I was out recently with my friends Reuben & Rachel who are getting married in May. Rachel mentioned that she was looking for purple bridesmaid dresses, which I had - the rich, jewel-toned dress was the perfect background for bright, vibrant flowers which I knew I wanted.
Much to Rachel's dismay, the dresses aren't available anymore. I found them completely by accident about a month after Sam and I got engaged in 2008. We were seeing a movie at The Grove and walked by Banana Republic on our way to the theatre - I did a double take as we passed by and made Sam turn around and go back to the store so we could scope out the flash of purple that caught my eye. Turns out that it was a knee-length, cap-sleeved, inexpensive, jewel-toned dress: all of my requirements for the bridesmaid dress I hadn't event started looking for yet. I sent an email to all of my girls that night after the movie and they all ran out and got it the next day. On sale. Leah even had a coupon. I think the most anyone paid for their dress was $89.
I also know that at least three of the girls have worn it since the wedding, which is a total bonus. It's unrealistic to expect that anyone will re-wear a dress that was forced upon them, no matter how much the bride loves it, so I didn't set out with that in mind when I was thinking about dresses for my ladies. I did, however, want to find a dress that wasn't uber-pricey - just because I had the power to pick their outfits, didn't give me the right to break their banks, too.
Which brings me back to Rachel, and the advice I gave her about her bridesmaid dresses: get something off the rack. It's easy, usually less expensive, and the chances of repeat usage go up exponentially.
Here are some options that you can find right now, on the rack at your local retailer (Rach, the purple ones are especially for you!):
Of course, I also found some non-purple options that I liked a lot, too. Some of these aren't your traditional, run-of-the-mill bridesmaid getup, but there's nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit.
There are so many great options out there, I could go on forever. What do you guys think? Have you seen any other fun bridesmaid dresses lately?
P.S. Sorry if the formatting is a little off in this post - I used a PC for this one instead of my mac and everything's all funky on me. I tried to fix it, but if its still weird, please accept my apologies.
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