Asking Bridesmaids to Order Dresses

View Quoted Comment I do think more than a year in advance is a bit early. (I didn’t even order my wedding dress that early.) You can ask your girls and get their opinion though. And if the dress is from one of the large designers, I’m sure they’ll still have that color in 6-8 months. It was quite an ordeal for me to find the right dress in the right colors for all of my girls too. And once I did find it, it was a dress that was being discontinued THAT DAY and my girls only had 1 week to get their measurements and payment in, but it all worked out.

OP’s math, however, is correct. $190 for the dress. 50% down would be $95. OP is paying $50, so the deposit balance is $45.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! I'm trying to do so in advanced because me and one of my mb's will be in grad school from end of August til mid-May 2020 and we will have NO TIME to do dress stuff and since May would be too late to order I figured earlier is better!

View Quoted Comment I get what you are saying but what happened when so I e can’t fit in the dress at time of tryout wedding and it can’t be altered to fit them?

Hi Cayla! I did the same thing! my main color is Lavender and at first I was like you can choose your own dress just sent it to the group so we can make sure the others match...somewhat...Well I will tell you that was SOOO much more stress! with lavender it changes color depending on the fabric so none of them were matching at all!!

We ended up choosing a line of dresses (I only have 3 BM) and I left the StyIe number and the color on file with the bridal shop so they could pick the style they liked. I found out after choosing the dresses that they were going to take 16 weeks to come in so I panicked and just told the girls in a group text that the dresses needed to be order by X date and to send me a text when it was ordered, received, altered..etc.. That worked well, my wedding is Aug 24th and all but one have gotten their dress.

I've just be sending things like, "Hey gals, customer service said ____ for ordering" and have left it at that, with occasionally, "hey all, reminder: ____". They're all adults and will show up ready, I don't care if they do it the day I send them info or the day before the wedding. Everyone is different with this personally, some brides want it done so they know it's done, and I tried from the start to remove my bride time-clock from the equation because I knew I'd be way more high strung. My wedding is in less than 2 weeks and I don't think they've finished hemming or buying shoes, but w/e, I have my own stuff to worry about lol

My wedding is in 3 months (omg) and I have 2 girls who still haven't gotten their dresses, or even chosen them. One was waiting till after her wedding and one's been waiting to see if she'll be pregnant between now and then, but I think, after reading this post, I'm going to bring it up with them again. I'm going to bring it up in the little group chat we have for just the 4 of us, which we chat in casually already, and just ask if, hey, has anyone found any good dresses lately that they were considering? It'll be ok because we were talking about shoes like 1-2 nights ago anyway.

Do you happen to have some sort of group chat with them or do you go out with all of them together on the regular, etc.? I'd bring it up casually but also mention the whole "they're on sale and I just don't want anyone to be in a bind later if they happen to be discontinued."

Also, as an aside....... I don't know their situations, obviously, but "just" $45 is not a small amount of money for a lot of people. If I were one of them, I'd have been pinching for months between bills and gas and groceries from my meager part-time job. If this is the case by any means for any of them, maybe offer to pick up the tab on the deposit and have them pay you back as they can, as another poster said, as long as it's paid in full by the wedding?

Good luck! I'm off to pester my ladies now.

Explain just like you did here. If they're in your bridal party they're very close to you. They'll understand, and probably appreciate the reminder.

Hey Cayla! Have all your girls ordered their BM dresses yet?