Brideswomen

When I started wedding planning, I thought that with my hodgepodge of friends and family, it would be easier to just forgo the wedding party. Over the years I have collected quite a few close friends, but they tend to come in and out of my life depending on where we are living, how busy we all are, and where our current interests lie.

But then one of my younger sisters told me that she WAS going to be my bridesmaid--no question. And my current confidant and best friend seemed interested. And then if I was going to include anyone, I was going to include my best friend since we were in diapers. So that was three.

So then, partially because I didn't care that much, and partially because the mr. insisted that matching bridesmaid dresses look like the military, I told my friends they could wear whatever they wanted in the yellow, brown, or olive green color scheme. This led to weeks of frustration on their part, culminating in a horrible weekend of shopping (horrible! shopping!!!). They were practically in tears by the end of it and basically told me that I needed to just pick something out and they'd wear it. And they wanted to match.

Some of the dresses we considered...


An Antonio Melani dress was deemed cute but too spring-time sundressy.



Everyone loved the pricing for the Jcrew embossed beach dresses, but in person the yellow was way too bright.









In a moment of frustration, I almost had them buy them Jcrew Cotton Cady dress of their choice. I love them. The colors were perfect (a softer yellow or brown are available), but the $250-275 price tag was way out of the range I'd discussed with them and I didn't want to be that person.


We looked at several more dresses, from Macy's (most were too cocktail party) to Forever 21 (too see-through), before finally going the route that many other brides have been going...

The JCrew silk chiffon collection...


Both in the brown color. They are light enough that they will be okay if the wedding day happens to be scorching hot, but substantial enough that they don't look or feel cheap.





And we got them during one of the JCrew sales so they are costing less than $150 a dress (which had been our original dress limit).