Wedding Wednesday: Finding the Perfect Bridesmaid Dresses

Happy Hump Day!    

I'm back with another Wedding Wednesday post today on one of the most fun/most contested wedding choices ever: bridesmaid dresses. 

I think we can all agree that the age of purposefully making your bridesmaids look ugly is over (hallelujah).  I love my bridesmaids and I want them each to feel beautiful, but with five different girls, that can be a bit challenging. 

Click through to read my top tips for choosing the best bridesmaid dresses and see what my girls will be wearing in March! 

The biggest challenge with bridesmaid dresses is the amount of opinions to deal with. At the very least, you have your own vision as the bride, the preferences and opinions of each of your maids, and possibly your groom. The trick is to balance all of these things and always keep a little extra grace. 

Tip One:

 Cast your vision as a bride first.  

What do you envision at your ceremony site? What is your color palette? Long or short dresses? Statement dresses or more subtle? Matching dresses or complementary? What are you dreaming of/what do you see in your head? What goes well with your dress?  What's the season? The backdrop of your ceremony? Look through your pinterest boards if you are having a hard time. This step will help guide the rest of your process.

Tip Two: 

Get some input from your maids. 

They're going to be the ones wearing the dress! You want them to feel comfortable and happy in their dresses. I got a request for a budget dress, two for no strapless, and at least one for a long dress. Use these general requests to guide your search.

Tip Three:

Refine your vision as you go. 

First: take into account your venue and the season. Are you getting married in a church where they should have shoulders covered? Are you getting married deep in summer where a long dress may be too hot? Or outside in the sun where a sequin dress would be blinding? 

We are getting married in a garden during mid march. I'm generally drawn towards darker, fall tones, so I had to step back and put myself into a spring garden full of flowers to think of the right colors. The other thing I really had to take into account was our ceremony site. We're saying "I do" under an ivy arch with a little grotto garden behind it. There's already a lot of texture and visual interest in the background, so I needed a simple dress to make my girls stand out. I also need something that goes well with the various shades of green. The first dress I fell in love with was a floral, but that clearly wasn't going to work with the backdrop. 

Second: take into account your maids. My original color scheme had blush/mauve in it. Which is a gorgeous color on paper. The problem with it was my maids. Between the five of them, I've got two blondes, three brunettes of various shades, and a gamut of skin tones. Blush is one of the least universally flattering colors in existence. So I had to change up my vision a little. I also have a maid that is in Scotland for grad school until the wedding, which took custom dresses off the table. 

Tip Four:

Have fun shopping together! 

I did most of my shopping online, but it was fun to hit the BHLDN store when I was in Chicago this summer with my maid of honor. I started a thread between all my girls and would send them a dress I was thinking on for feedback. This way, you can move in the right direction and everyone feels included. There's a hundred places to find dresses, but with 6 of us searching, it made the job much easier and kept some of the fun. There also comes a point when you just need to laugh about how many ugly dresses are on the market, because y'all, it's seriously bad.

*in regards to feedback: don't be a bridezilla, but also don't get super caught up in pleasing everyone. I'm one of the pleasers and it took my fiance reminding me that I literally can't please everyone perfectly. It's good to have feedback in the right direction, but once you really nail it down, there will come a point where you may need to put your foot down. Be gentle and graceful about it, but be prepared to do it. 

Tip Five:

Order Swatches!! 

If you only follow one tip on this list, choose this one. Ordering swatches was the best thing I did in regards to bridesmaid dresses. One of the colors I was considering turned out to be entirely different in person than it seemed online. In addition, swatches enabled me to physically see colors against my maids, my dress, and the suit my groom will be wearing. After we made the decision, it's been really nice to have the swatch when I'm choosing other wedding elements, like table linens or invitations. My website gave me one free swatch and the other two were maybe $3 each with free shipping; a little cost for a lot of benefit. 

Now that we've gotten through all the tips, here's what all five of my girls will be wearing in March! 

Find it Here

Online really doesn't do this color justice, trust me when I say it's a gorgeous smokey/dusty/mauvy/lavender. I love the flattering cut and the gorgeous details. It's long, has straps, and comes in under $120, making it a near perfect match for all my requests. I can't wait to see all my girls dressed up in March!

I hope you all have a great Wednesday and keep killing your week!

- Jessica