She's Still Preoccupied with 1985

Previously, on Miss Potion's Blog:

-We picked a color palette and a "feel" for our wedding
-I espoused my love of old stuff
-I really, REALLY don't love David's Bridal

So you'll recall from my last post that before I even thought about what I wanted my bridesmaids to wear, I ruled out David's Bridal completely.

But what did I want them to wear, anyway?

I had quickly established purple dresses, with a red dress to distinguish my MOH, and that I wanted all the girls in the same dress.  As for what that dress would look like...

Okay Hive, it's confession time: I know I said it's impossible to find a bridesmaid dress which is truly re-wearable, but gosh darn it, I wanted to try to find one!

To me, what makes bridesmaids dresses so un-re-wearable are their length and the fabric from which they're made.  Nobody wears floor-length dresses to anything other than prom, and, in general, nobody really wears dresses made of shiny, satin-like fabric except for on rare, super-formal occasions.  Our daytime, just-on-the-casual-side-of-the-scale wedding means that floor-length shiny dresses probably wouldn't make sense anyway.

Just to re-iterate, this makes the requirements for these dresses:
-available in a dark purple (and red)
-shorter than floor-length
-not shiny
-also not fugly because, hello, I love my friends- basically, it needed to be something I would wear on any given day (well, any given special day) because if I wouldn't wear it, why would I ask my friends to wear it?

This...is not terribly specific.  Basically, it narrows down the field to anything but this:

It's like the 80s threw up all over this photo // image via Bridesmaid Trade

 Erm, let's narrow that down a bit further.

Because this is a church wedding, I really didn't want my ladies in strapless dresses.  Sure, we could get sweaters/pashminas/scarves to wrap them up in, but then we'd have to hunt for said sweaters/pashminas/scarves.  Also, not everybody likes strapless dresses, and I wanted to make sure nobody hated whatever got picked.  If possible, I wanted to find dresses that would cover their shoulders, though this wasn't a strict requirement.

When I say "not floor-length", what I mean is anywhere from knee-length to tea-length- and certainly nothing shorter than the knee because, again, we'll be in a church, not a club.

I guess you're just not allowed to sit down when you wear this dress // available at promgowndress.com

 My final requirement was that the dresses cost less than $200- preferably closer to $100 (or less) but unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the most important requirement here is Not Fugly.

So the search began!

At first, I was determined to find a not-bridesmaid dress for the ladies to wear- ie a dress bought from a store that doesn't sell bridesmaid dresses.  If their dresses came from a Regular Clothes Store, I reasoned, then they would look like Regular Clothes and not bridesmaid dresses.  Naturally, I turned to ModCloth first, and I found this lil beauty:

Soda Fountain Dress in Grape and Cherry, via ModCloth

 FACT: This dress, in every single color, has been on my ModCloth wishlist since the first time I saw it...I've just never clicked "purchase" because I like trying on clothes before buying them and I haven't had an "excuse" to buy this dress.  So CLEARLY it passes the "would I wear it?" test!  Pictures of the models wearing it put it at roughly knee length, the shoulders are covered, it's in the right (ish) colors, it fits the vibe of the wedding, and it DEFINITELY fits the not-expensive requirement...

But this is not what my ladies will be wearing.

Originally, I had asked the girls to give me their measurements, in the event that I found a dress online that would be "the one".  I figured the only way to ensure that the right sizes didn't sell out before everyone got a chance to buy theirs would be for me to purchase them all at once and have them reimburse me, and to do that, I'd need measurements to make sure I got the exact right sizes for everyone.  The only problem with that is, well, not everyone is particularly responsive to Facebook messages, so around the time I was considering this dress, I didn't have measurements from everybody, and someone even pointed out that, really, it would just be easier to have everybody try on and purchase their own dresses.

That kind of rules out ModCloth as an option.  (Many of the most popular sizes of these dresses sold out quickly, anyway.)

Even so, I spent an awful lot of time drooling over ModCloth dresses before I finally put the idea to rest...

**all of the following images via ModCloth** 

Technically two different dresses, but they go together so well!

Okay, okay, so most of these dresses don't actually meet all of the requirements, but rules are made to be broken!  And more importantly, THEY'RE ALL SO GOSH DARN PRETTY!!!!

Alas, it seems the only way to satisfy my craving for ModCloth will be to buy one (all?) of these dresses for myself instead.

So, no David's, no ModCloth...just where will my ladies be buying their dresses?  You'll have to tune in next time to find out!!

Did you go the non-traditional route when looking for bridesmaid dresses?  Does anyone else share my obsession with love for ModCloth?