Once I had my dress, the next thing I wanted to finalize were the girls’ dresses. I had been on the hunt for gorgeous but affordable bridesmaid looks for a while. Here are some inspiration pictures I started with:
(all from the knot)In the beginning, I went to great cost-saving lengths. I stalked Nordstrom for sales regularly. I even had a weak moment one night and purchased 9 dresses myself (they were ridiculously cheap – $30 from over $200!!), thinking that they might work (they did not). My friends decided to step in at this point (thanks girls!). They made it clear how much they appreciated my attempts to keep things cheap, but reminded me that hey, they wanted to look good too!! 
So, from then on I focused on dresses that were less than $150 (I tried at least!) and cute.
The first decision I had to make was the color of the dresses: purple or black? It was easy – if I found dresses available in “our” purple, we’d go with those. If not, we’d go with black. I still think that black bridesmaids’ dresses are incredibly classy and gorgeous, but in the end I decided on purple because Alfred Angelo’s color “grape” matches perfectly!
Next decision? The dress length. Most of the girls agreed that cocktail or tea length was the way to go over floor length, which was fine with me. And finally, the dress style. Having been a bridesmaid myself, I know that you can never please everyone with one dress. Plus, I wasn’t really very passionate about one style of dress anyway – I picked the color and material (satin), and that was good enough for me.
After one short visit to the Alfred in Pittsburgh, the dresses were picked:
The girls could pick from any of the above dresses, or any other satin non-floor-length dress that they liked in the store. So far, it has worked out wonderfully, and I think most everyone is satisfied with their choice. I think the color is so gorgeous (I’m biased though) 
. Here is Cheeseburger SisterMOH showing off her dress – you be the judge:
*P.S. – you would have thought I was breaking some kind of bridal law at Alfred Angelo. They were very nice the entire time, but they just kept saying things like, “Are you SURE you don’t mind if they’re different!?”, “What if they all pick the same dress except one girl!!?”, “What about the tea length; it’s FOUR INCHES LONGER than the cocktail length!?” I just had to really reassure them that my bridesmaids are so freaking gorgeous that no one is going to be paying attention to the length of their dresses. 
Did you get a lot of flak for choosing varying bridesmaids’ dresses?
This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.
