Weddingbee Blog

This is a play in three acts about my BHLDN bridesmaids’ dress obsession.

Act 1: Falling in love with BHLDN dresses

When I started thinking about BM dresses, BHLDN was at the top of my list. Sadly, many dresses they carry are quite pricey. Most dresses were eliminated due to my decision to keep the cost of the dress at $200 or less. Nevertheless, there were two serious contenders in colors that I loved:

Savoy Dress in navy ($220)

{Collage by me, images via BHLDN}

Beribboned Dress in powder blue ($200)

{Collage by me, images via BHLDN}

There are other colors too, FYI:

Savoy Dress in raspberry, biscuit, and plum

{Collage by me, images via BHLDN 1, 2, 3}

Beribboned Dress in sunshine, ivory, berry, and pewter

{collage by me, images via BHLDN 1, 2, 3, 4}

Act 2: Trying to find more information

All these photos are gorgeous, but several of the comments on BHLDN pointed out that the colors looked different in real life. I therefore made sure to save all shots that I could find of these dresses. I discovered some photos on wedding blogs…and when BLDN uploaded a BM photo album on Facebook I jumped up and down:

{photo by Cooper Carras via Snippet & Ink}

The color is definitely slightly off in this photo.

{photo by Ash Images via BHLDN on Facebook}

In pewter

{photo by Ashley Garmon via Style Me Pretty}

The bow detail… <3

{photo by Ashley Garmon via Style Me Pretty}

{photo by Nancy Da Costa of Mango Studios via Ruffled}

Act 3: Ordering trial dresses

I didn’t want to ask my BMs to (possibly) order a dress that none of us had ever seen in person, so I placed an order after Christmas to check them out myself and report back to my BMs. Everything arrived quickly and was neatly packaged, and returns were smoothly handled.*

BHLDN’s box—all neatly wrapped and stickered

{personal photo}

Please excuse the not-so-flattering photos of me and the straight-out-of-the-box wrinkles…

Beribboned Dress in pewter

{personal photos}

Closeup of the tag…how cute is that!??

{personal photo}

Detail of the lining

{personal photo}

My evaluation of the Beribboned Dress sounds something like this…

• overall flattering cut
• good quality
• works with normal bra
• cute details, even in unexpected places
• extra straps for hanging on a hanger
• CON: slightly baggy on my left boob (probably easy to get fixed)
• CON: the hem is intricate, which makes shortening the dress a bad idea

Now on to the next one…

Savoy Dress in navy

{personal photos}

Ribbon detail

{personal photo}

Button detail—le sigh

{personal photo}

Extra button!

{personal photo}

My evaluation of the Savoy Dress sounds something like this…

• flattering cut
• super great material, feels nice to touch, flows well
• semi-see-through top (good for hiding skin imperfections… )
• works kind of with a bra (I’m wearing a flesh-colored one in the photo), but best probably w/o
• BUT: no straps to hang it up for storage

I liked both dresses and would have loved to keep both of them for myself, regardless of my BMs’ final dress decision. However, money doesn’t grow on trees like it does in The Sims. I wish it did. Nonetheless, I did manage to convince my mom to go 50/50 on one of them with me. And as you know, my finalist was the Savoy Dress, which I wore at my German wedding. Le sigh.

Does anyone else obsess about BHLDN?

*This post was originally written shortly after my first BHLDN order arrived and before my shoe quest turned into an adventure. All in all, I still think that BHLDN promptly ships things and promptly handles returns…it’s just that some customers are rough on products and BHLDN doesn’t check returned shoes closely enough.