Weddingbee

I have been on a more or less self-induced hiatus, however, I am back and hopefully will remain more of a presence around here until the big day rolls around. We also have really gotten a lot done. This week we even ordered our invitations (finally!).

I want to back up a little to the idea of bridesmaids dresses though. As far as our wedding party goes, we’re not having anything out of the ordinary. I know bridesmen and best women are becoming more and more popular these days, but we’re rather generic when it comes to this stuff. However, we have decided to forgo some of the common titles for our bridal party. I prefer to lump them all up as the Chickadees’ Circle of Love. Mr. Chickadee on the other hand refers to them as our “posse.” Either way, come June we’re going to stand at that aisle surrounded by some of our favorite people in the world. But what they’d be wearing? Well that was a whole other issue.

See the thing is, my half of the circle of love range in age from 24 (my big sis) to 12 (my youngest cousin). And there’s that little issue of there being seven of them. Yes, seven. So, the big trick was to find one dress for seven very different, but equally, lovely people. I had considered putting my younger cousins in a different dress (a la junior bridesmaids), but I first just wanted to see if there was anything out there that would work for all the girls.

Early on in the planning process I had gathered a few inspiration photos of what I’d ideally like to see on my girls.

First were the fun, yet sophisticated dresses of Knottie springchic, who basically inspired my whole wedding.

I loved the pop of the yellow flowers against the summery white & black dresses. These dresses were from White House | Black Market, but were no longer available when I started my dress shopping.

However, I did find something similar from David’s Bridal:

[I photoshopped those flowers in myself, so they look a little funny, sorry!]

I was still a little concerned about how busy something like this might look, with the all-over pattern. For a more simple look, I absolutely adored the dresses from LJ-user 1999’s wedding:

1999 got these dresses from a local department store and made the yellow sashes herself.

So, armed with a few inspiration images, I gathered my entourage and headed out to the stores. The goal of the day was to have fun, which I think really helped everyone get through the arduous process of climbing in and out of dresses, and in the end I think it meant we ended up with a really fun dress. It’s not at all what my mom or my sister would have picked, but I absolutely LOVE what my girls are wearing. And I think they even like it!

We ended up going with style 1343 from Impression bridal. Here it is on the grouchy looking model:

Here’s my older sister in the dress (Imagine it in black!):

[Ignore the somewhat stunned look on her face, it’s hard to get good pictures!]

I think it will be absolutely perfect for the wedding - the perfect combination of young and fun and flirty. I know that shopping for my girls’ dresses could have been a total nightmare, but instead it was actually a really great time. The girls were all enthusiastic and willing to try anything. I know this just means they’ll be amazing to have around the day of our wedding

Now if only we could figure out what the boys are going to wear…