a35362, I read not only the Titanic story but many others on that site. I am now curled up in a little ball, thanking every god I can think of that:
[ul]
[li]I am a man, and therefore I get to wear a tux in wedding parties and have a near-total guarantee of looking like a million bucks every time; and[/li][li]I am gay, and that tax dollars are being spent to ensure that I will never find myself at risk for being caught up in a nightmare like that on my own behalf.[/li][/ul]
mild hijack. please forgive me. perhaps I should start running right now anyway.
I’ve read the Titanic story before, and I just loved the woman telling it because she had the guts to say no, the brains to have scoped out the mall beforehand, and the wit to tell a story like that without sounding like a bitch to the woman who was supposed to make the dresses. I highly recommend the site as a whole “Etiquette Hell”. It should be required reading for those planning weddings.
You know, I tried to get my bridesmaids to pick out their own dresses. “Just get something in black,” I said.
They protested, “Tell us what you want us to wear!”
“Fine, black and either sleeveless or with cap sleeves.”
“How long do you want them?”
“Whatever looks best on you.”
“What should they look like?”
“Just pick out something that looks fabulous on you.”
“I don’t know what to get!”
“Get something you feel beautiful in.”
“But what if mine looks completely different than the others?”
“All the better! I am not going to make you spend money on something you don’t like. Get something you’ll wear again.”
On and on and on. Finally, a month before the wedding, they pressured (and I mean, pressured) me into picking out a dress for them all to wear. Keeping in mind that I had one brunette, one blonde, and two redheads, ranging in size from a 4 to a 14, it was damn hard. They finally wound up with simple black sheaths that cost $100, that I dressed up with a long scarf that they draped across their necks and down their backs. I thought it looked marvelous, but I never could shake the guilt in making them spend even $100 (reasonable for a bridesmaid’s dress) for something I bet they’ll never wear again, since it was my taste rather than theirs. Frustrating, but there you have it.
Me? I’ve been one my requisite three times (and I was, in fact, a bride after all). Once in a ruffled lavendar thing with both a butt bow AND a rosette at the hip, tea length, but longer in the back than the front. Rawr. Another was a strapless (so very cruel) thing that only looks good on models. Also lavendar and shiny, so as to accent my tummy pooks (you know, the little deposits of fat on each side of the belly-button). Severe girdling didn’t entirely save it.
But for now I shall wear the sort of canvas, knee-length sheath from the Coldwater Creek catalogue. It was a cream color with a fern pattern on it. The first one I ordered was too tight, and by the time the second one came, there was no time to tailor it in from its bag-like shape. But at least it was only $48.
the titanic wedding would make an excellent movie moment. why didn’t they just buy the dresses from j peterman? they could have saved his company!!!
getting bridesmaid dresses from a bridal store is a horrible mistake. the dresses are usually icky and extremely high priced. you can do much better at a department store or somewhere like laura ashley.
in philly we have a charity ball where all the women wear their “favourite” bridesmaids dress. it is almost as popular as the fur ball.
I have been a bridesmaid exactly once. It was my brother’s wedding, and the dresses weren’t that bad looking on the website.
Once I got it and tried it on, however, that was another matter. The bridesmaids ranged from 12 to 26(me) years old.
Empire style waist and thin straps that crossed on the back, making a bra impossible to wear.
I had to go braless, which in the Rhode Island chill evening and my DD glory was all too obvious. Others among the bridesmaids had to pin the dresses to whatever they managed to wear for undergarments. None of us looked good, and the shoes fit horribly. I left mine in my hotel room when I left, and the dress didn’t move to Atlanta with me. I think it ended up in the dumpster when I moved from Mississippi.
When my sister got married (5 years ago - now divorced, hmmmm), I was much heavier than I ever was. The wedding party consisted of ages 10-35 (groom’s sister and myself were the older ones). My sister just told us to pick what we wanted. We “older” gals wanted something to just cover us up. Unfortunately, the groom’s sister picked out the dresses - forest green velvet on the top, green taffeta skirt - tea length, with (get this!) puffy sleeves and a sweetheart neckline. Matching velvet shoes completed the outfit. The dress ended up being at least two sizes too small for my increasing bulk - I wore 2 bodyshapers and extreme control top hose. The hairdresser poofed out my ever-so-permed hair. As I gaze at the photos I realize I look just like a giant pine tree.
Naff pink frills which was entirely too girly for words. Bloody horrible. It was for my sister’s wedding and twenty years later I’m still pissed off that she didn’t ask me to help pick it out. Instead her large best friend and she went shopping. Bleurgh.
My bridesmaid looks shocking in the photos. I’m often tempted to make it clear that she chose it , not me. There’s no way I personally would choose shocking pink for a redhead! I think it was her idea of revenge - my stepdaughter was my bridesmaid and she was not thrilled we were getting married. We foolishly said she could choose the style and the colour. She needed new shoes which she refused to buy according to her mother so she completed her ensemble with scruffy black boots.
Hell, maybe she liked it 
The dress I wore for my bestfriend-at-the-time’s wedding was nothing compared to the horrors others have reported here, but it was a shiny green, pouffy sleeved, sweetheart necklined number (this is the one and only time in my life I wore pouffy sleeves). Complete with full, stiff skirt. I look about 4 feet wide in this dress in the wedding pictures. It was a great fabric, though - for the halloween costume I made out of it!
(BTW, my two bridesmaids are going to be wearing dark, dark, blue dresses - in styles of their own choosing. All I’m telling them is sleeveless, floor-length, and keep it fairly simple.)
