OT I am not sewing that wedding

sounds like a good idea all the way around and the mother of the bride wont be in a major flap for weeks in advance nor the night before the wedding so you should enjoy the festivities alot more than had you made all the dresses. also you wont be out of pocket as i'm sure you would be from the sounds of it. keep smile'n!! j.

"NightMist" wrote... I have told my daughter that she is going to have to buy dresses for her bridesmaids and herself.

The wedding is at the end of May, and the only measurements I have are for my daughters, I have seen not a thread of fabric nor a dime to aquire any.

It is not as if she is trying to be a bad client, it is more that she lives several states away, one of her bridesmaids (his family) is being a pain, and she is trying to do _everything_ by herself.

I did help her sort out what dress she wants and where to get it based on the design we had already haggled out.

This one in cobalt (second last box on the color chart)

She has tried on a sample gown, ordered the thing, and it should be in in February. Curiously enough she could have ordered it in August and it would have come in in February, so I guess that is a no harm no foul.

She has at least settled on her color scheme, royal and gold.

NightMist and I let her go a month beyond where I would have told a paying client I was done.

You have to preserve your own health and sanity - there's no rule anywhere that says you have to sacrifice your entire life for 5 months stressing about sizes, fittings, and fabric, when it's not necessary.

Musicmaker, who's glad she had a son 'cause a daughter wouldn't be speaking to her by now!

I'm afraid I just don't 'get' bridesmaids' dresses. Such a dreadful waste of money and time. I also don't get why most brides must choose a strapless gown even if their upper arms look like ham hocks. Don't people have mirrors anymore? And you are so smart not to sew that wedding. What are the chances that one bridesmaid will gain 30 pounds, one will be in her 2nd trimester and one will run off and join the circus? Waaaaaaah. Go hide. Polly

When a friend of mine got married, she had bridesmaids in all shapes and sizes, and no one dress would look good on everybody, so this is what she did -- she bought fabric! Each bridesmaid was given plenty of fabric, and told to make or have made an outfit made to please the bridesmaid to wear in the wedding and then keep forever and -- hopefully! -- be able to enjoy for other occasions. They all looked lovely, and all were very happy, and all of the outfits were different. The young, skinny girl came up with a cocktail dress with lots of skin and slits from here to there, plus a rather flowing overcoat for modesty during the wedding. The plus-size lady came up with a really elegant caftan. The middle-age lady came up with a lovely soft dress and jacket. The 30-something corporate executive came up with a very chic cocktail dress she now can wear to formal corporate parties. It was a lovely wedding, and the photos are terrific! Oh -- and one of the bridesmaids made evening bags for everybody from "scraps". Another of the bridesmaids had a pair of lovely toss pillows made from her "scraps" as a gift for the bride. A third had a dress made for her 6 year old daughter from her "scraps", and the bride decided to let the little girl be a flower girl as a surprise, and the child was thrilled. (She hadn't planned on a flowergirl for the wedding.)

Now 'that' makes so much sense. Why not? Polly

Brilliant sollution!

You are so right about bridesmaids! I was making their dresses, and the middle one was 14 - and growing like a weed! I didn't hem it until 3 days before the wedding >g< . In message , Polly Esther writes

In the last 2 years DH had both a son and a daughter get married (not to each other, LOL). Both weddings the brides chose BLACK as their bridesmaid color. The bridesmaids were asked to buy a black dress. No particlular style. The idea was that everyone would have use of a black dress later, and each could pick something that would suit them.

The daughter's wedding pulled off the black not too bad. (I'm old fashioned, black is for funerals). She had lots of color in her flowers and decorations. The son's wedding, well they chose black as their decorating color and it felt rather goulish!

But it did save on trying to find a dress that would fit and suit each member of the bridal party.

|Marilyn in Alberta, Canada

I think generally the idea is to be ugly so that the bride looks all the better? I have a photo of my niece at her wedding. She is quite trim and beautiful but a couple snapshots I took from my seat during the ceremony look like she could be naked as a jay bird. Strapless isn't the greatest even for non ham hock gals sometimes. That is a beautiful dress Nightmist. Love the back detail. Don't look at the snapshots from during the ceremony. lol

Polly Esther wrote:

The only time I was a bridesmaid I had to buy my own dress. When I got married the 2 bridesmaids were about 9 and lived a distance away so their mothers made their dresses and I provided the fabric. The only problem was the shoes which were ballet shoes I had beaded. Despite getting generous sizes one complained they were too small. Her mother told her to screw up her toes small!

