Weddingbee boards

after seeing/hearing about so any BM's stuck in dresses they thought were ugly or found terribly unflattering to their figures, i've decided that what i'm going to do is pick a designer (say, Jim Hjelm or Priscilla of Boston, because i LOVE their BM dresses) and say, pick whichever style you like as long as it comes in the right color.  that way i know that the colors will match pretty much perfectly, which is very important to me, while the BM's will be comfortable.  i think this is a good compromise.  can anyone see any flaws in this?  how much leverage did you give your BM's in picking their own dresses?

(i should add that i'll be paying for a portion of everyone in the bridal party's dresses.)

I pretty much told my girls to pick whatever dress they wanted in a certain color (shades could even differ). Somehow, they all ended up picking the same Dessy dress. Haha! My MOH just got hers in a slight different shade, so she stood out, but other than that, they all liked the same dress .. and an actual BM dress (non department store dress) to boot. It was weird, but they all looked beautiful and amazing.

Knee-length and a cooler shade of purple (meaning blue rather than red undertones) were my only requirements. So far, I've gotten a lot of "Will this work?" emails from them, but no one has actually chosen a dress.

it's interesting to see everyone's replies. i'm kind of curious to know if there's any correlation between formality of the wedding and amount of leverage given to BM's to choose their dresses.  the reason i really want the shades to match is that we're having a formal wedding AND i absolutely HATE the sight of clashing 'similar but not close or different enough' shades right next to each other. it's just something that's bothered me all my life. if i saw that every time i looked at my wedding pictures, i'd cringe.  

I guess I was an oppressive bride, hehe, but I picked a color and style I knew would look good on all of them.  My wedding was pretty conservative, and 99% of the dresses didn't have enough coverage for my personal preference.  Besides, it was a winter, church wedding, so I doubt they minded the extra coverage...it's TX, so not toooo bad, but there was a cold breeze that day.

and, for what it is worth, I have been a bridesmaid at least 5 times and was always told what to buy and even often told what color shoes and given the jewelry I was supposed to wear....I told the ladies to wear whatever accessories they wanted but recommended closed toe brown/bronze shoes.

i just sent the info to my bridesmaids about their dresses! they're choosing from from 3 dresses in the same color and fabric by the same designer and that all have similar detailing. the maid of honor picked her dress, and the bridesmaids can choose either the strapless (which could also be halter) or non-strapless version. i was thinking i'd give them more options than that, but these 3 dresses look amazing together and with my gown 

hotchildinthecity, i agree, of course it is okay to have unmatching dresses in a formal wedding...i don't believe in many 'wedding rules'.  i just was wondering if a bride having a formal wedding is more likely to be more controlling about the sort of dress her BM's wear.

I chose 5 dresses from the same designer which have the style I am looking for but are cut in varying levels of modesty and coverage. I have one BM with huge boobs but who likes skin, another who recently lost weight but has loose skin issues, and a third who is Orthodox Jewish! I've been stressing like crazy about finding a dress that would look good on them all, so I decided to give them more choice.

My BM's will choose a dress in Navy, that looks good on them, that they can afford, and that they'll wear again. Other than that, my only parameters are "no offending Grandma" and "Be mindful of the weather". :-)

we chose together at macy's. it was an awesome shopping day!