Weddingbee Blog

Back in May, I brought three of my lovely bridesmaids (the other three are out-of-towners) and my wonderful mom to Renee Strauss to try on as many dresses as possible with the hopes of finding what they’ll all be wearing come December–okay, not the whole month, but just one of the most important days of the month!

When I first started thinking about my wedding and what I wanted, I settled on the idea of all-matching bridesmaid dresses. Now, if you’ve been reading wedding magazines and recent books, you would notice a shift away from this trend. More and more brides are opting to dress their maids in the same shade, but letting them pick the dress (or sometimes not even confining them to a single color!). I considered this option, but favored a more uniform look. After all, what if their dresses are just slightly off? What if they each interpret the color differently? I didn’t want surprises (read: control freak). And yes, I suppose I’m a bit traditional, too. After all, my mom had the matchy-match bridesmaids and that’s always what I envisioned for my big day.

Of course as dresses were being modeled and my friends were sharing their thoughts, I kept thinking how easy it would be to throw my hands up and let them pick individual dresses of the same color (though it would be easier if they all liked different dresses within the same line of a given designer). Fortunately as the final dresses got modeled, we were able to narrow it down to about five. That five then became four. Four to three. And then there were two.

Okay, there still are two: when faced with the decision, I decided to wait. I know–I really wanted it to be done and ready to order, but I simply couldn’t do it. I considered the possibility of emailing the missing bridesmaids for advice (but at the same time, it is my choice and I didn’t want to feel pressured by everyone–which I was already starting to feel by no fault of theirs). But, what ultimately is making me wait is that we need a new swatch for one of the dresses because online they show more colors than at the store. It might be an error on the web page, so they’re ordering the updated swatch.

Here are the two finalists….the Jim Hjelm dress (pictured in “eggplant”–don’t you just love the names they choose?) would be in “blush” (a soft, feminine pink) . The Vera Wang dress (pictured in the website’s concoction of “carnation”) would either be in “petal” or “carnation” depending on the swatches…

Which one do you like better?