Bridesmaids conformity

I would pick people who I cared about enough to have stand next to me as I am being married. I don't care what they look like, because that is NOT what counts. I'm so sick of shallow c*nts who think their "queen for a day" moment gives them a license to abuse others. You are not obliged to change your body (cut your hair, change its color, go on a diet, feel bad about how you look) to suit some entitled little twit's idea of her personal army of clones, no matter how much you care about her.

On the other hand, if her instructions are reasonable and it doesn't cost you anything extra to meet them (for example, "I want all my bridesmaids to wear this dress in this colour" even if it is not your best style or colour), that's OK, even if it's a bit of a hassle, and you should not be oversensitive.

All my friends are super different shapes and styles, there's really no way you could get the same dress, makeup, hair and jewellery that would suit all 5 of them (two brides, hence more than the usual no of bridesmaids!!). We've picked out a colour scheme for them, but the actual dress, shoes, etc choice is theirs. Likewise the makeup will come from the style of the dresses. Like, not much point putting someone in a 1950's rockabilly style in the same makeup and hair as someone whose dress is really 1920's flapper style! It'd just look bizarre.

I'm still in shock as to some of the questions we've been asked by our bridesmaids- one of them actually APOLOGISED for getting a haircut before we asked her to take part. She was like "I'll grow it back in time, I swear!" We want our best friends in the world standing with us, not some weird cookie cutter version. I want to look back at photos and go "yep, that's them. Looking like... them." My bridesdude even asked if he needed to shave off his beard. Now, his beard is one of the COOLEST beards ever. He looks like a majestic ginger sea captain. Why on earth would I want him not to look like him? It's so bizarre.

"Bridesdude", rofl. Excellent. For my first marriage, I (a woman) had a male "maid of honour", my best friend Todd, a tall, dark Welsh guy with broad shoulders and a glower (though he could be bright and silly when he wanted to be). He wore an excellently tailored suit and a sword. We put him on the program as "honour guard", which seemed more fitting than "man of honour" and echoed "queen's guard". Since my father was not able to attend, Todd accompanied me up the aisle as well as stood next to me in the traditional role. He completely stole the show (and I was proud of him, too). My two other bridesmaids helped me dress, so everyone still got "a piece of the action".

For my second marriage, we gave two Aberdeen registrars a half hour away from desk duties. Suited us fine, they were lovely people.

When I got married I let my bridesmaids pick whatever they wanted. I just wanted all the same colour dresses but in the end they all chise the same... They liked it. They picked their own shoes two already had silver so I just bought two more pairs.... I bought jewellery as a present. They got their hair styles in a way that suited them... They all looked stunning and were super comfy in their dresses... This all stemmed from being a bridesmaid my myself FIVE times... And wore dresses (and a matching pair of pink shoes) that I hated...

GalwayGirl26 wrote: »

Right, I may be lettig myself into a world of trouble here, but anyway...... I would expect a bridesmaid to wear what I pick out, even if it's not her usual style. Obviously I wouldn't be picking out something very revealing or outlandish, but with a standard bridesmaids dress I wouldn't expect any arguments. Also, if I wanted all bridesmaids to have similar hair and make-up, I wouldn't expect a fight. Now, if they had an issue with any of this, I'd hope they could let me know and we could discuss it and see if it's a ''make or break'' issue.

To be honest, I wouldn't like my bridesmaids to have unnaturally coloured hair/big, colourful tattoos etc. But that's only because none of my close friends/family have that image. Maybe if they did I could see past it, but as is, if my normally conservative friends dyed their hair bright green a month before my wedding, yes, honestly, I'd be a bit put out. I don't think it would look nice in pictures or videos, and it would spoil the look of the bridal party. Am I shallow? Yeah, I am, I don't care.

Everyone is different. I guess I can't picture my friends looking "conventional" as we're all total weirdos. I never know what colour hair my best female friend is going to have, or what my mates who do burlesque and bellydance are going to wear at any stage. Even if I wanted to, I'd be fighting a losing battle trying to have a usual looking wedding. And I love the look of tattoos and all that.

Tbh I think it's rude to make demands of people who are taking time to help you with what is essentially a big party that means more to you than them, but that's just me.

In a normal wedding I would imagine that the following would be similar across the bridesmaids (though there's no hard and fast rule, it's just what I've observed):

• same dress on all bridesmaids
• similar style shoes
• similar hairstyles, taking into consideration that everyone's got slightly different hair
• same accessories like purse or bouquet
• similarly done make-up and tan
• never noticed the jewellery, but presume anything that stands out too much would be the same too

Personally if I had more than 1 bridesmaid, I'd pick similar dresses, like colour and length but wouldn't mind style as much as long as the girls were happy it suited them and they'd gladly wear it again, and same for shoes, similar colours but not necessarily the same shoes.

