Our bridal parties are a combination of lots of different styles, sizes, skin colors, ages and sexes. So instead of shoving everyone into cookie-cutter bridesmaid dresses, we decided to go the mismatching route. I’m sure the male members of our parties are especially thankful for that! Here’s the breakdown: Rose’s bridal party consists of her 4 older sisters and brother. They are all Samoan with gorgeous dark skin and various builds and personal preferences. My “marital minions” (as I so lovingly call them) are made up of my dearest friends. After all… Friends are the family we choose for ourselves… right?
Friend love sandwich!
I adore when bridal parties wear dresses that are completely different in fabric and style, but all seem to flow together because of color and length. It really allows for each person to express themselves but still look like they are cheering for the same wedding team! There is a great gallery of all kinds of ways it has been done on this Wedding Bee Forum. I really am in love with the ecclectic and personalized look!
I do have a few minor concerns:
What if the dresses are too mismatchy?
What if someone can’t find a dress in the color scheme that fits their body or their budget?
How do I tie everything together? Matching shoes? Bouquets? Hair pieces?
So, I had to finally overcome my hesitation of committing to a color scheme in order to get our bridal party attire organized. Purple has always been my favorite color and usually looks good on a variety of skin tones, so when Rose and I accidentally found the perfect printed tie for her to wear in deep purples and burgundies, we finally made it official! We even found some solid ties that matched hers for the guys to wear. As soon as I knew we wanted purples, I grabbed a few paint sample squares from the store in a variety of shades to help me figure out what works together. Soon enough, we had our color scheme (although I still want to be very loose with it) and another major step was achieved towards creating the whole wedding “look.”
Because I am a very visual person, I used Polyvore.com to create a set of dresses that were in the color family that we wanted. It really helped me figure out how all the colors could match without actually matching.. I am also going to send it out to each member of our bridal party as inspiration for when they start shopping. I plan to direct them to find whatever dress fits their personality and they feel most comfortable in. The rest of the details will hopefully come to me later!
Here’s the Polyvore set I created:
Purple Bridal Party by NicoleG featuring formal dresses
$40 - 2cute2trendy.com
Cocktail dresses »
They’re all sooooo pretty! Love that strapless ruffle mini!!
As a photographer, I have to say, it would be hard to make things look bad. I think it’s up to the photographer to help aid the continuity, in terms of the photos. As for the rest of it, you’ll have dressed up people in the same color scheme, standing up with you…how can that look bad? Even if everyone simply wore his or her best outfit, they would still be dressed up people standing up with you. I think it’ll look awesome. I think keeping them in the same color scheme will just add to the togetherness of it all.
Totally don’t worry. Your purple people are going to look totally awesome!