Bridesmaid dresses in order left to right || 1. Lulu’s Champagne Sequin (listed as rose gold, but this is the actual dress Lina wore) || 2. Badgley Mischka Glitz Gown Rent The Runway (NOT the gold glitz gown, they look identical except the color is darker) || 3. BHLDN Avery dress in blush || My wedding dress!  || 4. BHLDN Cecelia dress (sadly no longer available, but here is the new version) || 5. BHLDN Adrianna Papell Eclipse Dress || 6. BHLDN Adrianna Papell Lucent Dress.

1. Decide on Your Color Palette

Almost as soon as Jordan and I got engaged I knew I wanted our wedding colors to be neutrals. Once we settled on our gorgeous garden venue, a neutral color scheme made even more sense to showcase the natural beauty we were surrounded by! I toyed around with the bridesmaid dresses in blush, champagne, gold, or grey since they could all play as neutrals. I started a Pinterest board dedicated to their dresses and the color palette really started coming together.

Once we got the girls all in one place, we found that each time got close to the perfect lineup, suddenly one of the dresses would look off. Then we would switch her into something new, and a different dress suddenly stuck out. It was a little frustrating at first, so finding the right color palette to work within is super important!

2. Pick A Cohesive Element

The trickiest part of mismatched bridesmaids dresses is pulling them together. I chose floor length dresses with embellishment as my unifying element to tie in each of the girls dresses. This still allowed them to play with the exact shade that best complimented their skin tone, and the best cut for their body type. I really wanted to let them pick dresses they could wear again if they wanted to!

Length is an easy choice if you’re not sure how to make the dresses flow nicely, but there are lots of options. You can choose a fabric or texture, a specific cut of dress, a color story (like a season) or even have all the girls in jumpsuits! Here are some examples of different cohesive elements that work great!

3. Establish a Budget

Once you have some direction (because no bridesmaid wants to deal with an indecisive bride) check in with your girls about budget. My bridesmaids all had to travel to my wedding and bachelorette party, so I really wanted to keep their dress options as affordable as possible. They were all too nice and would have sprung for dresses twice the price they ended up with, but we were able to be a little resourceful in order to keep their costs down!

4. Consider Renting

Speaking of being resourceful, don’t count out renting as an option! My bridesmaid, Dayna was pregnant and growing pretty quickly around the time of my wedding, so she was nervous about buying a dress too early and it not fitting her bump! She ended up using Rent the Runway, and apart from a minor…ok major scare the week of the wedding (they emailed her saying they didn’t have her dress anymore!!) it worked out great. Customer service was on top it and rushed a new dress to her, but it doesn’t hurt to have two options selected ahead of time in case something goes haywire at the last minute.

Vow to Be Chic is another rental website I had heard great things about, but it appears they closed down! Union Station used to be another site for bridesmaid dress rentals, but I couldn’t find a rent option on their website. It looks like Rent the Runway still reigns supreme!

5. Accessorize

When Dayna’s dress went AWOL, her second option was in the champagne/blush family, but didn’t have any embellishment. We had accessories on deck to add a little bling to her dress so it would look more similar to the rest of the bridesmaids. We didn’t end up using it because the sequin replacement RTR sent her ended up looking better and being more comfortable for her and her baby belly- yay!

However, accessories can be a great cohesive element, or be just enough to make an iffy dress suddenly fit into the lineup. Flower crowns, headbands, or sparkly belts might be the perfect finishing touch if something just isn’t working.

6. Shop With Your Girls!

The last step is definitely the most fun, and that’s to just start trying things on with your bridesmaids! Eventually, it will come together if you keep these tips in mind. I accidentally hijacked our shopping trip, because a local bridal shop called saying they finally had my wedding dress in stock, which none of the girls had seen me in at that point! So we abandoned our bridesmaids excursion at BHLDN and took a detour. It was so special to have my mom and my bridesmaids’ approval before officially purchasing my dress, but it left us without a firm lineup for their dresses!

Thankfully I have stylish, savvy friends, and with a little help from photoshop (much to the entertainment of my bridesmaids, ha!) we were able to bring the vision to life virtually from across the state. I didn’t see all their dresses together until the day of my wedding! They looked so beautiful, and most importantly all the girls loved what they wore, so I was the happiest of brides! 🙂

Wedding Photographer: Rachel Stelter | Florist: Milieu Florals | Venue: Descanso Gardens | Videographer: Narrative Films |  Catering: Patina Group | Dress #1: Watters | Outfit #2, Skirt: Mila Bridal, Bodysuit: Express | Shoes: Jimmy Choo | Hair: Marc Mapile | Makeup: Kelly Tran Artistry | Groom’s Suit: Suit Supply | Rentals: Signature Party Rentals | Lawn Game Rental: Joymode | Gold “The Weisses” Sign: One Love Metals |