day asking if I had a Delivery Confirmation number. I was LIVID because the confirmation number said the dress had already been delivered on Friday, May 8th!!! On May 11th with only 13 days to go, this is the message I receive in my eBay inbox...

"Sorry to inform you that our supplier has already sold

out all sizes of this white dress because now is the

season for white communion.

So they've sold everything once shipment

comes in last time. We're going to revise all listings

as new shipment may not come in shortly.

Please advise if you can take other color as substitute. Thanks."

I could not believe it!! Why on earth did the lady think I needed the dress??? NO!! Of course I can't take another color!! And please tell me why she waited a full 6 days to order the size 6 dress when she KNEW that I was sending the dress back. She had the confirmation number to prove it!!! OHHH, I was so angry and to top it all off, she had already confirmed my payment of $90!! Well of course she did, why shouldn't she get paid for all this hard work of terrorizing me??? I wrote her back and told her...

"I HAVE to have a white dress as this is also for

communion and I need to have it no later than May 23rd.

If you cannot get me a size 6 dress by that date

then please send the size 7 back and we'll have to make due I guess.

Do you know when you might be receiving a shipment of these dresses?

I will pay for overnight shipping of a size 6 dress...

but this is an absolute MUST for me to get this dress

as I have no other options at this point. Thanks for keeping me informed."

Not wanting to wait for a response, I immediately started looking for other dresses but every single one I found just wasn't as beautiful. Oh and also by this point, I had already paid for an organza jacket for her to wear over the top of her dress...ANGRY!! The seller ended up sending the size 7 dress back telling me that she had "Refused" the package I sent and that it should be there within two days which would have been Wednesday the 13th. By Friday the 15th, I still had not received a dress! Here we were, one week away and no dress! We had shoes, veil, jacket and tiara...but NO dress! Our mail usually arrives by 2:00pm every day so by 5:00 on Friday when I hadn't received the dress, I ran to the computer to leave what very well could have been the nastiest email ever but decided one last time to check the same delivery confirmation number we had been given and see if it would tell me the return delivery status. The message on the phone said "Package was successfully delivered at 4:24pm on May 15th, 2009." WHAT??? WHERE??? So not only was our package over 2 hours late, it was delivered somewhere else...or worse, stolen from our front porch. We later found it on the back patio in one of our patio chairs....Thank goodness it wasn't raining that day!

So, we finally get the dress and rush it up to my Aunt's house on the 16th since she said she would try to alter it for us. Since she was limited with time, she did a quick fix and sort of "hemmed" an area that would work. The dress was so ornate that in order to do the job correctly, she would have had to take the seams completely apart and relocated appliques and such. My Aunt was AMAZING!!! We had forgotten to make little marks when we tried it on for her so she hemmed it by just guessing the correct size. On Sunday, the 17th, the dress was ready to be picked up! I couldn't believe it, all of that terror was gone and this was actually going to turn out okay.

Needless to say, the day was going to be great! I had ordered a cake from Sue Jacobs at Creative Cakes who had designed Bradley & I's wedding cake. She had the cake done on Saturday the 23rd and everything just fell into place. On Sunday, I woke up early and got myself ready. I was so anxious that I had Jordyn's hair done, complete with veil and tiara, by 8:30 am and Mass wasn't even until 11:00!!! She looked absolutely breath-taking. Here are some pictures of that most wonderful day!!