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
#2. Amanda
#3. Sarah
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.
