So. The one thing I was dreading in this whole process was searching for bridesmaid dresses. Not because I don’t love a pretty, pretty dress, but because I think there is something odd about telling 30-something year old women what to wear. Also, my taste is hideously expensive.
{LOVE this. via Sunday Brunch Dress Shop}
Isn’t this gorgeous? If I had money to spare I would outfit all my ladies in different frocks from Sunday Brunch Dress Shop. Dresses you really can wear again! Sadly, I’m not made of money. Boo.
So the original plan was to have my lovely ladies choose whatever knee-length dress they wanted in a color of my choosing. I love this new trend of mis-matched dresses! How low-stress! How chic! However, more than one lady expressed concern over this. What if I was unhappy with their choices? What if the colors didn’t match? What if they didn’t find anything?!? No, it was to be my responsibility after all. My new gameplan then was:
- Find 4-5 dresses in the same color and let them choose
- At least 1 option at $100 or less, or I would subsidize the difference
- Not choose anything I would not wear myself
- No bridal stores
This was hard. I kept falling in love with unrealistic dresses, that didn’t match my criteria.
{Case in point. via Saja Weddings}
All the while I was keeping an eye on J Crew. I’ve heard mixed reviews on J Crew’s bridal line, but I do like their everyday stuff,*** and they have petite sizing, which is key when half of your ladies are under 5′4″. Sadly, they don’t have many options in the lovely grape-purple that I want. What they do have a lot of are navy dresses.
{via JCrew}
The top middle dress? Only $49.99! Four of these are under $100. It’s perfect, yet, it’s not purple and, I really want purple. So this is the part where I confess that I went to a dark, dark place. When I showed this to the boy he was all great and awesome and I wanted to cry. I crunched numbers to find a way to make all the pretty, overpriced, purple dresses work. I contemplated asking my friends to spend way more money than is reasonable on me. All very ludicrous, I know. Months from now I will look back at this post and laugh. Navy is lovely. Navy will blend perfectly with all the other colors we’re working with. Navy was my original choice, even! So. I am fairly sure we have found our bridesmaids dresses.
This does, of course, mean I really must have purple shoes.
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this post made me laugh, because i went (am going) through the same thing. i wanted purple, i saw the saja dresses and loved them, but i could not ask my bridesmaids to pay that much. so then i went to jcrew and decided on the spiced wine color but i still thought it was expensive. at this point, they’ve decided they really like the dresses in silk chiffon and have overruled me, so i guess i’m going with those. i liked the mismatch dress idea too!
but yeah, i think navy can be really cool.
@giovanna, I am glad I’m not the only one. I really am feeling ridiculous for my attachment to the color purple.
I am attached to purple also! It’s nice to know others have expensive taste also. Yet navy is also beautiful and tres chic!