I am auntie to not only Cole and Jack, but to a splattering of fabulous kids of my friends and so forth. Let’s be real here, these days it really does take a village! So part of my auntie responsibilities is to co -produce and plan any and all upcoming birthday parties. My guy BFF is no exception…the call came in, I swooped up the ideas and we both went into producer mode.
 
He was absolutely adorable, guys you can play “oh that is the corniest idea” game with someone else because I am here to tell you birthday girls daddy was WAY more into this thing than me or even the birthday girl.
 
Thankfully he and I are born from the same color outside the lines party-planning mold — yeah we didn't go the TYPICAL hoopla route which by the way, is the biggest rip off on Earth. Between the tea sets, the party in a boxes and the princess paraphernalia out these, we're talking mortgage here. No we believe in blood sweat and tears for $25 and less.  Get your buns to your nearest Latin inspired district and play ‘Quincenera.”
 
Recycled Vintage Princess Wear

Part of the producer role was that I actually had to dress the princess part as well—, so day before the big soirée I realized I was in wardrobe 911—where was I to begin to seek out the perfect princess dress? I am a girl who believes in never leaving the zip code (aqua never leaving the beach) the trip downtown was already over I missed my Mexican wedding dress opportunity for $15 so it was into creative zone 101…. Aha, AARDVARKS! Oh yes, recycled vintage, previously worn items is exactly what this princess in waiting was looking for and that shop my friend is down the road in Venice Beach.
 
So after a nice quickie surf session I slide into the shop bikini on ready to slide in and out of one princess dress option after another. I cruised the racks of party dresses, deep purples, lacey blue puffy sleeved short dress, gold taffeta, ugh too hot, we’re talking 98 degree birthday forecast …the dresses were either too heavy, too pretty, too old, too ruffly, or too awful, nothing was just right.
 
Suddenly in the distance I say the wonderful, light and airy, delicious romantic, chiffon-y old school row of nightgowns---YES!!! Those beautiful and understated fabulous “night coat and gowns your nana used to rock, this is exactly what I needed! I pulled one off the rack after another and slid it over my bikini and I found four perfect slips in a rainbow of 1960’s colors, light purple, powder pink, mint green, all these fabulous very light and weather appropriate slips. And then came the puffy sleeved overcoats, and somewhat see through long flowy off white nightie that just swooshed in the wind and when I twirled it looked perfectly princess-y. MY fellow shoppers who jumped on my princess dress search bandwagon agreed I had found some terrific choices and “hey you actually look hot in that you can rock that later…”
 
I kind of took a closer look and also realized I actually could pull this whole get up off in my own real life…. Do that whole slide into my nightie routine, pre sexy with the one I love. Did I mention I looked sultry in these colors?
 
I looked at my co-shoppers and I said, “it really is a fine line between being a princess and being a 'lady of the night' isn’t it? It really is and clearly, I was thinking, “sign me up.”
 
Princess Makeover

As the kids arrived, they went straight into hair and makeup. I swooped up their hair into some fabulous up do and slid on the required super shiny diamond encrusted must have tiara, while BFF Karen, our resident beauty maven did her magic. We scored some fantastic deals at Claire’s, you know those god-awful, who knows exactly what is in that stuff but gee it’s super purple and perfectly sparkly lip-gloss that same eye shadow in three colors. A few packages of stick on diamond butterflies, along with Karen’s bag of big girl make up brushes and glitter blush. Our princesses were transformed in mere minutes!
 
They were swooped off to “tea” poolside, harassed by the paparazzi aka mom, dad, uncle, grandma etc and eventually slide off to more important business in the back room for some play and giggles. They later returned to ask if they were allowed to go put more lip-gloss on in the “make up room” We said sure go for it.
 
The adults did some swimming and chatting and catching up. We bbq’d some delicious princess hot dogs and burgers.I must admit there was that eerie, super chill 25 minute period where you forgot you were at a kid party because you had uninterrupted adult time and suddenly we knew why…low and behold around the corner comes the fab four princesses…straight out of the makeup room-- and while I know it's not very auntie like to say so, but let’s just say they looked a tad more like ladies of the night than princesses of the party—further proving we are really, really not that far from that look at the end of a good party now, are we? Mascara smeared, hair all over the place, lipstick color suddenly looking harsher  than ever , tiara half way on, and just a tad less concerned about all of it than when we first left the house?