Shari's Tips on choosing the bridesmaids dresses

Here's how to ensure that your bridesmaids will look as fabulous as you do on your wedding day, and get plenty of wear out of the dress after the fact:

Don't begin the process of choosing your bridesmaids dresses until the overall design for your wedding has been decided on.  This includes venue, colours, decorations, and your own dress.

Along with the design, consider the overall feel of your wedding day, and what you expect your guests to be wearing.  Is it black tie?  Semi-formal?  Casual?

Consider the colour palette for the day and decide which shade the bridesmaids dresses will take a cue from.  It is very trendy right now to put bridesmaids in the brightest colour of the palette, but I find this troublesome for a few reasons.  First of all, speaking for myself, as a bride wearing white or another pale colour, I would be jealous all day long of my bridesmaids wearing bright colours!  Secondly, bright colours do not look good on everybody, and chances are your bridesmaids do not all have the same skin tones and hair colours.  The brighter and more specific the hue, the less likely a given bridesmaid will get to wear the dress again.  If there is a neutral in your colour palette, that would be a safe and elegant bet for the bridesmaids dresses.

While this Pretty Maids dress features a stunning shade of turquoise, in my opinion it is nicer as an accent colour in decor, and not on five bridesmaids standing in a row.  Also, I don't know many women who wear such vibrant formal dresses when they aren't a bridesmaid, so reusing a dress of this colour seems unlikely.

This is the colour palette we used while planning our wedding.  I briefly considered gold for the bridesmaids dresses, but since four out of five of my bridesmaids are very fair in complexion, I knew that the colour might wash them out.  Green was out of the question since I knew this was in our palette to account for greenery and accents on the cakes.  We pretty quickly, with the help of the bridesmaids, settled on brown, as this would coordinate with the bow on my dress, and go well with the dark wood decor of the library in Casa Loma.  Also, as brown is a neutral and flattering on all complexions, I hope that all of my bridesmaids will again find use for the dress someday!

Involve your bridesmaids in choosing the style of the dress. Often brides choose dresses that they themselves would wear.  When I was posting photos of dresses for my bridesmaids to look at, there were all sorts of strapless, bubble skirt dresses that I wear all the time.  They, thankfully, spoke up and said none of them would wear that, and it would be really unflattering on their body types.  All of my bridesmaids loved the After Six Renaissance dress, pictured here.

This Eden Maids dress is something that I would love to wear as a bridesmaid, or really on any occasion.  However, my style is quite different from that of my bridesmaids; I tend to wear youthful puffy dresses, and they all have a more sophisticated sense of style.  Also, I am very narrow in the chest and shoulders area, so I can get away with strapless dresses more easily than most women (one of the few perks that comes with having a small chest!).

The amount of material in this dress also adds a lot of bulk to the visual picture; on five women, they may end up looking more like a line of modern Moulin Rouge dancers than bridesmaids.

Speaking of excess fabric, stay away from designs that use too much unnecessary fabric.  On tall, lean figures it can create visual interest in just the right places, but for the rest of us, it only serves to disguise our figures.   This dress on the right, from Sydney's Closet, is very beautiful, but adds a lot of bulk to this girl's torso.  I think the wrap look has the potential to be very figure flattering, but as the material does not lay flat against her chest, it is the wrong fit and/or style for her.





The Renaissance dress my bridesmaids wore gave the illusion of being a wrap dress without being one.  The only fabric that wrapped around was the bow, and therefore the material was able to sit snugly against the body.

If you are only choosing one style for all bridesmaids, it is best to choose a style with wide straps.

I had a lot of trouble locating a picture of a busty model in a strapless dress; however, on Facebook I often see busty bridesmaids in strapless dresses, which is almost always very unflattering.

This Sydney's Closet dress is a departure from the other dresses in the collection, as it is strapless.  There is no way this model is wearing a supportive enough bra, and how could she with the design of this dress.

I can't imagine this Swak Designs dress, pictured here in black, being unflattering on anyone!  The sweetheart neckline and straps would look great on busty and not-so-busty girls (no pun intended, Clinton Kelly).

Again, if you are only choosing one style of dress, choose something that hits around the knee so that it elongates the bodies of even the shortest bridesmaids.

As a girl who is always self conscious about her stomach, I strongly recommend staying away from mermaid or trumpet gowns and the like, as I would be mortified to wear anything of the sort.  My bridesmaids all have perfect figures, but just in case, I made sure the skirt of the dress flared at the waist.

Also consider practicality!  As beautiful as a floor length gown is, beyond your wedding day a bridesmaid may have no use for it.  Tea-length dresses are most versatile.

This Jordan dress would have also been a great pick for my bridesmaids, as it has the same neckline and colour.  However, I've never seen any of my friends wear a full-length gown, and I doubt that they ever did after prom.

Avoid choosing anything that looks too much like a bridesmaids dress, and has too many elements that are not found in any other types of formal wear.

These Jordan dresses just scream "bridesmaid" to me.  There's something about lace on bridesmaids dresses that make it unwearable after the fact, not to mention the combination of colours and patterns.




This Alfred Angelo dress also would have a difficult transition into real life.  Bows streaming down the side of a bridesmaid dress is really popular right now, but again, since on a bridesmaid dress is the only time we see that trend, it's doubtful that it will make the transition.

Consider price and who is paying for the dresses!  Obviously, whoever is paying has more control over the style.  Don't ask your bridesmaids to pay for a dress that they have had no input in choosing, and keep the price reasonable.

Regardless of who pays, the most important thing to consider when choosing the bridesmaids dresses is your bridesmaids themselves!  Ensure that this dress is an investment and that they will feel just as much a princess on your wedding day as you do.