First Things First. Bridesmaid Dresses!

Okay, so maybe BM dresses weren't first on The Knot's checklist. Maybe I should've tried on bridal gowns first. But then again, since when do I follow the checklists in order? I have a 7-month engagement! I've been way off the checklists since the beginning due to the "12+ months" and "8-12 months" sections! So, bridesmaid dresses. Yep. They came first. The first dresses I tried on for my wedding were actually bridesmaid dresses. Yep. I tried them on. Let me explain.

With my MOHsister home from college in January, I set a deadline of having the dress picked before she left Cypress to go back to school. I was a bride on a mission.

My criteria were simple:

1. Navy
2. Floor-length (because if I'm going to wear a long dress, everyone else should have to too!)
3. NOT shiny. No satin, no silk.

 Of course, once I set the criteria, I immediately fell in love with a dress that broke one of them. Here it is, in all of its satiny shiny glory:

Priscilla of Boston - Vineyard Collection

But with less-than-stellar reviews from "the MOH and the MOB" (as they like to refer to themselves), I kept looking. It was also a bit over the $170 price cap I set for myself (you know, since I have all those college student bridesmaids), so I said goodbye to the pretty Priscilla of Boston dress and moved on.

To further complicate things, most of my bridesmaids live in College Station, which isn't exactly abundant in bridal dress shops, so I really needed some sort of popular chain store they could find in C-Stat. Since I had my heart set on long dresses, the non-bridal stoes like J.Crew were mostly out, so I made a trip to the dress-your-wedding superstore, David's Bridal. David's also worked well with my less-than-$170 plan. My consultant was a lovely women named Mari, and she took my set of criteria and pulled these dresses:

Navy. Long. Chiffon. Well done, Mari.

I loved this one.

My MOHsister hated it. In fact, she didn't really like any of the dresses we originally pulled out. But she loved this one:

And she looked lovely in it. At this point, I made a discovery that every bride shoul make for the sake of her bridesmaids: Different dresses fit differently on different girls. Obvious, right? But, I had overlooked it initially. I had picked the dresses that I would naturally pick for myself. My MOHsister isn't shaped like me, and she looked great in the dress. So it was settled, she'd wear the dress she liked.

But, while the dress looked amazing on her, I was worried about my other girls. My sister and I have very different body types. I'm altogether small. Short, thin, little feet. She's tall and gorgeous, with a face that's long enough to pull off earrings that dangle more than an inch below the earlobe (I'm jealous). Oddly enough, most of the other bridesmaids are more me-sized than sister-sized.

So, without the me-sized bridesmaids there to speak for themselves, I tried on bridesmaid dresses for my own wedding. And I was pretty much happy with all of them!

So in the end, I decided to put my MOHsister in the dress she picked, and then let the other girls pick out of the other four. If they all want the same one, great. If they pick 4 different dresses, great too. I DO NOT want one of my best friends to feel self-conscious about her dress on my wedding day, so hopefully they can all find one that they love!

There they are! Oh, I forgot to tell you about my little bridesmaid? Just wait...I'll post about it soon!

(All images from David's Bridal)

This weekend we're all making the trip to Houston to pick dresses for the other BMs (yeah...turns out College Station doesn't even have a David's Bridal or an Alfred Angelo)...I'll be back next week with a report!!