I think we should have a virtual bridesmaids’ party, where we all come dressed in the hideousities we’ve been forced to wear, we point and laugh at each other, and a prize goes to the most gawdawful.
What am I wearing, you ask?
The dress I wore as a bridesmaid in '93. It has a white background, but you can hardly see that for the HUGE mauve and purple CABBAGE ROSES printed all over it. Yes, it does look like your grandma’s couch cover. And it comes complete with poofy sleeves aaaaaaaand . . . a great big BUTT BOW! I’m telling you, greater love hath no friend than to be seen in public with this baby on.
So . . . who else is coming to this party, and what are you wearing?
I’m wearing the dress my best friend forced me to wear in her wedding in … 1998, I think.
My best friend is Korean, and had us wear these spaghetti-strap, skin-tight, BRIGHT RED Chinese dresses.
It looked great on her older sister, a size 3 Korean girl. Didn’t look so great on her younger sister, who was probably a size 14. Of the other three bridesmaids, myself and one other girl had arses too big for the dress; myself and the other girl are redheads. Even my mother said I looked like Bozo the Clown in the dress. I actually had to bring my dress to the hairdresser and say “do something to my hair so I can wear this”. I ended up walking down the aisle with ghastly blonde streaks in my hair … but believe me, it was an improvement.
It’s amazing, because when you look at the photos, we all (apart from Size 3 Girl) look incredibly uncomfortable. But to this day Best Friend doesn’t get this. We were talking about her wedding the last time I saw her and she went off on this long soliloquy about how proud she was that she didn’t pick the “typical” bridesmaid dress, finishing with “I still think I had the prettiest bridal party ever”.
Heh, I’ll give you the picture of me in my sister’s wedding. This took place a year after my best friend’s, and the first thing my sister asked me was “what colour dress do you want to wear”
I feel so left out. Apart from being a “Junior Bridesmaid” for my cousin when I was about 10, I’ve never been an attendant in a wedding. I did scripture readings for one sister, sang for another sister, was a guest at my brother’s, and didn’t attend my last sister’s. The only time I attended a girlfriend’s wedding, I was a face in the crowd. And I had no attendants myself, as we eloped during lunch one day.
No ugly dresses
No butt bows
No dyed-to-match shoes
You could promptly remove it after the ceremony and
Opal did not assure you that you could wear it to other parties afterwards.
I was only suckered into one dress which was purchased for my by my dear sister-in-law. It was grayish beige (?!) and covered in scratchy lace and generally resembled something hurriedly made from an old table cloth.
Then she cancelled the wedding without returning either the amount I spent on the dress or the cash we had sent her as a present (her idea–she actually wanted us to pay for the photography but we declined.) At least I didn’t have to wear the dress.
But before I leave, please allow me to hijack this thread with a somewhat funny wedding story.
A fraternity brother of mine got married this past May in Alexandria, VA. Being the courteous New Yorker that I am, I brought White Castle hamburgers down from NYC for the bachelor party. The ample supply (about 100 burgers) survived the bachelor party and were still around in the groom’s hotel room on the day of the wedding.
The bride told another fraternity brother of mine that she was looking in a jacket that the groom had worn on that day. She found a 3-month-old (yet perfectly preserved) White Castle double cheeseburger in the pocket last week.
Bridesmaid’s Revenge: Some comedienne spoke of how she was a bridesmaid for six of her friends. She kept the dresses. When it was her time to be married, she was going to make each of those friends wear the very same monstrocity she had to wear for their weddings. Bwahahaha! Don’t know if it really happened though.
Oh, and the attendant’s dress I had to wear was quite nice. It was a flattering green color with subtle, yet complementary accents. It was also made for someone who chickened out the night before the wedding. She was seven inches shorter and two sizes larger than me at the time.
I had a purple lace dress - I am a green-eyed redhead. The combination looked like a horrible accident in the Jelly Belly factory.
Furthermore, the dress had an enormous poofy skirt with butt bow, metallic silver trim, little silver fingerless gloves (think Michael Jackson meets Frederick’s of Hollywood), and a giant floppy Southern Belle hat. I can only think that the bride secretly hated us all, because she also made us carry big purple parasols.
When my sister got married, she made us wear these horrible shiny satin maroon dresses that had the strangest stiching in the bust- all of us had very Madonna-like pointy tits as we walked down the aisle. In every photo from that wedding, I am holding my flowers so that my you’ll-put-someone’s-eye-out-with-those tits are well hidden.
I had no bride’s maids in my wedding because I find it to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment.
My sis got hitched in April and her only rule was that we had to wear all black. I wore a suit, one wore a dress, one a skirt and top. Now, ** that’s **how it should be.
Good God! That Titanic story is horrible. I felt bad for the girl just reading it!
I happened to be a bridesmaid last saturday. The dresses actually were not horrible. There were 7 bridesmaids and we wore a floor length ball skirt with each of us having a different style top. It was a metallic, very dark plum material and was really comfortable to wear. I liked the idea of us all wearing different tops to suit our style/shape. The skirt was flattering on everyone. And it was cheap. Less than $150 for the top, skirt and wrap.
Not that I’m ever wearing it again. It was nice but it was still a bridesmaid dress. And it’s purple.
I’ve been a bridesmaid in one other wedding. The dress is a pink number, with the ruffled off-the-shoulder thingies, and the big poofy skirt. It’s a soft pink, solid, with no flower patterns or anything. I actually looked decent in it. And I got some wear out of it afterwards, believe it or not. Wore it myself, and loaned it out, as a nifty Halloween costume.
Next weekend, I’m going to be an bridesmaid for a friend who is renewing her wedding vows. Can’t talk about that dress here, though, because it looks utterly fabulous on me.
Sophie, you’re dead on. I’ve been to some weddings like that, and I thought they looked much cooler than the “Rows of Gingerbread Misses” you usually see up there.
If only I could fit into the melon-colored dress I wore as a flower girl in 1971. Melon-colored doubleknit polyester with lime-green ribbon accents.
I am writing from my parents’ house and the thing is upstairs as I speak. I’ll have to go laugh at it.
The bridesmaids’ dresses I’ve been forced to wear weren’t too awful, but lord they were expensive. That’s another thread.
