Me. Black satin ruffly dress that I look terrible in.
July.
Western Kentucky.
Hot.
Humid.
Sticky.
Did I mention it was July?
It’s a little-known fact, but in some jurisdictions, the marriage isn’t valid if the bridesmaids didn’t have bows on their butts. 
Who invented that, anyway? The same people who claim that the B&G smashing cake into each others’ face is a time-honored tradition?
I was a bridesmaid in a wedding last month, and my dress was plum purple, the alteration was so not finished and i popped the spaghetti strap off while getiing in the car. The lining was not attached to the dress properly and the MOH ripped hers all the way up the back.
Plus, on the way back from the liquor store, the MOH’s car stallled.
Forgive a dumb guy question. Butt bows I know, but what is an “empire line dress”?
Remember those dresses in Sense and Sensibility where the waist was right underneath the breast line & everyone looked either fat or 5 months pregnant?
That’s empire line.
I’ve never seen it look good on anyone. Ever.
Ahh. OK.
I’ve gotten in touch with my feminine side enough today. I’ll go back to watching tractor pulls, spittin’ and cussin’ . 
I’m a very not-girly girl, and I was in two weddings last year. One in June, one in September.
Both weddings, I had to wear heels. I have worn heels exactly one other time in my 26 years on this planet, and that was at my senior prom. I promptly took them off as soon as we got to the prom.
Did I mention I am very tall and skinny? The shoes I wore to the June wedding had 4 inch heels and made me 6’2". I was Amazon Bridesmaid. I was the tallest person in the wedding party. The photos/video have me with this look of sheer terror walking down the aisle, because I was so afraid I’d fall.
We won’t even get into my sad lack of cleavage and how everyone else was falling out of their tops and I had to pin mine in the back to keep it up…
And the really stupid thing is, it’s pronounced as if it were French: ahm-PEER, not EM-pire. Gack.
Oops. Rasa slipped in ahead of me; I was referring to Empire-waisted dresses à la the conversation between beagledave and amarinth.
Carry on.
I’m sure y’all didn’t expect a guy to post in this thread. heh. I’ll be brief:
As we speak, my girlfriend is off to be a bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding. Now, prepare for the Trump Card To Trump All Trump Cards: the mother of the bride, a woman who has no sewing experience, decided to make the dresses.
I haven’t seen them, but this is how my girlfriend described them: first, the tension on Mom’s sewing machine was apparently set too tight, because the seams are very tight. This maked the fabric bunch at the seams and look horrible.
The pattern called for a material such as satin. Instead, she elected to use taffeta, a much lighter fabric, meaning the dresses don’t hang properly; they “poof” more than they should.
And finally: my girlfriend’s been killing herself dieting and exercising to look good in her bridesmaid dress. She is a size 12, which is the largest any of the three bridesmaids wears. The dresses, for some inexplicable reason, came out in sizes 16, 18, and 22. Last I heard, they were still arguing about who would wear the 22.
It’s in another state and I have the bar exam to study for, so I couldn’t see this in person, sadly. I cannot WAIT to see these pictures.
My story is simple and can be told by simply presenting a time, 1988, and a set of words which should never appear together:
bright plum taffeta
convertible train
above the knee backslit
puff peplum
off the shoulder
bugle beads
sequins
leg-o-mutton sleeves
lace inlaid bodice
princess seams
tight straight skirt
tulle netting and silk flower headband
fingerless lace gloves
dyed to match 3 inch heels
wedding-bell appliqued pantyhose
matching costume pearl-like jewelry from Claire’s Boutique
matching manicures
mandatory dagger length fake nails
bright plum nailpolish
matching hairstyles
mandatory french twists with curly poufs on top
liberal applications of Aqua Net Super Hold for perfect helmet hair
a no eyeglasses rule for the wedding party (the hell?)
August
No air conditioning in the church
92 degrees by noon
Outdoor photographs that took 2.5 hours
No ice for the (soft) drinks at the reception
Nothing for vegetarians to eat at the reception except cookies and cake
5.5 hours between end of ceremony and service of cookies and cake
OK, so I can’t outdo tlw’s horror story, but I do have my own tale of woe.
A good friend of mine from college asked me to be in her wedding, and I stupidly agreed. I’m not a frou-frou sort of person, I don’t dig getting dressed up and all that, but I figured what the hell…everyone should be in a wedding at least once, right? Eh.
