{Wedding Wednesday} All the Pretty Girls.
I had no idea when I started planning my wedding that finding bridesmaids dresses was going to be the most difficult thing I had to do.
Maybe I had unreasonable expectations. Maybe my tastes are just so far above and beyond what any sane person would want. Or maybe dress designers just suck.
I decided early on in our engagement that I wanted purple bridesmaids dresses. Purple is my favorite color, as you can probably tell, and I really wanted my girls to be in a beautiful shade of purple. Something akin to either one of these shades:
Essentially, I wanted “true purple.” Not too blue, not too red, not too gray. Not too light, not too dark. Just… PURPLE!
But instead, this is what I found:
Now, all of these colors are fine on their own, but they were not what I was looking for, especially not for a summer outdoor wedding. I wanted the purple to pop – but not too much!
Finally, we saw some shades of purple that looked good on the computer screen but did nothing for us in person. My maid of honor described one bright purple as “what cotton candy would like if it was purple.” Our dress shopping was made even more difficult by many designers not even having a purple dress in stock for us to look at! How am I supposed to make a decision if my only experience with the color is in a two by two inch piece of fabric! Do you know how deceiving swatches can be?
We were getting down to the wire. I needed to pick out a dress and I needed to do it fast. One of my cousins had been in a wedding last fall and she wore a beautiful purple dress that I was almost positive would be perfect, so we made an appointment to go see it at Bella Bridesmaids, which is a salon devoted to just bridesmaids dresses.
When my maid of honor, V, and I got there, we tried that dress on. It wasn’t in the right color (remember what I said about them not having everything in stock – so annoying!), but it was the right dress. But V wasn’t feeling it. So we tried on a few other dresses and then…
We found it.
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
We ended up picking out a LulaKate dress, which are super fun dresses that, to me, seem very rewearable.
{Source}
The dress we picked out is this style, shade and fabric, an Ashley neckline with Petunia in silk dupioni. It has a much stiffer feel, almost like cotton, so it has a more relaxed feel to it while still maintaining elegance. The only difference in our dress is that the girls will have A-line skirts, instead of this Straight Skirt.
I will say that on my computer, this photo comes out a tad bluer than what the dress actually is. This is what annoys me the most about dress shopping for a particular color. Colors always look different depending on what computer you’re looking at, or the lighting you’re in, or what you’re holding the color next to… I am pretty sure I could never be a fashion designer!
All I can say is, if you’re getting married, don’t wait too long looking for bridesmaids dresses. It may end up taking you longer than finding your own dress!
AWESOME! I love love love the style of that dress and I’m glad you found one in a colour you like!!
Gah, when I start thinking about colours I feel overwhelmed… I am so not a small detail person and I have NO IDEA what colours/styles I want for bridesmaid dresses!
I like the style. And I’m sure the color is beautiful.
I’m pretty sure my bridesmaids dress search was one of the worst ever. My wedding colors were brown and ivory, and obviously, I wasn’t going to have my bridesmaids wearing the same color as my dress, so I wanted chocolate brown, and at that time, brown was not fashionable. After an exhaustive search, I found all of two, maybe three brown dresses, but they were exorbitantly priced, and none of them came in maternity sizes. Yes, I had two bridesmaids who were going to be 8 and 9 months pregnant, respectively, and at the time we were looking for dresses, they were like 4 and 5 months pregnant so there was the whole sizing for 4 months later into a pregnancy issue. We ended up having to get custom-made dresses from a company we found online that would make them for a reasonable price, relatively speaking, of course. That meant everyone had to send their measurements, and there would be no fittings or anything like that because the company was based in Houston. One of the dresses arrived, and didn’t fit at all, so that bridesmaid’s sister had to alter the dress only a couple of days before the wedding (thankfully, she was going to school for fashion design, so knew what she was doing). The whole thing was a @#$%ing nightmare, and was, by far, the most stressful part of planning my wedding. I still have residual trauma…
So anyhoo, I like to share my horror story when people talk about finding bridesmaids dresses. If nothing else, it might make you feel like your search hasn’t been all that bad. You ended up with a super cute dress too. Very classy, and a style that will flatter all shapes and sizes. Congrats on getting that squared away. One less thing to worry about
I am so glad none of my girls are going to be pregnant on my wedding day. That sounds like a real headache!
I love the dresses, classy, stylish, beautiful! You are going to have some happy bridesmaids!
I love it! And it’s CADBURY’S purple, the best colour in the world!
Cadbury? As in the candy?
Yep! It’s always been my favourite colour of clothing!
UHHHHGGHG. I STILL dont have a MOH dress… I just hope its eaiser to find yellow then it is purple!! lol only a little over 3 months left!!
Hi!
but the one with the halter top… I love that one.
I came accross your website here… while googling purple color palletees…planning a wedding
I was wondering if you could tell me where you found that bridesmaid dress… not the one you chose (though that one is great, too
Can you help? Please
No, sorry, I just found a bunch of images on Google. This isn’t one of the dresses I tried on, but it is similar to ones I found.