DD didn't have any bridesmaids. She wanted a very simple dress so it didn't come from a bridal outlet, but from a popular national retail shop - it was full length creamy silk with thin straps and was just straight, really an evening dress. It cost about 1/10th of most bridal gowns, and I paid. She is very slim and doesn't really have upper arms.

Sally at the Seaside~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Patti wrote:

At a friend's wedding, the two bridesmaids wore deep red cocktail dresses. A little bit unorthodox, but they looked great and the dresses were definitely useable later on.

I wonder if this is a tradition in some parts of the UK, when I got married, I asked my two best friends to be bridesmaids as well as my sister. We decided to buy evening dresses off the shelf (or at least that was where we started looking and found something we all liked so we didn't have to think of a backup plan) at some point in time it became evident that my two friends expected to pay for their dresses. I have great admiration for them as at the time neither was earning much and the dresses were on the pricey side and they never batted an eyelid, I felt priviledge they would make that sacrifice for me. My parents were fully aware of their status and my sister was a student, so also had no spare cash, they didn't think twice about including dresses in their budget.

Cheers Anne

I wonder if it's the price of custom dress making, so they go for something at the bottom end of the range, or that can be done by your average home dress maker. The more fitted it is, the more difficult it is and up goes the price, as you need more fittings, make some kind of smock and all you need to know is the rough dress size and the height. I bought my wedding dress off the shelf and as wedding dresses go it was very cheap, about $350 (we were in the UK at the time). It was a gorgeous fitted dress and heavily beaded, you could easily multiply that price by 10 to have it made. I wanted something along the same lines for the bridesmaids, but I was very flexible, my colour requirement being vaguely pinky purple and though beads were top of my list of embellishment, as long as it looked in keeping with my dress I didn't mind. We went to a department store, similar to Macy's and there was one that fitted the bill perfectly, but several others that would have been just fine and the price was similar to getting an unfitted dress made, thankfully the first choice fitted and suited all the bridesmaids, even though they were all quite different figures.

I don't know if we'd have thought to do it that way, but for the fact I had wondered through that store randomly not long before we were discussing this kind of thing. None of us owned a really nice evening dress and didn't really have any idea where to buy such a thing and it was only that random trip that made me realise just what was available and that the price was way better than in the store that was specifically aimed at bridesmaids dresses and the styling way beyond what we would have been happy to pay a dressmaker.

Cheers Anne

Oooooh, that's a *gorgeous* dress! :)

When one of my sisters was married, my other sister and I wore very tailored but soft silk cream-colored shirts, and had ribbon skirts made --- hers was in blues and golds, and mine was in greens and golds. We both wore the bejeebers out of those skirts for years! In case you're not familiar with ribbon skirts, they are skirts literally made of ribbons. We each chose skads of ribbons, from very fancy and very wide to very narrow and simple and everything inbetween, and some were very expensive and others much more reasonable in cost. We laid them out on large tables in an order that looked good, and the lady who was going to make the skirts had great suggestions, too, and numbered each ribbon from top to bottom. It took 5 feet of each ribbon, and the lady who made them stitched the ribbons together very carefully at the edges into a fabric, and then added a simple back zipper, front inverse deep pleat, several pleats the rest of the way around, and waistband made of a 2" wide heavy tapestry ribbon. Oh -- and the ribbons were set going around rather than up and down. The skirts were simply elegant!

I don't think it was because of tradition that we were expected to pay, just that that particular bride's parents expected us to. I had never been a bridesmaid before, I was quite young and knew little about weddings, and when we were asked by the bride's mother if the price was acceptable, we said it was and so paid. (This was in 1963ish) I think I would have been uncomfortable at the time for the brides parents to have paid unless I had been told at the beginning they were going to, but that's just me. They did pay for the shoes to be dyed to match the dresses though.

I remember the bride wore a 'meringue' from the most expensive bridal shop, and the 4 bridesmaids completely dwarfed the small bride and groom. I never really liked my dress, and only wore it once afterwards.

For my wedding I knew the fabric and pattern I wanted for the little bridesmaids, and it was obvious that their mothers, who both sewed, would make the dresses.

Sally at the Seaside~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Anne Rogers wrote:

That has been a very popular gown this year. DD almost got a similar one in green. They are really pretty on the girls. Good luck with all the preparations.

I sewed the bridesmaids' dresses for my son's and my daughter's weddings. The brides knew what they wanted and the "maids" were cooperative, so all went well. Dresses looked nice and they saved quite a bit of money. DD's maids were very pleased with their dresses -- they all thought they were something they could wear again -- and they were washable. DDIL's maids liked the pockets I put in the seams of their full skirts.

Julia > You have to preserve your own health and sanity - there's no rule