First of all, I was right out of college when she was holding her wedding and I didn’t have a ton of money to spend. Her parents were throwing her this enormously expensive $30k wedding (this was in 1994), so the dresses she picked out were close to $200, plus they required one of those big poofy slips, a special bra (we’ll get to this later), shoes, etc. I wasn’t thrilled but what can I do?
The dresses weren’t hideously unattractive or anything…they were black, off the shoulder strapless, cut straight across in front with this piece of material that went around the upper arms that had a white lace overlay. The only problem is that I am not exactly petite…and I’m also rather buxom. Or, to be more accurate, a LOT buxom. And she chose strapless gowns. Holy Hannah.
Now keep in mind, at 24 years old, I had never worn a strapless bra. Hell, I didn’t even know that they made a strapless bra for boobs my size. The contraption I finally found was almost corset-like and was the most excruciatingly painful item of clothing I’ve ever had on my body. I think that the side stays were made of structural steel. All I know is that whenever I tried to bend, the stays would flex and dig into my ribs and make me gasp.
The first thing I did at the reception was knock back a few Long Island iced teas. I don’t remember much after that.
Never again. I’ve decided that the true sign of friendship is being excused from being in my best friends’ weddings.
I also hang out at a wedding website where everyone is very, very nice to each other.
One day soon I will be found in the Pit, screaming at the walls because you cannot say anything negative to anyone over there, even if its for their own good.
For instance, to the girl who wants to dress all her bridesmaids in empire waist gowns with poofy sleeves for her Lord of the Rings wedding, I cannot address the following. “Child, are you on crack? Unless you hired these people, they are your friends, please treat them as such and put them in something that has a hope of flattering their figure! Even if you don’t think it looks elven.”
Thanks, that was beginning to hurt.
Wait a minute, ALL of you; what ever happened to the truly time-honored tradition of all the bridesmaid getting together and saying:
“We are NOT wearing that!”
Aside:
Women with slim hips look good in empire waists. So do bridesmaids who are four months pregnant and start to show the week-end before the wedding (that is why they are so popular.)
Do you still have this dress, does it happen to be a size 7 or 9, and if so, how much do you want for it? 
Am I the only one horrified at the statement in “A Titanic Wedding Disaster” where the mother of the bride was deciding who was going to be a bridesmaid, and who was not, based on whether or not they could be fitted into the dresses they just bought?
It’s a wedding, not a Busby Berkley musical - the friends of the bride should be included because they are the friends of the bride. No one is looking at them anyway.
I have no memory whatever of what the bridesmaids were wearing at my own nuptials, nor those of my sisters, nor of any other wedding I have attended or participated in.
The choreography shouldn’t be the point.
I have several memories of my wedding, and none of them concern the flowers, the bridesmaids dresses, or how closely it resembled the wedding scene in “The Sound of Music”.
It was mostly the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan in her wedding dress. Oooo-ee! Hot damn!
Regards,
Shodan
Nope, 'fraid not… the extra ‘e’ always applies to the female.
MrsWarrior was nice enough to consult the bridesmaids on the subject of dresses and shoes (she made suggestions to colour and style, and insisted they both wear the same thing, but otherwise they had pretty free choice) She was peeved, to say the least, when she was MOH recently and wasn’t accorded the same courtesy…
I luckily heard no bitching from my bridesmaids. After initially choosing something for them (long skirt and a choice of three or four top styles), I asked them to wear a long black dress. They complied. I was happy. They didn’t complain, so maybe they were happy with it as well.
I second the idea of making your own dresses - when I got married in '97 I had four attendents of varying sizes, shapes and coloring. There was no way I was going to find one particular style that they’d all like and feel comfortable in. So, I had them all find their own pattern in whatever style they wanted. My only caveat was that I wanted all the dresses to be floor-length (since it was a March-in-Wisconsin wedding, nobody had a problem with this). I picked out the fabric and once everybody had a pattern, they told me how many yards they needed and I sent them whatever amount of fabric they needed.
It turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself. The dresses were all very similar (two with long sleeves, two sleevless), but just different enough to be interesting. Since I paid for the fabric, it was fairly cheap for everyone to have their dresses made (less than some of the on-the-rack dresses I could have chosen) and everyone felt good about their dress.
Cricket