Going Against the Grain: Bridesmaids Dresses

After my last post about eschewing tradition and doing what makes you as a couple happy when planning your wedding was well received by other brides experiencing similar challenges, I wanted to share more non-traditional wedding plans that I have with everyone. This will be my first post in a new series I've felt inspired to begin, called Going Against the Grain.
 
I am not one of those brides that ever expected her bridesmaids to wear the exact same dress, so I guess even in that I was being non-traditional.  However, bridesmaids wearing different styles of dresses has become much more popular and common, and my initial plan was to have my bridesmaids wear a dress from JCrew that was the same color/material, and they could choose the style they liked best, since they were purchasing their dresses themselves. 

Given that I wanted to keep costs down and keep things simple, I figured that this should be no problem as I am only having two bridesmaids anyway, my sister and my future sister-in-law.  I discussed potential dress colors with my mom and bridesmaids, and then decided upon having the girls wear navy dresses, as this would be the most flattering color on both of them, who have very different skin tones.  After browsing online with my sister-in-law, she decided that she liked a strapless style in silk taffeta, which we thought would be a good material for a winter wedding. She promptly ordered it, and was happy with her choice, so things went smoothly there.

My sister, the MOH, was a different story. She was adamantly against strapless, as she has a larger bust, so she ordered a wrap style.  The first one was too large, so she exchanged it for a size smaller, but then still found it very unflattering and "tent-like."  I thought the dress was adorable, and was disappointed that she was unhappy. 

She also ordered another style with spaghetti straps, and was still unpleased. At this point, we were both getting stressed out, and I was worried that there was very little time left to order more dresses and return them.  I decided to browse the selection at Ann Taylor, which we had originally looked at, but didn't have any navy dresses.  They had some new dresses in stock, and even had a navy color, but it was not exactly the same as the JCrew color.  It wouldn't be fair to ask my SIL to return her JCrew dress since she loved it, so I lamented over what to do.

Part of me wanted to be a b*%ch and tell my MOH to suck it up and keep the third JCrew dress, because I didn't have the time or energy to figure out an alternate plan with everything else I had on my plate now that we were towards the end of our planning process. But then I felt guilty because I am not paying for her dress, so she has a right to get something she wants (though I know most other brides would disagree).  Ultimately, I found a dress in silver (another one of our colors) silk taffeta at Ann Taylor, and my MOH decided to order it. She ended up keeping it, finally!

In the end, I think it will actually be cool to have the MOH stand out and to have one girl in navy and one in silver. I could have gotten all bridezilla and freaked out about this, but I'm glad I decided to keep my cool and not stress too much over having everything be "perfect." I always said I wanted to have a unique wedding, and here is another way I'm getting one :-)