Regardless of when and where your wedding is taking place, you want you and your bridal party to look great and feel comfortable too. While it is your big day, you shouldn’t exclude your bridesmaids from making decisions, especially when it comes to their own comfort levels and preferred dress styles.
Whether you’re the bride choosing the dresses yourself or you’re one of the bridesmaids looking to find that perfect size, there’s a lot to consider–let us help out. Here’s how to choose your bridesmaid dress.
Season
Each season for weddings will have a vastly different colour selection from the other. Likewise, the time of day can also determine aspects of the dresses needing to be received, such as the hem length and the top style.
Get the date confirmed of your wedding before anything else, and then plan the dresses accordingly. The season of choice will affect all of the following aspects (colour, length, etc.).
A few other tips worth mentioning, for your bridal party’s sake:
- Spring and summer weddings allow a little wiggle room for shorter length bridesmaid dresses.
- Floor-length is perfect for fall and winter weddings, or if it takes place in the evening.
- Sleeved dresses are in for fall and winter, and thinned down or strapless dresses are best in spring and summer.
Be sure to check out
our blog for even more great tips!
Colour
Now you may think choosing a colour is the most difficult part of choosing a bridesmaid dress, but in fact there’s a way. One of the easiest things to do is to decide based on the colour schemes of the following: your wedding’s palette, the venue where it’s taking place, and the season. For example, if your wedding is going to take place at a rustic barn, maybe don’t ask your bridesmaids to dress up in clashing black or gold dresses. Lighter shades and prints, such as wisteria and mint green, work wonders for spring and summer weddings, while darker tones such as burgundy and forest green are best suited for fall and winter weddings.
Some tones of colours work best for a variety of skin tones as well. Blush, cream, and grey are complimentary all around, while bright solids (think emerald green, royal purple, royal blue, ruby red, etc.) compliment lighter skin shades; bright, bold shades such as hot pink and cobalt can really stand out against darker skin. An edgier idea is to dress everyone in more metallic shades, such as silver or gold. Or, for an even more daring idea, opt for an all-white bridal party (making sure the bride’s dress stands out the most, of course! It’s her big day, after all).
If you’re still at a loss of what to look for, there’s no harm in asking your bridesmaids what they want (even easier, ask them what they
don’t want—you can thin down your choices that way). Ask them to pick out their own colour and you may end up with a mismatched but very trendy look! If you want to push the envelope even more, maybe consider prints—floral is especially a win for bridesmaid dresses lately. Keep in mind that if you do go with prints, patterns work best for smaller wedding parties and pair only with simple accessories. Alternatively, you could only let your maid/matron of honour wear a print dress, and have everyone else dress up in solid colours or shades.
Sleeve style
The beauty of the convertible dress is that you can choose your own style as opposed to sticking to one that will make you stick out (and not in the good way). A small example of some of the different styles include:
- Halter. Wear this style with the bandeau top that accompanies your Love U bridesmaid dress to look formal and fancy. Ask for our special brooches to really nail this style of wrap dress.
- One-sleeve. A basic style, maybe, but if you’re a fan of asymmetry and it looks good on you, then go for it!
- Sleeved. On a convertible wrap dress, you can make this style with straps as thick or as thin as desired. An edgy idea is to twist the straps into one big rope and let that be the back’s style.
- Reverse sweetheart. For this look, you put on your dress backwards and then tie up the wrap dress as usual. If you’ve got accessories to show off such as a necklace, this dress style definitely accommodates that need.
If you need any help on how to wear these styles,
check out our videos.
Size
The beautiful thing about convertible bridesmaid dresses is, compared to traditional types of dresses, sizing is determined by ranges and not exact measurements. For example, our regular sized dresses work for women who are size 0-16; the plus-size dresses are sizes 1X-2X; the queen-size dresses are 3X-4X. So even if your weight fluctuates between now and the wedding day, chances are you will still fit the dress you bought!
Length
There’s actually so much to talk about this part, we wrote an entire blog post about it! You can check it out
here.
If you didn’t bother clicking on the link though (i.e., TLDR), here’s a sum-up: formal or classic style weddings or those taking place in the evening require floor-length style dresses; knee-length are best for the afternoon; mini should only be considered if the wedding is going to be in the morning.
Flexibility
One of the most frequent mistakes made when choosing a bridesmaid dress is to pick looks over functionality. The pictures in magazines may look fine until you actually…you know, put it on. And no one wants a wardrobe malfunction to happen at their wedding!
Choose a bridesmaid dress that will allow you to move around with ease. One that won’t risk the chance of a nip slip or a risque reveal is also a great idea. If you can jump around and dance and still manage to wear your dress just fine, then you’ve got a bridesmaid dress that really works.
Some brides may choose a design that a woman can wear after the fact as well. It’s better to have that sense of flexibility than to leave a dress in the closet for ages and ages!
Feeling stuck? Why not go convertible?
We love helping brides and their bridesmaids with the dress part! Everyone in the bridal party should not only look great, they should feel amazing too. Going with convertible dresses may be the best choice you make; they’re comfortable, you can wear them post-wedding for any occasion, and you’ll be comfortable while looking awesome. You really can’t go wrong with this choice of bridesmaid dress.
Shop online if you’re one of the bridesmaids, or contact Emily if you’re the bride in need of some
colour swatches. Let us know if you need any further assistance with choosing your bridesmaid dress!
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