Pageant Evening Gown

In November, one of our Roo Girls that we sponsored in her state pageant, Sophia Hadeka, was crowned Miss Vermont Teen USA 2013, and we were so proud of her! We wrote a blog post about her winning the pageant earlier this year, but she recently sent in a very nice thank you note and pictures, that we had to make sure to share them with you! Check them out below.

Here's Sophia's thank you note:

And, here are some pictures of her in her winning Rissy Roo's dress:

Thank you so much, Sophia, for sending in the touching note and gorgeous photos! We hope to see you at Rissy Roo's in September! Good luck competing in the Miss Teen USA Pageant - we'll be rooting for you!

We're so happy and proud that our very own Miss USA, Olivia Culpo, was crowned Miss Universe 2012 this past Wednesday (Dec 19th)! She looked so incredibly beautiful, and we can't believe that the USA finally has the crown again after 15 years! Olivia beat out 88 competitors to take the crown!

Olivia is 20 years old and is currently a sophmore at Boston University. It's so impressive that she's juggling college while competing in such difficult pageants - really shows you what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it!

During the preliminaries, when Olivia was named one of the final 16 contestants, she donned a purple Sherri Hill  bandage mini-dress (style 2932). During the final competition night on Wednesday, Olivia wore a tight navy blue mini-dress with a sequin bodice on stage for the event's opening number. For the swimsuit portion of the competition, she wore a purple and blue bikini. At the end of the event, she looked gorgeous in a wintery red velvet gown with a plunging neckline.

There were also so many other beautiful ladies and dresses at the event - it must of been hard to be a judge and pick the winner! A lot of the women were wearing some of our favorite dress designers - Sherri Hill, Mac Duggal, and Tony Bowls! Check out some of the dresses below.

The contestants all looked so pretty when they were wearing the Sherri Hill bandage dresses at the preliminaries. You can see Miss USA all the way to the left in her purple dress.

A lot of the contestants were wearing Mac Duggal dresses! Below are some of the contestants in their beautiful MacDuggal gowns - clockwise from top left: Costa Rica, Nazareth Cascante; Great Britain, Holly Hale; Jamaica, Chantal Zaky; Slovak Republic, Lubica Stepanova; Peru, Nicole Faveron; Ghana, Gifty Ofori.

Miss Tanzania, Winfrida Dominic (left); Miss New Zealand, Talia Bennet (middle); and Miss Ghanna, Gifty Ofori (right), all looked gorgeous in Tony Bowls dresses!

Are you excited that Miss USA won, or were you rooting for another contestant? Leave us a comment below and let us know!

A huge congratulations goes out to Kelcie Klaus for winning Miss Gloucester County 2013 on November 3, 2012! She looked so stunning in her Rissy Roo's dress - we're so proud of her!

Kelcie Klaus (orange dress) is crowned Miss Gloucester County 2013 & Julia Magill (pink dress) is crowned Miss Gloucester County's Outstanding Teen

She recently sent us the picture above of her being crowned, with some very kind words to accompany it:

"I want to thank the girls of Rissy Roo's in Linwood for helping me find the perfect dress! After trying on countless dresses,  the honest employees helped to narrow my choices and choose a lovely orange gown right off the rack! The dress fits perfectly and held up so well! I have competed wearing my Rissy Roos gown in five Miss New Jersey preliminary locals, steamed the dress countless times,  and has been to the seamstress twice for length yet the dress looks as good as new! Thank you so much for offering a large selection of dresses and helpful  employees to make my decision an easy one!"

Miss Gloucester County is the official local pageant to qualify for the Miss New Jersey & Miss America pageants, so we're proud that she's from the very same state that Rissy Roo's is from! Now that she proudly wears the Miss Gloucester County crown, she'll be moving on to compete for Miss New Jersey - we wish her the best of luck!

The mission of the Miss Gloucester County Scholarship Pageant is: "to promote personal development, higher education, integrity & civic consciousness. We are focused on providing young women throughout the county a venue to achieve their goals." You can find more information about the organization on their Facebook page.