Your bridesmaid dresses can make or break your wedding. You wouldn’t be the first bride to lose friends or be laughed at over a possible bad choice. While you don’t want the bridesmaids to upstage you, you still want them to look beautiful, enhancing the entire look and feel of your wedding.
To avoid losing the whole female component of your bridal party here are a few suggestions:
- Involve your bridesmaids each step of the way
- Get a price guide from each bridesmaid before you start looking.
- Organise some fun shopping days together, buying them lunch and a pedicure followed by some bubbly and a night out!
- If you can’t find a great bridesmaid dress at the shops, find a competent dressmaker who will know what style suits each shape.
Styling your maids
Gone are the days of the high school formal dress with puffy sleeves or lots of lace and in are the shorter and slinkier designs from the catwalks of Milan and New York. Here are a few points to keep in mind whilst choosing the dress style.
- A-line dresses are a classic and will flatter most shapes and sizes
- Cocktail length dresses are now a standard option for bridesmaids.
- Consider your wedding dress and how the bridesmaid dresses will complement this. If you’re wearing a traditional lace gown with a long train, a casual cocktail dress won’t be appropriate for your bridesmaids.
Hint – As we all know, women come in different shapes and sizes and even the most perfect dress may not suit everyone. Consider choosing a common colour for the girls and allow them to each wear a different style that will suit their own personality and body shape.
Colours
- Platinums and pewters are very fashionable at the moment as well as the paler colours; pale yellows, greens, peach, sand, taupe and even white. That being said, darker colours are more flattering, so you may be hard up trying to convince your maids to wear lavender rather than darker purple. Florals are also in this season so don’t discount everything that isn’t a block colour.
- Another very stylish option is the little black dress – this will always be a winner for all women, it is elegant, slimming and completely timeless.
Hint – Have each bridesmaid wear a different colour of the same dress for a rainbow wedding or get on board with the ombre trend and have your bridesmaids wear varying shades of the same colour.
Remember that your bridesmaids are standing there because they have been by your side throughout your life. They are the girls that have laughed and cried with you through thick and thin. It is not worth ruining a friendship over a dress. So brides and bridesmaids remember to be flexible and reasonable so that you can all look and feel fabulous!