The Wedding Series: Wedding Party Attire

Part of saving money on a wedding is saving money for the other people involved, particularly, your bridesmaids and groomsmen.  “Proper” wedding etiquette says that your bridesmaids and groomsmen will pay for their own dresses and tuxes. However, if you are paying for all or part of their wedding day attire it can be helpful to save money in this area. If they do end up paying for it themselves, they will really appreciate being able to spend less money on their wedding day attire. 

Something that was really important to me in planning my wedding was creating a very laidback atmosphere, both for the guests and for the wedding party. I didn’t want it to be too formal, and I found that staying away from fancy actually saved me money.  Places like David’s Bridal are expensive and generic. Your bridesmaids are likely to be all different sizes and finding one dress that looks good on all of them can be nearly impossible. Because of that, I let my bridesmaids choose their own dresses from whatever place they wanted. I gave them a few guidelines; it should be somewhere on the pink/blush/nude color spectrum and should be about knee length. Other than that, they were free to choose a dress that they liked and that fit them well. The only thing that matched was our nude colored flats from Target, which most of my bridesmaids already owned anyway.

For the men, Joshua picked out a pair of navy pants from Gap that he wanted all of the boys to get which cost $60. He also picked out a bow tie and suspenders that only cost $10. Otherwise, he asked them to wear a white dress shirt and brown shoes which were things most of the boys already owned.

 

I loved this because everyone matched, but they all had something different from everyone else, giving each person their own special touch. Not only would this have saved us money if we were buying the attire for them, but it saved them money and allowed them to purchase things they actually liked and that fit them well. If there is one tip that I would pass onto a bride and groom choosing their wedding party attire, it would be to forget the tuxes. They’re expensive and difficult to fit correctly to each person in your party. And, they don’t even get to keep it at the end of the day! Not to mention how much of a hassle it is to pick up and return tuxes from a rental place. Let your party invest in something that they can keep for longer than one day!

Brides, you can still make a day out of it! Take all of your bridesmaids out to go pick out their dresses together. All of my bridesmaids looked beautiful, and the groomsmen looked so handsome! I was so unbelievably happy with how their outfits turned out! Not only did I end up loving how they looked, but my wedding party also appreciated being able to, for the most part, choose their own clothes. You will not regret letting your wedding party have a say in what they wear for your big day. Not only will it make the wedding planning process easier for you, but also for the bridesmaids and groomsmen!