Making Decisions is Awesome

After weeks of indecision and frustration (summarized here), I decided to narrow down the dress search for my awesome sisters upon Sister A's request. I thought she would want to pick her own dress, but it turns out she was perfectly happy being given a dress to wear—she's not much of a shopper! I wanted to make sure I had options for Sister E though.

Remember, my dress is the J. CREW Sophia in ivory silk chiffon. I wanted something to match the simple style and flowy fabric—simplest way to do that is to buy the bridesmaids dresses from J. CREW as well. These dresses can run on the expensive side (for college students especially), but they're simple and classy and the important thing is to look for a good deal.

In about ten minutes I scanned the J. CREW website and came up with four of their bridesmaids dress options that fit what I was looking for. Remember that the only stipulations originally were that they needed to be knee-length and not strapless (conservative family reasons) and I preferred them to be in a shade of the wedding colors (which included anything coral, light green, light blue, lavender, yellow... or even grey).

Images via J. CREW / The J. CREW Mirabelle, Sinclair, Louisa, and Heidi.

Unfortunately, these dresses were still $250 or more. I found some great deals on eBay and other dress resale sites that made me think this could actually work—and then I found the sale section of the J. CREW site.

First of all, I'm never buying anything full price from J. CREW again.

Second, I found the J. CREW Macie.

Image via J. CREW / The J. CREW Macie

Note: I linked to the petite listing because the regular size listing is now sold out. At the time, it was a $250 dress down to $70. That's even cheaper than I found it on resale sites online.

Now, while I absolutely loved the coral color which was available when we bought the dresses at the beginning of January... it just wasn't what my sisters wanted to wear. And you know what? That's ok! Sister A happened to love the color gallery green which was available in her size, so she bought it on the spot.

Sister E wasn't the biggest fan of the Macie, but she did love one of the options I had mentioned from the beginning—the Louisa, which was also on sale in the color gallery green. Choosing an "off" color like gallery green turned out to be a great decision, even though I would have been fine if Sister E had chosen a coordinating color (at the time there was a blue and a very pretty yellow on sale).

So here's what our final choices turned out to be. On the left is the Macie, on sale for $70–Sister A's dress. On the right is the Louisa, on sale for $130—Sister E's dress—which was a little more than she wanted to spend, but my parents graciously bought both of the dresses for my sisters as a gift to them.

Images via J. CREW

This is going to force a slight adjustment in color—I'm basically going to replace the seafoam green in my original inspiration with this more of a kelly green. It's really not going to affect much. The bouquets (I promise I'm eventually going to blog about these!) are coral, light blue, and light yellow, all colors that will work great with kelly green. I hadn't really purchased anything else in green except the guys ties. When the dresses come, I'll see if the ties work with them. If not, I only paid $12, so I'll go out on the lookout for something else!

My sisters have pretty different personalities, so I'm really excited to see how they make these dresses their own. I'm fully expecting a belt, an arm of bracelets, and a side braid from Sister E—and I know she'll rock it!

I know a lot of you have worn J. CREW bridesmaid dresses—tell me about it! Any suggestions for my sisters? What do you think about the shift in colors? Any one else have to change your vision slightly midway through planning?