Bridesmaid Dresses: Mission Complete

A few weeks back, I decided to change up the bridemaid dresses and find an alternative to David's Bridal. (Read all about that here.)

I loved this picture I found at explore.dream.discover. (formally From Portland to Peonies).

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The dresses all went together without being too matchy-matchy. It didn't look cookie cutter bridesmaid and I really loved that. My girls are all different and I didn't want to mold them all into one bridesmaid look.

This picture found at Love and Lavender was really inspiring!

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Seriously, how beautiful are these dresses all together?! I found the dress on the far left (in the picture above...it's the middle dress in the picture below) at Charlotterusse.com for only $36.99 . This gave me hope that I could find cute dresses for my girls that wouldn't break the bank.

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I love the combination of fabrics and the addition of lace into the mix. Jacin over at Lovely Little Details (if you don't already follow LLD you really should!) came across these lovely vintage looking dresses at Forever 21 for under $30 each. The dresses are all very different but they really go well together.

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I found that I could easily find inexpensive vintage looking dresses in a blush or nude color palette. Finding dresses in shades of grey was a more difficult task and I was afraid that I wouldn't find what I was looking for. This picture I found at Ellie Loves caught my eye.

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After a little searching I found the dresses at J. Crew. Unfortunately the dresses were each around $230 and that really wasn't the price point I was looking for. I kept searching and finally came up with this little combination:

I was super happy with all of the dresses and loved the way that they looked together. It had a little bit of everything; a little lace, some chiffon, and a variety of grey hues. The best part about the dress selections was that each dress was less than $50. (In fact, the lace dress on the far left (found at Dorothy Perkins) was only $18.00!)

It was so exciting to finally have the dress situation taken care of. After deciding not to go with the dresses from David's Bridal, it had been three long weeks of dress searching, and now it was finally finished. Just as I was about to send the links to the girls for each of them to find their dresses however, both the lace dress and the one strap ruffle dress were out of stock!  Only moments earlier the dresses were available and their links had no notice that the dresses were low in stock. I couldn't help but laugh, but the frustration of the almost finished dress search led me to call it a night, turn off the computer, and do something else.

The next morning, with a day off from work, I sat back down at the computer, fully intending to start looking for more grey lace dresses for Sarah, and another inexpensive one shoulder grey dress for Amanda, when instead, I decided to do something that I should have done from the very start: I put the picture of the girls' dresses next to a picture of my dress. While looking for the bridesmaid dresses, I was so focused on making sure that they looked good next to each other that I neglected to check that my dress went into the mix as well.

As much as I loved the flowy chiffon, and vintage lace look, it didn't look so fabulous next to my dress. I'm keeping my dress a surprise until the big day, so I can't post a picture of what it all looked like together, but I will say that my dress is satin. If my dress were more flowy, chiffon, or lace, it would have gone together pretty nicely. Instead it looked like two different looks trying to fit together.

Though I was disappointed that the vintage look wasn't working out, I was so grateful that I now had a direction to go in that I knew would look fantastic. Finding satin dresses for the girls would be a much easier mission than my previous search. Before the morning was up I had dresses chosen for all the girls, googled coupon codes (I found codes for Sarah's and Kim's dresses), put together a little image so that the girls could see what they looked like next to each other, and emailed my ladies with all the info.

So here it is! The final product! Here are the dresses that the girls will be wearing on the wedding day.

I'm really pleased with the end result. I love the different shades of grey and the fact that each girl has their own look while still coordinating. I also like the look of the satin dresses next to my dress a lot better than the lighter, flowy dresses. It took a little while to get here but in the end I think it worked out perfectly.

Did anyone else have second thoughts about bridemaid dresses? Love the look of different dresses in a similar color palette? Find dresses for super cheap? I'd love to hear your experiences.

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In other bridesmaid news, I have been working on their gifts that I plan to give them at the rehearsal dinner. As my girls are known to check out this blog from time to time I can't reveal the details of the gifts but I guarantee that you'll see pictures of them after the wedding. I'm very excited about them and I hope the girls love them!

A Change In The Line-up

In yesterday's post I shared with you our shoe selections for the bridesmaids. In case you don't want to refer back to the post to see the beautiful shoes, here is a picture:

I'm very happy with the shoes we found, but right after we made our selections I had an uneasy feeling. Something just didn't seem right to me. At first I thought that it was the shoes, but I soon realized that it was dresses that I was unsure about.