Yuck, what a delightfully awful thread. My worst was in 1992, when a friend’s older sister was getting married. I was invited to the wedding, but not a bridesmaid. It was a very elaborate wedding. Three days before the wedding, the friend got a call from her sister. She was asking if I could be an emergency bridesmaid because one of the girls had dropped out. Apparently this girl and the bride had some sort of fight. The friend presented this request so graciously that I agreed to do it.
I arrived at my friend’s parents house and was given the dress. The bodice was made of a plum and gold brocade material, the sort one makes throw pillows from, and the collar was off the shoulder. My shoulders were not as wide as the girl the dress had been made for, so the dress kept creeping down my arms. I had to keep hitching my shoulders to get the dress up, and holding my arms in a ridiculous position so it wouldn’t slip down. In the wedding photos, I look like a basketball point guard, making sure no one is going to slam dunk the wedding cake.
The skirt was very full, tea length, and made out of a gold material that was very plastic-like. When we walked, the pleats of the dress shifted against each other, creating a very strange “zzzzp zzzzp zzzzp” sound. When the five of us walked down the aisle, the ZZZZP ZZZZP ZZZZP was deafening.
A few weeks after the wedding, the bride sent me the bill for the dress, which was rather expensive (I think around $350). I was shocked, because the whole thing had been presented to me as if I was doing them an enormous favor. The bride didn’t want to eliminate a bridesmaid, because the groomsmen were all relatives of the groom who would be offended for life if they weren’t in the wedding. I was young enough that I was worried about causing a scene, so I just gave her the money. Now, I would cause a big scene. Actually, now I would be smart enough to ask about the cost up front.
I’ve only been a bridesmaid once and it was enough for me. The wedding was originally set for the spring. Well my friend and her soon to be husband decided to move the wedding up to November.(no, she wasn’t pregnant)
The dress was a pastel flower print. BIG FLOWER print. Her mother made the dresses. At the time, my breasts were quite large. In order to make the dress fit on top, her mother made the whole dress bigger. It fit like a potato sack by the time she got done with it.
A big pastel floral print potato sack in the middle of November. What a nightmare. I told my sister afterwards that she was the only person I would be a bridesmaid for ever again.
Lucky for me, she eloped.
I too tried to get my bridesmaids to pick out their own dresses, no dice. They wanted ME to choose. So I did. They all say they like it and it suits all of them, but who really knows what evil lurks in the hearts of my wedding party??
I have never been a bridesmaid, although I have been married twice. I like to say I am always a bride, never a bridesmaid. I didn’t have a “real” wedding for my second – we just went to city hall in street clothes. At my first wedding, I had one attendant and told her to pick any dress she liked in any color she liked. She chose a simple evening dress in her favorite blue, so my “wedding color” was blue by default. Which was fine with me. She liked the dress and it looked really pretty on her. She actually wore it again once or twice.
Lacking any monster bridesmaid outfits of my own, I’ll borrow one second-hand. On a bridal message board, I read about an Alice-in-Wonderland themed wedding. The three bridesmaids are wearing navy blue tea-length dresses with full skirts and puffy sleeves. And, striped socks and black ballet slippers!! Not a flattering look for a grown woman.
Jess
I was only a bridesmaid once and the dresses were actually not that bad. She let each of us pick out our own dresses, as long as they were teal green. The only problem with my dress was that it was backless, which presented a problem because I’m extremely large busted and there was just no way I could go braless. I ended up shelling out $50 at a specialty bra shop for a corset type bra designed for backless dresses (it had to be specially made for me because they just don’t normally manufacture backless bras in EE sizes).
However, let me tell you about the horror of my first wedding. I was pregnant with my son and my future MIL got it into her head that there was no way she was going to allow me to give birth to an illegitimate child, so she told us that we were getting married, whether we liked it or not, in three weeks. She then insisted on handling all of the arrangements herself. She would not allow either myself or my mother to have any say so in the arrangements, although she demanded that my parents pay for half of the wedding. She also got it into her head that she was going to sew my wedding dress herself. I kept on asking her what the arrangements were like, but she kept on telling me that it was a “surprise”. Well, the day of the wedding came up and I was definitely surprised, but not in a good way. For starters, she absolutely refused to show me the dress until two hours before the wedding. She couldn’t have done a worse job on the dress if she tried. Admittedly I was about seven months pregnant, but the waist of the dress was at least six inches larger than my stomach. At the same time, the chest area was much too tight. I swear she must have dug through her attic to find the moldiest looking lace to put on this dress. The skirt was too short (it was supposed to be floor length, but it ended up being just below my knees) and the shoes she picked out for this dress were four inch spike heels. I was seven months pregnant and I had absolutely no experience with high heels. I think she was trying to make me look taller, but she only succeeded in making me trip and fall while walking down the aisle. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Instead of hiring a professional caterer, she insisted on also doing all the cooking herself. She has never been a very good cook, but she managed to almost completely ruin the meal. The topper being dumping an entire crock pot full of mostaciolli on her dog and cat hair infested floor, then scooping it back up and serving it to her guests (I politely declined it myself). Then instead of hiring a DJ, like she had promised, she hired a Irish folk singer who drank way too much champagne and played nothing but jigs all night. My friends were all mortified and even told me to my face what an absolute disaster my wedding was.
For my second wedding, I did the smart thing and got married in front of a justice of the peace.
I have only been a bridesmaid once, and my dress was actually pretty nice, as bridesmaids’ dresses go. It was a simple A-line in peach chiffon, mid-calf length. I wore it for several no-costume dance competitions.
But for those of you with hideous dresses, you can contemplate revenge.
It’s a little-known fact that in some jurisdictions, the marriage is not valid if the bridesmaids were not wearing butt bows.