Weddingbee Blog

Even though I told you we completed the wedding party outfits, I forgot to share what the Hottie Women Friends are wearing.

In choosing the Hottie dress, I had 2 main goals. (1) I wanted a dress that all ladies would feel comfortable in (maybe even beautiful). And (2) I wanted it to be relatively affordable. I have ladies of many different heights, weights, shapes, with or without boobs, tall and short. I really wanted pictures of our wedding party to showcase how beautiful everyone is. As you might have noticed from how much I talk about wanting everyone to look beautiful, I have no worries that anyone will steal the spotlight from me or any concerns that someone will outshine me.

Anyways, finding the perfect dress was freaking hard! Aside from wanting everyone to look beautiful, I realized how much of a people-pleaser I really am. If even one of my EIGHT ladies said anything about disliking a dress, I moved on to another choice.

At first, I fell in love with the Two Birds Bridesmaid dresses.

I fell so hard that I bought one on eBay to try out. Indeed it turned out to be universally flattering and super hot. The mostly open back styles required the busty gals to wear a bandeau, so that was a concern.

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Ultimately, I couldn’t bring myself to ask the ladies to spend well over $200 for the dress. I started going to a more budget conscious convertible dress from Victoria Secret.

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Cute, right? Yeah, well check out the back of the dress.

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That line goes right up that crack on the back. It’s not exactly the most ideal seam for 8 women who will have to stand up in front of a large audience with their butt cracks in plain sight. (Butt crack… giggles…) Although it’s a really cute dress, it isn’t made in a very forgiving material. I ended up returning the dress and moving on to more traditional dresses.

A visit to House of Brides with Hottie T and Hottie S started with nothing flattering, under $150, and in the right color family until we started “playing”.

Hottie T pulled out this Mori Lee 831 dress. I laughed at the silly flower one strap. I made Hottie S put it on. We all sat giggling at how silly Hottie S was going to look. She opened the door, and we all went silent. It was the one. I totally knew it was the one. I never had the feeling with my own bridal gown, but I knew it with this dress. It didn’t look great on the hanger, but it looked great on! The strap is removable, so each Hottie can decide for herself if she would like to wear the strap.

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Even though we found the one, it didn’t come with the right price tag. So, I went home and did my research. I called several reputable shops for better prices. I was ordering 8 dresses, so I figured I could get a discount for ordering so many—and I was right. So, here are some places to check in reverse order by best prices.

(3) House of Brides (in the Chicago store. They won’t give you the large order discount online)

(2) RK Bridal

And the winner is (drum roll please…)

(1) Pearl’s Place (I called 2x. The 2nd time, they beat the price they had given me the first time!!)

RK Bridal gave me a great price, but they charged shipping per dress. Pearl’s Place was willing to ship all the dresses together for just 1 flat shipping fee.

So at the end of the day, I went with my own gut feeling. Although reassuring to have the ladies approval, I just had to pull the trigger and make the decision for everyone. We simply ran out of time because I had such a strong need to please.

Did you have people pleasing tendencies in your brideswomen’s dress shopping experience? How did you handle it?