Lady of the Blooming Garden

On Sunday, June 9th, I went to the Summer Tea Party organized by the Dutch indie Lolita brand Fly Away Fashion! I had been to the Winter Tea Party in November 2012 and since I had so much fun, I didn’t want to miss the summer edition of course! The Tea Party’s theme was ‘Victorian Romance’. I thought my usual Sweet outfits didn’t really match this, so I decided to wear my beautiful yellow Blooming Garden dress from Metamorphose for the first time! I combined it with lots of flowers: a flower necklace and matching bracelet, flower head band and flowers on my dress and shoes. I decided to do something extra special with my hair this time and tried to copy the hairstyle I had seen on one of my Facebook friends. Although she does it way better than me, I think I did quite a good job after all (I had practiced ^^). To make it a little more Victorian, I wore my fingerless lace gloves that my mom gave to me. I am not sure they are really that Victorian, but I liked them a lot! I also chose to wear my hoopskirt for the very first time! Years ago I had bought a big, long hoopskirt to wear underneath my mom’s wedding dress to an event, but I never used it since. I decided to cut off the bottom layers so I could use it for Lolita! Here are some pictures of my outfit:

✿ Lady of the Blooming Garden ✿
My outfit rundown:
♥ Flower headband: Claire’s
♥ Headbow: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
♥ Blouse: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
♥ Jsk: Metamorphose’s Blooming Garden
♥ Tights: Fly Away Fashion
♥ Shoes: Bodyline
♥ Necklace: Claire’s
♥ Flower clips: Claire’s
♥ Bracelets: Claire’s, offbrand
♥ Lace gloves: Six
♥ Rings: offbrand

Do you think my hoopskirt works well? ^^
After my mom took pictures of me, she drove me to the station where I would meet up with Rowan and where we would be picked up by Deborah and Sanniya by car. It was really nice to sit with three other Lolitas in a bright green car, talking about random things. ^^
We arrived at the venue much too early, so Rowan, Sanniya and I went to get some money. While walking, we met some lovely-looking Lolitas walking in the opposite direction. Sanniya got her money and we walked back. We took some pictures of each other and then went inside, since it was past 12:30 pm now. Many Lolitas joined us at this point and we payed our admission fee.

A picture I took while standing in line from some cute items for sale. ^^
Then we went upstairs and picked a table close to the door, after which we were joined by the two Lolitas we had met on the street. More and more Lolitas walked in. Everyone looked so pretty! Meanwhile, food was being put on a separate table. It looked very promising!

The menu! So many choices~!
When everyone was inside and done chatting, we all sat down and listened to Fly Away Fashion’s owner and Tea Party organizer Katie’s welcome. She explained to us the schedule for the day and how the outfit competition and lottery worked. Then we were invited to have tea. We walked up to the food table and formed a neat line. It was so hard to choose what to take: everything looked amazing! I took a picture of the food table, but it didn’t come out very well. ^^’ There were cupcakes, sandwiches, chocolate cake, cheese cake, strawberries, cookies… Everything looked and tasted amazing! ♥
After a while, people went downstairs again to browse the Fly Away Fashion shop (they had so many fantastic items, including various Alpacasso things) and take pictures. The sun had finally come out, so it gave us a nice opportunity. ^^

Me, Deborah, Rowan, Sanniya and Crystal.
Picture by Rowan (well, her camera).
It was so much fun to just chat and joke and laugh with people. I met a lot of girls I only knew by name or face. I can be very shy sometimes but I did talk to quite some people. I got lots of compliments on my necklace by the way. People were shocked to find out it’s simply from Claire’s! ^^
I also tried to take a lot of pictures from other people. Here are some of them:

I am glad I took the courage to take more pictures with and from people. ^^
It was time to go inside again and vote for the outfit contest. We could choose between five girls, all of them in very different styles. Two of my travel buddies participated too: Rowan and Deborah. I had a hard time choosing, all the participants looked wonderful! I won’t tell you who I voted for (:3), but I can tell you who won: Rowan, with her beautiful handmade Cinderella-like outfit! She totally deserved it!
Then it was time for the lottery. I didn’t win anything, but I did have number 42! The ‘Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything’! ^^
Then we went downstairs again to chat, shop and take a group picture!

Group picture!
The Tea Party came to an end and we all went home again. It had been a wonderful day, I had so much fun! Again, many thanks to the wonderful organizers and cooks! ♥