One of the function of the bridesmaid dress is to contrast with the bride’s gown in such a way that it makes the brides dress stand-out. This is the reason why you should choose a color with a high contrast: blue, black, yellow, gold, champagne, brown, jasmine, silver, turquoise, red, pink, purple, green ...

My daughter came over a few days ago almost in tears. She had just come from a shopping trip with a friend of hers that is getting married. The shopping trip was to pick out the bridesmaid dresses. My daughter has been in several weddings over the past two years and she is starting to get very concerned about the amount of money she is spending on bridesmaid dresses.

On this particular day the emotions were for several reasons. The first was the price of the dress the bride to be picked out. It was extremely expensive and the three attendants pointed this out to the bride. She would not listen to them and insisted that this was the dress she wanted them to wear. The second reason my daughter was upset was that the color of the dress was very poor for her, as well as one of the other attendants. She is concerned that she will look sickly on the pictures because the color makes her appear so washed out and lifeless. She feels that the bride to be is purposely picking these bridesmaid dresses so that she will look better than anyone else in the wedding party.

My daughter and I discussed this for a long period of time. She said that she has spent hundreds of dollars being in weddings and that she cannot afford to spend the eight hundred dollars on this dress. She has not been that close to the bride to be and she does not want to hurt her feelings, but she does not want to go into debt over an ugly dress that she is only going to wear one time.

I suggested that she simply be honest with the bride. Explain that she cannot afford the dress. She was reluctant to do this, but she could think of no other solution. She told me that she would call her then let me know how things went. She was afraid that she was going to be ending a relationship over the cost of bridesmaid dresses. When she left my husband asked why she had been so upset. I relayed the story to him. He said that we should offer to pay for the dress so that our daughter would not have to charge it. I explained that it went beyond the price of the dress and that I thought it was important for our daughter to take care of the situation.

Two days later my daughter called me. She had spoken to the bride to be about the cost of the dress as well as the choice of color. The bride became very angry and hung up on her. A few hours later she called back and apologized and asked my daughter if she would consider shopping again for a less expensive dress. It turned out that the bride had talked to the other attendants and heard the same concerns from them. They all agreed to start over by looking for new bridesmaid dresses.