Letting Maids Pick Their Dress

Carrie0930

For those of you who let or are letting your maids pick their own dresses, how much did you let them decide?  I am thinking of letting them pick anything as long as it is in the appropriate color, regardless of style, material or anything.

I am not sure about if I like cocktail length, tea length or long dresses.  My dress will definitely be long, but not too formal, although my sisters will be in the wedding and they will both be in their early 40s when I get married, so I don't know if they would be comfortable in shorter dresses, even though I typically like those better.  I am thinking I might just talk to each girl separately and see what she prefers/is comfortable in, and then choose a length that will make everyone happy.

[Deleted User]

You will probably get so many answers/suggestions on this. But I do think it is fine if he girls wear different length dresses.

This is what I did: I had 6 BM's and 2 different colors. I told them which color and the fabric and they chose the style. They were all knee length/cocktail dresses. There were 3-4 different styles for the 2 different colors (David's Bridal).

IMO, tea length is a weird length and not as comfortable as cocktail/knee length. I almost went tea length & changed my mind shortly before we went dress shopping as there was not much variety and options with tea length, of course I am talking about DB here. So you may have more options with other designers but those were the dresses that fit my girls' budgets & I couldn't see making them spend so much money on a designer dress.

Good luck!

amatadei

I went with a couple of my BMs and let them pick out what they were drawn to and try things on to see what was flattering. I knew what color I wanted so, based on what they liked and which color purple I liked, I compiled a list of those dresses my girls liked that were from one particular designer and were of the same fabric and length (floor-length, in my case). Then, I created a wish list on the designer's website that listed all the dress options (there were nine in total) and gave my girls a date by which they had to go try on these dresses and give me their top three. From there, I will assign them each a dress based on their preferences and what I think will look good from those preferences.

aerinpegadrak

I didn't tell mine a length.  Four of the girls ended up with exactly the same length (kind of freaky), the other one chose a long dress.  Since my brother was also on my side, they stood together and it looked nice and balanced.

kae101

I asked the girls which they preferred, and they all said floor length.  Then I went shopping with a couple of them, picked a designer & fabric, and they each picked a style from there.  I just picked up the dresses yesterday, and couldn't be happier!

Themis278

I just got threw doing this. Depending on your maids you might want to put some restrictions, here is why...

My girlsfriends (who've done this BM thing a time or two) were fine but my sister in laws who have never done this before were having hard times making choices and second guessing a lot of things. If you're girls are good with making choices, I'd say let me go for it within your color. In my case I wanted them to be the same length but I let them pick, being a november wedding they all picked long. And then as we went shopping we figured out that the taffita is a very different color then all the other fabrics so we decided together either all taffita or none - they picked none.

fairy_diva

I gave my girls:

A designer, Alfred Angelo: with sizes up to 30 anyone should be able to find one to fit

A color: Navy blue


Everything else was upto them.  We ended up with 4 floor length gowns, 2 different styles.  They decided they wanted floor length gowns since it was more formal.

kayakrunhike

It sounds like your best option would be to pick a color, and a general idea of what you don't want (eg- no boobs hanging out.  Even 40 year olds do this, one of them was at my wedding!).  I gave my girls a length, color and fabric within a designer, but all the dresses were the same price.  Since your BP is older in general, they may not be as into some of the designer styles available, eg- DB or Alfred Angelo. 

I would check with them, and see what they want to do.  It's wonderful that you're thinking about their comfort and what they might want to wear.  GL!

Beachy730

My MOH was 35, and my BMs ranged from 25-28 years old.  I picked a knee length style from David's Bridal.  My MOH had no problem with the lenth of the dress, she was more concerned with the neckline of the dress.  Originally I picked strapless for them, but as she said "her old lady boobs can't support a strapless dress."  DB has similar lines of dresses with different necklines, so she picked one with a different neck.  I offered all my BMs the choice after that, and 1 other picked that neck, and the other 3 went with the strapless.  I would talk to your BP and ask if there is anything that they wouldn't be comfortable wearing, whether it be a certain neckline or length, or even cut of dress.  Then go from there. 

careyblackmar

I'm doing this as well and I recently hit a speedbump in the BM dress planning because I had too FEW opinions.  Give them a length, color, designer, and fabric.  It really helps them to choose if they have some sense of limitations.

SSBT2010

I let my BMs pick their own dresses.  I went with them and we looked at dresses that we knew would be in the color that I wanted.  My wedding isn't going to be very formal, it's going to be more relaxed, so I wasn't too worried about having different style dresses.  My MOH ended up picking out one style that I really liked.  My two BMs ended up picking out the same dress as each other in a style was not my first choice, but it was what they were most comfortable in, so I was okay with it.  All three dresses are the same color and same length.