Survey: Who chose Bridesmaid Dresses

When it comes to dresses for your bridesmaids, or "ladies in waiting" as I like to call them, did you consider their opinion when choosing the dress? Did you choose the dress or did they choose? Did they have any input at all?

I asked each lady what was their budget for a dress. By doing this, this helped eliminate looking at dresses I may have loved but they could not afford. Next I asked if they wanted long or short dresses and what kind of neckline did they want. Everyone wanted long dresses with straps. I am happy I asked because I was going to get long dresses, but they were going to be strapless. I also considered the ladies heights and body types when choosing a dress. Even though it was my wedding day, I still wanted each lady to be happy with their dress and possibly wear it again for another occassion. I chose the color and the actual style of dress.

I had them choose their own dresses as long as they were gray. my cousin wore a cute suit because she does not like to wear dresses. 

What a nightmare my bridesmaid dress shopping was!  I had chosen a dress that I thought would look good on all body types then made a plan to meet up with the ladies in Atlanta.  Two of my ladies convinced me to let them look at other styles and boy were they all over the map.  That was the most frustrating trip ever and I came away more frustrated.  I spent countless hours after that trip looking at bridesmaid dresses online and watching literally HOURS of bridal/wedding shows online such as Say Yes To The Dress Bridesmaids.  Every dress I thought would fit my theme and look great on the girls was kicked back to me by at least one of my ladies (who range in size from 8-24).

Chosing bridesmaid dresses nearly brought me to tears and was one of the most frustrating of all the planning issues.  A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I set out to visit three local bridal stores in search of the perfect dress.  We both ended up falling in love with a dress that I never in a million years would have thought that I would love - in a patterned fabric that I never thought that I would love.  The dress was in the price range of the girls and I decided to put my foot down and insist that they all order this dress.  Dresses were ordered yesterday and all I can say is thank God that portion of the wedding planning is OVER.

This is what I chose:

I choose that they would be long, but they choose the final color and they each picked the style they wanted. On my bio is all 6 different dresses in the color we choose that was Truffle

What an awesome thread and I have to confess that my awesome MatOH found their dresses.  I found a few that I liked, but they were a little out of budget, so she took a few hours and searched, and found one that I ended up loving much more than the ones I chose, and the BEST PART....they were half the price.  : )

Here is what my gals wore (but in truffle from David's Bridal):

Aww drats Memphis Bride! So sorry this was a frustrating experience for you but the dress you chose is gorgeous and they can wear it again! 

I have picked them out I hope they like them.

I only had one BM/MOH -I picked the dress out, but sent her the picture to make sure she liked it :) she picked out her own shoes though. I'm lucky everything worked out! This is the only picture I could find here you could see most of the dress -it was tea length :)

I picked out a couple that I liked with multiple price points.  I let them look through them all and pick out which one they liked the best.  I also told them what color I wanted it to be in but that was pretty much it.  I tried to consider all of their different styles and body types.  I think I choose seven different dresses and I have a total of three BM's.  Here is what they picked out for themselves:

My bridesmaids had a good amount of say in their dresses (I think..?) I told them I was envisioning long and strapless and they all said they liked that (except my sister). My sister did not want strapless and I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable but I felt like it would look weird for her to be the only one with straps. They looked through the dresses and asked me which ones I liked/didn't like and then they tried them on. As a whole we narrowed it down to two and then I made the final decision. I did ask them if they were comfortable with the price and the dress we decided on actually has on strap which I think appeased my sister a bit!

Here it is, just in a different color: