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My choice of wedding dress did make it a little more complicated. My dress has a burgundy sash on it, so in order for the idesmaids' dresses to match perfectly, they had to order Alfred Angelo dresses.
Originally, I wanted my idesmaids to match. I liked that cohesive look. However, when I realized that the chance of finding one dress that all of them liked was unrealistic, I decided that they could choose their dresses with a few stipulations: 1) It had to be Alfred Angelo, 2) It had to be in the color 'claret' (aka burgundy), 3) It had to be knee-length, and 4) it had to be strapless. That gave them at least 20 choices.
So here I am, a totally laid-back ide, right? Uh, well, then I ran into the problem that at least three out of the six wanted the same dress. That kind of defeats the purpose of similar-but-equal dresses, right?
Here's the dress they all wanted:
Well, to tell you the truth, I love this dress. So I can't say I was super-disappointed when I was convinced by my mom and her friend that all the idesmaids (sans my sister, the maid of honor) should wear this dress. It also didn't hurt that at $108, this is one of the cheaper idesmaid dresses I've encountered.
In case you're wondering, my sister chose this dress:
OK, so now the question was -- where should the idesmaids order the dresses? Here's a tidbit I never knew: Bridesmaids should all order their dresses from the same store at the same time to ensure the dresses will be made from the same fa ic lot. Apparently, you risk the dyes not matching exactly if you don't do that.
Well, shoot. There were reasons for multiple stores. If the idesmaid here in MD orders through the local store, she would get free alterations. If the idesmaid in NY orders there, she would get 15 percent off her order. If we order from the store in Arizona, it's much cheaper than anywhere else.
I hate inconveniencing people, but it's what I had to do. I had to send out an email making a decision - we were ordering from the store in Arizona to get the cheapest price. It was the logical thing to do.
So I went from matchy-matchy idesmaids to choose-you-own back to matchy-matchy. I guess you can never tell what's going to happen when trying to deal with six different girls!
On a side note, I'm a idesmaid in a wedding three weeks after mine, and the ide just choose our dresses. (She didn't seem to have the same problems as I did, strangely enough...) I just love the dress she chose:
