Ask their bridesmaids to buy matching shoes?

How about adding the expense of matching jewelry on top of the dress and the shoes?

Can the bride reasonably request that all of her ‘maids pay out for matching wedding hairstyles?

Or even matching hair color?

Perhaps there’s the expense of matching tans, whether real or spray?

And you may have heard of extreme brides asking their attendants to pony up for matching cosmetic procedures?

Is there a dollar limit to what a bride can ask her bridesmaids to do or spend on their wedding day look? How about an ethical cap, a la not asking the bridesmaids to drastically change their appearances? And what if the bride is paying for the whole shebang, what then? Do the rules change?

(Some images via: Dott Photography; Megan W Photography)

Solids still rule the school when it comes to bridesmaids dresses, but I know there are plenty of bridesmaids out there who look their best in patterns. In fact, I know at least a few gals – can’t speak for the guys – who feel like they’re presenting as a wall of color when they wear, say, all green or all pink. Let’s for a moment, bridesmaids, imagine that you’re one of them. Are you dreading having to wear something that someone with entirely different ideas about what looks good has picked out on your behalf? It is indeed a fearsome prospect.

You’re secretly dreaming of something like this:

Or like this:

But you suspect that the bride is dreaming of something a lot more like this. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) The question, of course, is what do you do? It’s easy to say, oh, wear whatever you’re told to wear unless the bride specifically asks for your input. But as it turns out, there’s a whole secret world of maids-of-honor and bridesmaids collaborating and gently steering the bride toward dress choices that will flatter, if not everyone, more than a few of the female attendants.

How’s that work, you ask? Whether you’re a patterns-over-solids kind of chick or an I-don’t-do-backless kind of chick or something else, you can take a few steps to try to influence the bride’s choices. I’m not saying anything you and your sister ‘maids do will work – especially if the bride happens to adore huge bows and pouf sleeves – but you could try:

• Getting together with the other bridesmaids or at least those with a strong opinion. Figure out what you like and don’t like. Maybe no strapless, no backless, no scratchy poly stuff, no gold, whatever. Make sure you’re all on the same page or at least close to it, and then approach the bride with your concerns.
• Going dress shopping with the bride and gush over the dresses you like. If you can’t do that, email her links to lots of suggestions that just happen to reflect both her color choices and your preferences with regard to silhouette, style, and yes, patterns. There’s no guarantee she’ll choose a dress you like, but you def increase your chances of being happy with her choices.
• Suggesting something close to what the bride wants if you truly cannot stand what she’s chosen. You might say “I love love loooove the color and the cut overall is fab, but do you think you could go for something with sleeves/a contrasting sash/a lower hemline/etc.” You come off as supportive of her preferences instead of bossy or pushy.
• Really selling the whole bridesmaids choose their own dresses thing. It’s not, as I mentioned, the most popular choice, but considering that bridesmaids come in all shapes and sizes, I think it’s a good one.
• Displaying some serious enthusiasm whenever the bride happens to show you a potential bridesmaids’ dress that doesn’t make your eyes bleed. Lay on the praise thickly and the bride will get the gist of what you’re trying to say. Whether she wants to give you the dress you want as opposed to the dress she wants… I guess you’ll find out.

Note that I am NOT suggesting that any bridesmaid try to subvert the bride’s choices when she has something she truly loves in mind or that any bridesmaid make a nuisance of herself by rejecting every dress the bride suggests. But I don’t necessarily think that bridesmaids should absolutely never voice their opinions. What do you think?

(Images via Our Labor of Love Photography and Green Wedding Shoes)

The first topic I wanted to address is the true re-wearability of bridesmaids’ dresses. To start, I created a little poll because I know that a lot of you out there, while not bridesmaids at the moment, have been bridesmaids in the past and may take on that role again in the future. In my case, I’ve had two bridesmaids’ dresses that I’ve worn again. One was a blue satin number created for me when I was just a girl by my grandmother, and I sure did have fun finding opportunities to put it on after the wedding, even if I was just wearing it to dance around my house. The second was a purple dress that I still own chosen by yours truly to wear in the wedding of one of those aforementioned easygoing brides. It’s a great dress, and it looked boss in the photos (maybe I can find one to scan). Now it’s your turn:

When it came time for me to direct my own bridesmaids toward dress choices, I tried to be a semi-easygoing bride by asking them to simply choose any non-strapless brown, mocha, chocolate, or espresso dress from Aria because I thought that would give them the best chance of being able to wear their dresses again. You know, because they’d like their choices. *sigh* In the end, one got something from David’s and one bought something from who knows where that looked more like a prom dress than something for a bridesmaid. I have no idea if either of them has re-worn her dress, and I really don’t want to know. Moving on…

What does re-wearability really mean when it comes to bridesmaids dresses? Since so many of the bargain frocks are made from bleah materials that are almost always only appropriate for weddings, does it mean wearing the dress in another wedding? To a fancy event? And how many of us honestly can say that we have somewhere to wear a full-length silk shantung column gown? Because I certainly don’t! What I’d love to hear about is bridesmaids dress hacks – have any of you shortened or dyed old bridesmaids dresses? Or used them as costumes? That could be one way to re-wear a bridesmaids dress!

Chances are you agree utterly with at least one of these service providers. You may even agree with most of them.

But the cold, hard fact is that chances are you can’t pay for every single one of them. That’s where priorities come in. And I’m curious as to what your individual priorities are.

So what are you utterly ignoring? What are you cutting out? Have you decided get a $50 eBay dress? Are you saving money by putting all the music on your iPod and borrowing speakers? Nixing champagne from the reception? Cutting the invitation list to the bone? Showing up to the ceremony in your own compact car? Serving homemade chocolate chip cookies instead of a four-tier, fondant-covered cake?

I want to know what real world brides in 2010 are doing to save a bit of cash. What are your economies?

How many times have bridesmaids been told precisely that as they cringe internally? I was told it about a dusty rose acetate taffeta (with matching polyester lace, no less!) high-necked, long-sleeved, full-skirted, tea length number once.

At least it was cheap. It never saw the light of day again. Then again, nothing in dusty rose ever would from my closet. It’s one of the few colors in the world that I detest and I look as though I’m in the final stages of terminal jaundice in it. I did, however, have better luck with the next two bridesmaids dresses I wore.

This week on Project Runway, Season 8, a group of women who were all told The Lie showed up to have their unfortunate polyester and acetate monstrosities turned into clothes they actually would want to wear again (but wouldn’t be able to after the runway show, because all designs on the show become the property of the show and are auctioned off at the end of the season).

This is what the designers started with:
via

Just look at that parade of fugly.

Anyway, there’s a pile of backstage drama. Judges fall in love with and hate on the conversions following the tortured labyrinths of their own minds. My beloved Peach was sent (deservedly, alas!) home for creating something Michael Kors declared to feature ‘avocado goiters.’ And Michael Costello won a second time with a look that left me scratching my head.

At least they didn’t all look like they did when they started out!

If you want more backstage drama or just pics of what the designers did to all of these awful dresses, take a peek over at Lifetime.

And if you watched the episode and have any thoughts on it (including the Ivy vs Michael C. controversy) feel free to dish in comments. Just keep in mind that no matter what you think of anyone or anything else on that show, Tim Gunn is totally my imaginary gay celebrity boyfriend and anyone who hates on him will earn my eternal wrath.

Don’t Look At Wedding Planning As an Excuse to Overspend
Weddings expensive? And how. But that doesn’t mean you have to toss your budget out the window to have a great ceremony and reception. Prioritizing is one way to get the things you really want while conveniently ignoring all of the ads telling you that you must have X, Y, or Z. And as tempting as it is to put wedding expenses on your credit card or take out a loan, spend the money you have, not the money you wish you had.

Don’t Let Wedding Planning Become Your Life
Weddings get more and more stressful when you spend less and less time doing the things you love. If you want to plan your wedding 24/7 because you love event planning and you’re good at it, fab. But if you hate putting together even a tiny party, it’s time to delegate wedding planning tasks and figure out where you can cut out all those unnecessary to-dos that are giving you a stress headache. Favors? Don’t need ‘em. Fancy menus? Ditto. And so on, and so forth.

