Weddingbee Blog

I started blogging kind of late in the wedding-planning game so there were many, many things about my planning process that I never got the chance to tell you about. So while I’m waiting to get the digital negatives of our pro pictures, I’m going to go back in time and bring you up to speed… starting with the bridesmaids dresses.

Picking out the bridesmaids dresses was much more challenging that I expected it to be. I didn’t want my girls to go broke so I set a strict price limit of $150. No matter how much I loved something I wouldn’t even consider it if it was more than that. I thought about picking out a cute party dress from somewhere like Anthropologie, but one of my bridesmaids is a size 24 so that didn’t really work as an option. I also wanted to avoid anything that would look too formal or too “bridesmaid-ish” so that the dresses could be worn again someday. I wanted something knee-length that had a vintage-ish feeling to it.

With all of that in mind I began the hunt. This endeavor proved to be one of the most annoying wedding related tasks that I encountered. I searched high and low and left no bridesmaid rock unturned. Eventually, with the help of my sisters, I found these lace dresses from Bari Jay in styles 432 and 317. 

The color selection was kind of limited with these dresses. I think they came in about 6 colors and the only ones I liked was the brown or navy blue. Mr. Radish vetoed the brown so navy blue it was.

I was a big fan of the idea of letting my ladies choose between the v-neck or the strapless since each seemed to either love or hate strapless dresses. The price on these was just about what I was hoping for… about $130. Two of my bridesmaids ordered them from RK Bridal and had nothing bad to say about dealing with them. I think they had the lowest price on these particular dresses that I found anywhere online.

After one of my maids got her dress in, I decided that I really didn’t like the satin ribbon. In the picture below I had her tie a scarf around her waist to see what a thicker sash would look like. My seamstress friend and I went out and got a some silvery/taupe silk dupioni on sale at Joanne fabrics and made sashes for the dresses instead. I also decided to have everyone hem the dress at the knee to make them a little more casual and more wearable in the future.

Since navy blue is a challenging color to find shoes to go with (or at least I always have a problem with it) I got shoes for them to save them the hassle, and to be part of their gifts. Here they are… Mossimo pumps in navy blue. They were only $17 per pair from Target online and I got free shipping! Hooray! Everyone said they were really comfortable.

Well, that’s the story of the bridesmaid’s attire. Stay tuned for the pro pictures to see how it all came together.