We picked out the bridesmaid dresses back in May when all the girls were here for wedding dress shopping. The original idea was to have all of the girls in different dresses in shades of grey. David's Bridal only offers one shade of grey (pewter) so we realized that the girls would all have to be in the same shade but at least we could still have them all in different dresses. While selecting dresses we found out that Sarah's dress was not available in pewter so to keep her in color with the wedding, her dress was going to be in yellow (canary). It seemed fitting that she would be in a different color since it would make her stand out a little bit as maid of honor.

Over the last few months I've had second....third, and fourth thoughts about putting Sarah in a yellow dress. All my girls are blondies which is why I wanted to have them all in grey to begin with. I also wanted the girls to be in different shades of grey that all coordinated. David's Bridal's limited selection of colors caused that to change to the girls only being in one shade of grey. Looking at a color swatch of the pewter fabric and referring back to the pictures of the shoes we picked out for the girls I had reservations about how everything would look when we put it all together.

With my doubts about putting Sarah in a yellow dress and my unsure feelings about the shoes and dresses combined, I decided to put together the images of the girls dresses and shoes to see what they would look like next to one another....

....what a hot mess! No wonder I couldn't sleep. The shoes are all lighter than the dresses, the fabric on the dresses are just a little too shiny, and the combination of it all just does NOT go well together! It wasn't what I had in mind when I first thought of having the girls wear different dresses in different shades of grey. I wasn't about to have my girls spend a bunch of money on dresses that didn't look right, so I decided to change the dresses!

It's been four months since we picked out the bridesmaid dresses so in the wee morning hours when I made the decision to find new options for the girls, I was nervous that they had already ordered their dresses. Thankfully, after I got in contact with them, I was relieved to hear that the orders hadn't yet been placed! With that news, I went full force into looking for new dresses in various shades of grey.

I looked at over 500 pages of grey dresses on shopstyle.com (yes, 500...it's a sickness) and found many grey dresses that would look great on the girls. Here are just 20 of the dresses that I saved.

There were a few things that I needed to keep in mind while looking through images of grey dresses:

- While the dresses could be in different shades of grey, they all had to coordinate together and go with the shoes that we had already selected.

- I wanted the shades of grey to be closer to a slate color rather than having hints of purple or blue.

- Though the fabrics didn't need to be the same, they couldn't be drastically different (ex. cotton and silk etc.).

- Since the dresses at David's were $130 - $140 I wanted to save the girls some money on the new dresses and keep the price under $100.

After a long afternoon of searching for dresses, I came up with a combination that I absolutely loved! All the dresses are similar in length, have color tones that coordinate, and were well under the $100 mark. (The average dress/shoe combination would be $89.00.) Best of all they look really good together.

#1. Amy

Lily Boutique - Greek Goddess Grey Chiffon Drape Dress 

#2. Amanda

Lily Boutique - Falling in Love Strapless Chiffon Bow Dress

#3. Sarah

Dorothy Perkins - Grey Ruched Flower Dress

I was excited that in an afternoon, I had found new dresses for the girls that looked great together, coordinated with the shoes, and cut the girls' costs. It was a HUGE weight off of my shoulders and I felt so much better about the dress situation.

After putting together the images to make sure that everything went together nicely, I decided to send the girls links for their new dresses so that they could check out the styles and let me know if they liked what I had found. When sending Amanda the link for her dress, I was SO disappointed to see that her dress was no longer in stock. I had somehow missed that when I first found the dress. Just when I thought the dress search was over, it started up again.

This is the first taste of stress that I've had since we've started planning the wedding and I'll just say that I my tastebuds aren't having it! Thankfully the other two dresses are in stock and Amy and Sarah seem to like them but I'll have to continue to search for a dress for Amanda. I hope we find something soon.

Having dresses that aren't through a bridal website or a place that sells bridesmaid dresses, we'll have a more difficult time making sure that the dresses coordinate and don't clash. The girls will also have to order their dresses sooner than later for two reasons:

1) we don't want our current situation to happen again and find out that a dress is out of stock

2) if for some reason something is wrong with the dress (it isn't what we thought it was going to be, the girls don't like the way they fit, etc.) we will have time to send back the dresses and search for replacements.

Wish us luck on our search,!  If you have any suggestions for a grey chiffon dress that will go with the other two we've already selected feel free to comment a link on this page.