Don’t Assume ‘It’s Not a Wedding Without X’
I think we do a pretty good job here at Manolo for the Brides of letting brides- and grooms-to-be know that so many wedding must-haves are optional. Magazines, on the other hand, frequently do not. According to the glossies, you absolutely need, say, some form of post-wedding transportation beyond your car or you’re going to regret it. And if you can’t afford it? You’ll just have to figure out a way, because you don’t want to look back on yooouuuurrrr daaayyyyyyy for the rest of your life with a sign because you didn’t spring for the best of all things (even when you couldn’t care less about said things).

Don’t Equate Weddings and Marriage
Everyone knows that girl, the one who isn’t even seeing anyone but is mentally planning a wedding that will go down once she locates a suitable groom. Bleah. Weddings are fun. We love weddings big time freaky here, but we also are the first to admit that the brides and grooms who go to city hall are just as married as the brides and grooms who drop mega bucks on weekend-long wedding receptions. Don’t let anyone tell you that your union is doomed because you only have $1,500 to spend on your wedding – you know, because you’d rather drop the rest of your savings on a house or six months of world travel or something similarly frivolous.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read
Most weddings cost $30,000, right? Wrong. Weddings can cost anywhere from $50 for a license and city hall ceremony to $100,000 or more for your insane-o deluxe package. The $30k figure is just one of those things that keeps getting drilled into the heads of brides-to-be who are already emotionally invested in their weddings and don’t want to underspend and be judged for it. Do some weddings cost $30,000? Of course? Do most of them? If the reader comments I’ve read over the years are any indication, a lot of y’all have spent a lot less.

Don’t Sacrifice Fun for Image
Weddings can certainly be extremely elegant affairs, but they certainly don’t have to be. Do we see a lot of photos of evening weddings featuring black ties and tapers and grand pianos and fancy starters? Sure, but we also see plenty of photos of weddings with DIY photo booths featuring fun props, balloons and bubbles, karaoke, carnival games, and other silly stuff. So don’t feel like your wedding has to be way formal if that’s not who you are.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Something always goes wrong before weddings and at weddings. Maybe it’s something small, like the bridesmaids’ dresses you really love being discontinued a week before you tried to place an order. Maybe it’s something huge like a death in the family a week before the wedding. There’s no such thing as a perfect wedding, unless you make an effort to find beauty in imperfection. A relative passing? That’s big stuff, and it’s totally reasonable to fall apart. But when the thing that goes wrong is easily fixed or hardly noticeable, brush it off and move on. Bridezillas are made, not born, but they make themselves. In other words, chill, baby.

I say HATE, but I’m also no fan of gloves on brides or huge sleeves on wedding dresses. What, my lovely ladies (and gents), do you think of these full-bodied detachable sleeves?

The nice folks at Slipoffs will put pretty much anything you want on a pair of Vans or any other canvas shoe. They’ll even work with you to create a design if you’re planning to propose via sneaker and the right words just won’t spring to mind or you want to make, let’s say, a set of bride-to-be and groom-to-be Chucks.

It is rare indeed to find that wonderful animal, the short wedding dress that looks as if it was meant to be short and isn’t meant to look just like the dress your mother wore in 1964. It doesn’t matter why you’re looking for a short wedding dress — easier to move in? having a low-key city hall wedding? you’re a mega klutz who can’t wear a long skirt to save your life? — I’m of the opinion that you should be able to find one that suits your tastes and looks beautiful on you.

My current faves in the short wedding dresses category come from Charlotte Balbier. Noelle and Ruby are absolutely adorable, and would be perfect for an outdoor wedding in the afternoon or even a reception dress for the bride who dreads dancing in her huge ballgown. And I’d suggest they’re perfect for the bride who is eloping. They could also look cute on bridesmaids, though they might be a little much. Are these Charlotte Balbier dresses for everyone? Absolutely not, but then, what wedding dress is? For some bride, though, Noelle or Ruby might just be the answer to her prayers.