The Bridesmaids Dresses

I change my mind a lot. Case in point: the bridesmaids dress. My girls couldn't keep up with my emails regarding the dresses, since I kept finding new ones I liked. We decided to look for a chiffon fabric rather than a satin, since I felt it was keeping with the casual, country theme of the wedding. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of bridesmaids dresses in general and was hoping to avoid the standard, strapless satin dress. I also really wanted to keep the price reasonable, which I discussed with all the girls beforehand, so everyone was comfortable with the budget.

So into the wild hinterlands of the wonderful online world of bridesmaids dresses I went. Here's a few that I liked after some initial research (most of the websites I was looking at won't show the dress in another color, so you'll have to use your imagination and picture them all in a cornflower or sky blue.)

This Jenny Yoo dress is cute and I liked the sash but alas, it was too expensive.

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You can't go wrong with Vera Wang but sadly, not only were her dresses too expensive again but she didn't have anything remotely close to the color I was hoping for...Love this dress though...

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Then I found this dress on the Watters and Watters website and fell in love. A few more clicks revealed it was just at the high point of our dress budget and available at the mother of all bridesmaids stores, RK Bridal, conveniently located about 60 blocks south of me in New York city.

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I was pretty dead set on this one and even emailed the girls saying I thought this was the one. However, when I went down to see the dress in person, I was...eh. Maybe it was because the sample size was huge or that it had obviously been tried on by a lot of people but I just wan't in love with it. I looked at a few others while I was in that mecca of bridesmaids dresses but honestly, didn't really care for any of them. I was a little shocked but they really all felt like poor quality fabric, especially for the prices.

So I was back to square one, really unsure of where to look next. Way at the beginning of my search, I had scoured J Crew, thinking that would be the best and easiest route but they didn't have the color I was looking for. However, after my discouraging experiences looking at dresses, I decided to revisit my tried and true standby and good old Ja Crue did not disappoint. There, in the bridesmaid dress section, I found the perfect dresses and even better, they were on sale under our budget.

I gave my girls a choice of 4 different styles but in the end, 2 are wearing a strapless version and 2 are wearing a halter version. The dresses are a satin taffeta, totally different from my original idea of chiffon but they're so pretty, I didn't even care. And so, without further delay, I present my bridesmaids dresses, in all their glory:

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Well, this is only one version, 2 of them picked a version of this dress without the straps but you get the idea. I love these dresses, I think all the girls will look gorgeous in them, they're flattering and will look pretty in the pictures. We're thinking yellow accessories but that's a whole 'nother post.

Did you have a bridesmaids dress saga? How'd you end up finding your dresses? Can I get a J Crew shoutout?