Dressing the 'Maids, Part 1

Very early on I knew I wanted to do navy blue, floor length gowns for my girls. Since I have 6 of them, with body types/sizes all over the charts, I knew it would take a little time to find something that looked stunning on everyone... but wow am glad we kept looking! I'm thrilled with the gown we picked out, but before the big reveal, here's a little back story on how our bridesmaids gowns came to be....

It's funny, how I didn't want our groomsmen to look like carbon copies of every other man in a tuxdeo, but I knew that I wanted all of my girls in the same dress. I think that with smaller bridal parties at maybe a more informal wedding, the look of different dresses totally works. For me, and our after 6pm festivities, I was just way more into matching, floor length gowns for the girls. And so there I was, a naive bride-to-be, with the following set of criteria:

1. Navy blue
2. Floor length
3. Under $150 (including tax, but not alterations)
4. Must look great on a full range of body sizes
5. Strapless, and most likely A-Line

The first thing I learned? "Floor length" and "less than $150" don't usually occur in the same sentence. Now, I'm fully aware that none of my girls will ever have the need for a floor length satin gown after my November nuptials, seeing as not many college students, HR reps, school teachers, and doctoral students frequently attend galas or other such activities. I knew that going in, and so I didn't even play the "well, they could wear this again" game. Thus, there was no way the dress could be more than $150, and really, if it was cheaper than that, great.

We looked everywhere and anywhere... the girls must have tried on dozens of dresses, and I'm sure they were all starting to hate me (though I was just trying to make them look good, who can fault me with that?!!). It was a huge, frustrating process, and I couldn't be happier with the result. What did we pick? Stayed tuned for Dressing the 'Maids, Part 2!