I wouldn't know too much about make-up so the whole make-up style thing goes over my head, I would presume they'd just tell the MUA what they wanted, so they looked and felt pretty and comfortable and the hairdresser would do their hair in picked styles but all down or up. Personally I don't like fake tan, but it seems the norm at weddings in Ireland, I wouldn't bother, and if they wanted it they could get it done themselves.

I think skin routine and hair-cut is a bit personal to dictate to someone (unless maybe the girl with the long brown hair decided to have pixie green on the day without telling me. It would just stand out too much for my liking among an otherwise normal enough looking wedding party). I don't have a problem with people with colourful hair, absolutely love the bright pinks and purples, wish I could pull it off, but think it would take me aback on someone on whom I'd never seen it before. At least if it was their normal style you'd already have a picture of them looking like that in your head, rather than getting a bit of a surprise...

I let my bridesmaids choose whatever they wanted to wear. Much less hassle all round. (Plus one was living in Kosovo at the time and the other was pregnant with a due date near our wedding - and i was living abroad. No way we would have managed a dress fitting etc). But then our wedding was about the people joining us, and the memories. Not the colour coordinated pictures and lots of hassle trying to control every aspect of the day.

If you all need to be the same, the bride might as well hire bridesmaids. The point of having your friends stand by you at your wedding is to have your friends stand beside you, not so you can make like Gwen Stefani and Love, Angel, Music, and Baby.

every_other wrote: »

I've worn exactly I've been told to wear, cut my hair as Ive been told to cut it, fake tanned to orangutang levels, been there for numerous meltdowns/dramas/wardrobe malfunctions/tears/puke (you name it and Ive probably have done it!). And remember whatever dress is chosen for ye... roll with it....

Personally, I would very much disagree with this. I think there's requests of bridesmaids within reason, but asking people to undergo transformations that will affect them the next day/week/year, like haircuts, awful tans, is just ridiculous. Who can call themselves a good friend and do that to their friends? Whatever about turning a bit wedding-crazy, being inconsiderate and selfish, is just no on. B&Gs are adults, and should behave as such.

My two bridesmaids were as different as chalk and cheese, one tall and dark, the other short and fair. They wore the same dress, shoes and jewelry and have the same first name - i joked about having the same knickers in my speech

As for their make-up, and their hair - well, that was all them. They looked fab, and were great bridesmaids. I would never have dreamed of asking someone to get a spray tan or hair-cut on my behalf.

ChampagnePop wrote: »

You could make a similar argument about white dresses to be honest - its traditional and a tradition that I think is nice.

Each to their own!

Did you know it's actually more traditional for brides to wear blue, in imitation of the way the Virgin Mary is traditionally depicted? White is a recent affectation, intended to show the wealth of the bride's family by dressing her in an expensive, delicate dress that could never be worn usefully again. I found this out when I wore a deep blue dress to my wedding a couple years ago in the Aberdeen registry office. All I cared about was matching the heather in my bouquet and the Scottish colors in the room, but the registrar amusedly told me about the ancient tradition. The moral of the story is, if you don't like one tradition, pick another one, there are many.

Oh, and I didn't have bridesmaids. I was on a business trip. I would have had to get Siobhan from the front office and a couple girl engineers from the production lab. So we just had the registry clerks.

CaraMay wrote: »

I really don't see why people have more than one bridesmaid. It seems so dated to me. It's just 3 grown women dressed in the same dress, shoes etc. Dunno....

I'll be honest, the 2 women and 1 man who I have picked as my bridal party are 3 people I could never in my life imagine getting married without them beside me. I'm closer to them than pretty much any of my own family. Of course I could get married very successfully without them. I don't want to. We've already shared so much together in the 20+ years we've known each other that it would feel truly bizarre doing it without them. I don't really need a bridal party- I am terrible at delegating so tbhni don't really know what I'm
Going to be asking them to do. All I know is I want them beside me.

hotmatottie10 wrote: »

Before Christianity in Ireland we had Brehon Law and the color of the wedding dress was indeed Blue. So its even older tradition. And you would get you hand bound to your intended and thats where the saying tying the knot comes from.

Heh, very awesome. Just goes to show, when someone wants you to do something "traditionally", you can always respond with "Sure, which tradition".

Where most of my family live, in Southern California, they tell a joke: What's a California tradition? "We did it that way last year."

My sister had 3 bridesmaids - us 2 sisters and her best friend. We were allowed to pick our own dress and shoes. Between us all, we settled on navy with nude-type shoes. Even though we all went shopping individually, the three different dresses all tied together on the day (Coast, Monsoon and Hobbs) and the photos looked great. Hair and makeup was individual too.