“Since my wedding colors include green, I think we should find some green bridesmaid dresses,” I said to my three bridesmaids and maid of honor.
After weeks of searching bridal magazines, I had noticed the array of bright, pastel, and shimmering tones a bride could choose for her bridesmaid dresses. While my upcoming Las Vegas wedding would use ivory and black for a classy reception, my fiancé and I also had included green as an accent color. Since I would be wearing the white with my gown and my groom would be wearing the black in his tux, I assumed it would be best to find some green dresses for my bridesmaids.
“Yeah, green dresses! What do you guys think?” I said after sharing these thoughts with my wedding party. Well, bless those girls for humoring me.
At a Las Vegas wedding dress store, we searched the racks until we found every dress we could with a green hue. Then my bridesmaids dutifully filed into dressing rooms. One by one, they emerged from the dressing rooms to catch a glimpse of the gowns in the mirror and show me the less than desirable fruits of our efforts.
Petite Bridesmaid #1 looked like a silly Tinkerbell sprite. Bridesmaid #2 became so washed out by the pale green dress that she feared she’d blend in with my bridal gown. Embarrassed Bridesmaid #3 even refused to surface from her dressing room. To top this off, my maid of honor gazed at her mirrored reflection with moist eyes and said, “Oh great, I look like a granny smith apple.”
Myth #2: Your bridesmaids dresses must match the color of your wedding’s theme.
While green was a color in my wedding décor, my bridesmaids didn’t feel confident in green gowns, as evidenced by their ensuing comparisons of themselves to food products, from pears to asparagus to pistachio pie. Instead of having green gowns, I decided we could find more subtle ways to include this wedding color.
First, we chose green sashes to accompany gowns that every girl felt comfortable wearing. Then I asked the wedding florist to add sprigs of tall, green grass to the bridesmaids’ calla lily bouquets. Finally, I chose to use green to decorate the wedding venue, instead of the bridesmaids. With a green sash and a cream sash draped across the ceremony arch, we were able to communicate the wedding color theme without having green girls. Not only did this make for an absolutely stunning ceremony display, but my bridesmaids were grinning from ear to ear on my Las Vegas wedding day. When I see my bridesmaids’ smiles in wedding day photographs, I’m so glad I chose to leave the green accent color as just that—an accent color.
To view Myth #1, view “Real Las Vegas Weddings: Myth #1 of How to Choose Bridesmaid Dresses They’ll Love.”
(Author: Allyson Siwajian © 2010)
(Photo credit: Jamison Frady of Quiet Art Photography © 2010)