Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
Update On Bridesmaid Dresses
September 26th, 2007 @ 6:39 pm by Ms. Dahlia
I posted earlier about how weird it is that I should tell people what to wear to my wedding. The ladies standing up for me all have exceptional (and decidedly different) tastes. That said, given that I was thinking about how burgundy/red would be fabulous for people to wear, it made the most sense to pick some sort of common color. Different shades of blue can look absolutely lovely together.
Sophi.the.bride’s picture in her knot bio of lovely bridesmaids wearing different blue dresses.
However, different reds or variations of red can clash. Like the prom picture where three of us were dressed in red (that’s me!), salmon and pink, respectively.
It’s great that everyone else was in blue or purple so we could alternate and end up with coordinated (and not clashing) pictures.
And then comes along J. Crew’s fall catalogue. Every two or three months it seems that they release new colors for their special occasions collection. Conveniently, one of J. Crew’s fall colors is “vintage burgundy.” What are the colors of our wedding? Burgundy and Champagne. What is the theme we are loosely going for? Vintage jazz and swing. This could be perfect. And the ladies would have their choice of three dresses, the Caroline, Goddess, Sophia.
I ordered a fabric swatch, and it was an absolutely gorgeous color. And I worked up the nerve to ask the lovely ladies what they thought about the dress. Thankfully, each likes them and hopefully will be able to find a style that works for her.
They are choosing from:
Caroline dress
As of right now, it looks like at least 2 of the 3 will wear the Sophia. For those of you that let your bridesmaids pick dresses, did any of them end up picking the same dress?
15 Responses to “Update On Bridesmaid Dresses”
all my bridesmaids chose different dresses (strapless, halter, sleeveless) but they’re in brown and they got to choose whatever pink accents they wanted. And they are AMAZING! I went with http://www.ariadress.com. A little spendy but amazing!
I gave my BMs free reign on five different styles of dresses… and what do you know, they all picked the same dress!
the same thing happened with my bm’s. i was hoping to have the same color/diff dresses look but all 4 of my bm’s chose the same dress. (jcrew) but, my main concern was that they got a dress they actually liked so it’s all good.
My 5 bm’s and 1 jr. got to pick from one designer and the fabric had to be satin. 2 picked one style, 2 picked another and the other 2 are different. I love that everyone will be comfortable in what they have on!
All my bm’s chose different dresses, you can see my knottie bio (sherthebear). All I said was floor length dresses in burgundy/wine. I didn’t pick a designer or materila and they all chose different designers and they all worked out together. I was a little nervous since I never say the dresses together until the day of the wedding, but it was perfect. Each bm loved their dress and felt comfortable in the style they chose. They were happy and that was what mattered most to me.
I actually own that exact Goddess Dress and I’ve worn it to quite a few weddings. Its a goregous dress and its very forgiving body wise 
The only issue I had was finding a bra (turns out the Victoria Secret 100 ways bra (or whatever its called) ) is a perfect fit.
Good luck!
I had 5 girls choosing from 3 styles (also jcrew!) and 3 of them chose the same dress. One of them is Muslim though, so she wore a sweater, pants, and a hijab with the dress, so it wasn’t as “matchy” and then having 2 with the same dress + 2 each with different dresses + hijaby they still gave the different dresses of the same fabric effect and ended up looking great!
I only have 1 maid of honor and 10 flower girls. My maid is wearing the Goddess dress from JCrew in the same color you posted! She said it is soooo comfortable and it is quite flattering as well! Nice picks and love the color!
My BMs wore the Sophia in black. Jcrew is really the way to go for BM dresses.
My sister is my MOH and my soon-to-be stepdaughter (18) is the bridesmaid. They have the same designer (Levkoff) and color (burnt orange) but picked two different dresses - which was appropriate because one is a teenager and the other is a 6 month pregnant mom-to-be!
I did David’s separates, picked a skirt and let them go nuts on the top. One got a top that looked awful on the website but GREAT on her, and another tried on everything David’s made–twice–and ending up making her own.
At my cousin’s wedding, all the little size 2 bridesmaids coincidentally picked the same dress, and the one size 20 picked a different one. That ended up being kind of unfortunate looking, like they’d specified that the skinny ones wear this but the big one wears that.
I was to be in a wedding a few years ago (it was cancelled 
) and we were told to pick between 3 different skirts and like 6 different tops. There were 5 of us which left us with many different options. Turns out, we all picked the same combo!!
Katie– (comment #1)– Do you have photos of the Aria dresses? I’m strongly considering going this route with my bridesmaids, who range is size and body type. I love that they can pick their own style, and the styles look so classic. Did you get the satin or silk? I like the price of the satin but the color variety of the silk… I’d love to see photos of your ‘maids.
