Hey, micies. I need a little help from you. Can you share your experiences about finding bridesmaid dresses? I'm not sure where to start, except that I know I need things that are1. Less than $150 including tax (my bridesmaids are artists and runners of their own businesses, and I don't want this to be a burden)
2. The same color but different shapes (two rectangular people like me and three lovely hourglasses)
3. Fabric that is nice enough not to mortally offend Mouse's mom*
Ideas?** Good and bad experiences? Help, porfa!
* She was a textile design major in graduate school. No jersey*** for this wedding, let me tell you.
** Please don't tell me to go to David's Bridal, though, because I am SCARED. Or if you do tell me to go there, please help me not to be scared. Okay?
*** I, personally, don't mind jersey. I think to her, having the bridesmaids wear jersey means that other people might turn up in jeans.
7 comments:
I was very happy with J. Crew. I'm not usually such a big fan of their clothes, and at first I sort of wrote them off because I thought their dresses were wildly overpriced. But when J. Crew puts something on sale, they mean business. If you sign up for their e-mail coupons and check back every couple of weeks to see whether the dresses/fabrics you like are on sale, you can get some really good prices (our dresses were under $100 each after my 30% coupon was added to the sale price). Plus, you can return them for another size if they don't fit right, instead of spending zillions of dollars on alterations. The fabrics are also better quality (in my opinion) than the typical polyester bridesmaids' dresses.
One word of warning: my sister-in-law wore a J. Crew taffeta strapless dress in a different wedding, and said it was agonizing. The boning was poorly covered and cut into her flesh -- she even had bruises the next day! So maybe warn your 'maids to be wary of the strapless ones if you go with a J. Crew dress.
Thanks, lady! Good tip about the bruising. Yikes!
I told them, "Black, cocktail length with chiffon, whatever you like."
Most went to the bridal salon (blech!) and just chose whatever they liked from the racks, but it meant they had to deal with the bridal salon experience (blech!), and I don't think they were hot to trot about their dresses when all was said and done. Personally, they should have just gone to the department store or JCrew or something and found their Little Black Dress that way.
I will say for JCrew, it is a very frustrating store for women with plus size body types. Unless something has changed in the past year and a half (which I doubt).
Just went to a wedding where the maids wore J Crew. I got a cursing ear full from a maid about how she'd paid $178 for a total piece of crap dress (which she thought was lame since regular J Crew is quality) that she had to pay $100 to alter to make in wearable, and now she was going to throw away. So I'd be careful.
Just pick a color or a palate and let them pick something they like. My only rule was they *could not pick a bridesmaids dress.* It had to be a REGULAR dress. There were some cute ones, the best being a dress that a lady already owned. We oddly had a lot of one color, but that's what you get when you're hands off. I donno. I just... had too much on my plate to worry about what people wore :)
And if you make them get a particular dress, BUY IT FOR THEM. Seriously.
I'm going to second Meg - think about just choosing a color and letting them do their own thing. I also chose black cocktail length dresses and the girls have each picked out exactly what they wanted. Another option would be to commission an Etsy vendor such as Sohomode (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6306475).
Melida, I like this idea. Maybe I'll tell them little black dress and then give them colorful accessories. Hmmmm...
I had originally told the ladies a to pick any dress out of a couple different colors at David's Bridal (you need not be scared, but it's not exactly a lovely experience inspiring place). That was two months ago. Since, one bought her dress used on ebay. The other three haven't found anything yet, and I was thinking of recommending Overstock.com. They have a lovely variety of Calvin Klien - "just regular, can wear again and the quality will be better than the average bridesmaids dress" Calvin. It's a thought?
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