I had no idea what I was going to do for bridesmaid dresses and hadn’t been stressing about it. (Now that I have less than 6 months to go…. stressing a little about everything to be honest). I knew navy (my colors are navy and yellow… or cobalt and goldenrod, thereabouts) and I’d picked my flowers (yellow ranunculus) but I was doing the whole debate:
-Should I care if they will wear them again? (a lot of people say no matter what you pick they won’t wear it again)
-Should I try to keep costs down (even at david’s bridal you’re looking at $150-250 for a dress you know they’ll never wear again)
-Should they match? (I have mixed feelings about navy for a lot of reasons. I can’t imagine owning a solid color navy dress that I would ever wear, except as a bridesmaid. Do I still like the color? Definitely.)
bridesmaid dress from Dessy
Then we move on to:
-Maybe I should just wait until I see a navy dress I like at j. crew and at least it will be a nice dress.
-Maybe I should just let them get any navy dress they want.
-Maybe I should get a navy dress with a print, I like prints.
-I can’t find any navy dresses with prints anywhere online.
-I have plenty of time, so I’ll just wait until I see a dress at Anthropologie I like (probably printed) and have them all buy it. It will still be expensive, but it will be nice.
This went on until I ended up at an outlet center down by the beach with Garrett and his cousins. I was in Banana Republic and found a silky navy cap-sleeved wrap dress and immediately thought it could be the dress. It was only $90! I tried it on and loved it! I asked the nice people at the desk how I could find out what sizes were available where, whether I could have it shipped, etc. and they gave me a print out of stores that had size 6. (They search by size there). I went back the next day and took a picture of me in it. Then I started hassling my bridesmaids. There were the diligent purchasers and those I had to nag but all 5 of them now have their dresses (some even got them on clearance for $60), and two even sent me pictures. So, see below, bridesmaids Linden and Megan (with me in the center). I did not purchase mine although I loved it.
I feel like the wrapness of it, the capsleeves, and the length all make it a pretty snazzy choice. Everything I wanted in a dress. One less thing to worry about.
Oh, and I figured out that my subconscious may have led me to the dress because of the Banana Republic shirt I was wearing when I got engaged, see below for a recent shot of said shirt. Smaller print but basically the same thing as the dresses I picked. And it’s a lucky shirt, because I’m absolutely certain without it Garrett would have never proposed that day (untrue, but still makes it a happy, memorable shirt).
photo by amelia strauss. shirt by banana republic.
How did you pick your bridesmaids dresses?