It’s the old story… You choose the bridesmaids and introduce them to each other, they bond. Everything is great. Well guess again sister, because the bridesmaids can be your worse nightmare. Of course you shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not they become best friends but you would hope that they would respect each other and be happy that they were chosen. All it takes is a lot of wisdom and a little diplomacy.

When personalities clash, you need to give them a chance to air their problems to you in order that they don’t get into an all out brawl with the other bridesmaids. You don’t want them fighting with each other the day of the wedding, so it is best to get it out in the open before the wedding day. This is your day and you want everyone to be happy, not glaring at each other with daggers. Talk to them, one on one if you have to, and remind them that they are there because they are your friends and relatives. Make it clear that you want unity or else. Guess what… it works.

Choosing the dresses for the bridesmaids can be worse than having brawling bridesmaids. Mary adores pink. Katie hates pink; she’d rather have a nile green dress. One loves the strapless dresses, but most of your girls are big busted and can’t wear strapless. Or how about the bridesmaid who just loves the golden fluffy dress that looks like it was left over from the 1950’s. You hate them all!

First, a word of advise. Do not, I repeat, do not take all of your bridesmaids to look at dresses. This is the worse mistake a bride can make. Too many opinions can leave you in tears. You need to know what your bridesmaids look like, figuratively speaking. Choosing a dress that will look good on all of them is almost impossible. Somewhere along the line one of them is going to think that you picked that dress to make her look just awful. You can solve this problem if you have a lot of different size girls. Let your attendants choose their own dresses within a certain color scheme and length. Even if the dresses are not the same style, but in the same color scheme. One could wear a sleeveless black dress, the other a three quarter sleeve, and still another a short sleeve.
As long as the color is the same it doesn’t really matter what the style is as long as the length is the same. If you can’t live with the thought of different dresses the job of finding one style that looks good on everyone could be discouraging. A-line and princess-line dresses are flattering to all body types. If the dress looks good on a plus size attendant it is sure to look good on all of your attendants.

Try to keep all of the attendants happy. Make each one feel that she is a special part of your day. The key is to pick friends and relatives that are close to you and want you to be happy and therefore will not give you headaches.

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