Preparations: Bridesmaids Dresses

When Benjamin and Leah got married, the process of getting ready for their wedding felt like a big tutorial on what to do for ours.  Not that we looked at everything they did and said, "Oh yeah? WE'RE gonna do better than that!" because we didn't.  But they sure made a whole lot of things easier for us just by having to do stuff first.

Take the bridesmaids dresses, for example.

One of the biggest things we learned about bridesmaids dresses is that everyone always wants to pick the perfect color and there are lots of designers that cater to that...for a price.  You can pick any color and any style in the rainbow, but all dresses labeled "bridesmaid" seem to have a few things in common: they're expensive and they take a long time to arrive.

Leah and Benjamin picked white dresses with blue sashes.  Seemed simple enough at the time, but it turns out when you want something really specific, sometimes it can be really hard to get.  When you see the dresses, it's hard to believe it took so much work to find them because they really weren't all that complicated in and of themselves.  However, having a bunch of girls with different ideas on what they should have in a dress means hundreds and hundreds of pictures.  I remember coming home one day and finding both Elizabeth and Anna practically cross-eyed from looking at dresses and Leah ready to have everyone wear a bathrobe.  "This decision isn't supposed to be so hard!" she said.

We looked at that and realized something: it's easier to find a dress and then pick the colors rather than pick the colors and find a dress.  I don't think we would've thought of that otherwise, but what that one little realization did was save us all a whole lot of time.  When we were looking for our wedding, we had a few restrictions of our own, but they most revolved around one idea: Kim is pregnant.  We need a dress she can wear and look good in and match with the other girls who aren't; and the other girls don't want to look like they're pregnant too!

I also didn't want black, although I think that mattered more to me than to Ben.  Black is elegant; but in bridal parties sometimes I think it looks sort of like a funeral more than a wedding.

So in the end Joy discovered and sent a picture to us of a JCPenney bridesmaid dress (JCPenney has a bridal collection - who knew?") that actually resembles my dress fairly strongly, is a beautiful lavender color, isn't strapless, does have the right sizes available, looks beautiful, and is even on sale.  We ordered two last week and they arrived promptly.  They do everything needed, even fitting Kim without needing alterations because of the style.  We basically have to get some shawls (they're not really warm enough around the shoulders!), hem everybody's hem (they're way too long!) and we'll be set.  It's so beautifully simple we all were smiling.  Except those who were laughing when Jenny stuffed a pillow inside the dress to see if it would fit Kim.  Kim says, "Looks like it'll work great unless I'm having triplets - how big did you think I was going to get, anyway?"

It's fun when things go so smoothly.