Bridesmaid dresses

My original budget for 4 bridesmaids was $50 per dress. This doesn't sound like a lot to some people, but it's because I'm paying for all the dresses and accessories myself. The only thing I expect my bridesmaids to be responsible for are their shoes.




My other issue with the dresses was the shade of purple. At first I didn't want to be picky about any exact shade of purple to make it easier on myself. But the future mother-in-law has this concern about our wedding color of purple often being perceived as a somber color. Thus, I felt the need to put the girls in a bright purple color. I fell in love with this dress on the left here, which I could get at near wholesale price through hookups, but it was questionable... I had no idea when and if the dresses would be available. So I told myself if I found a deal on my own, I wouldn't pass it up.









One day, I walked into the Forever 21 at Anaheim Plaza, where they have the biggest clearance ever. And I actually found dresses in the perfect shade of orchid purple that I wanted and for only $10 each! It was the perfect color, perfect price, but not quite the perfect silhouette. Could this be a DIY project I could do?

The dress looks not too bad on me. But I'm short and I had one of my taller girls try on the dress and it was definitely too short for my liking.

I played around in photoshop and did some mockups of what I could do to the original dress to see if my girls would approve. It was also a concern of how I would cover up the seam line on the hem addition on the skirt.

The votes went for black sash with either #2 or #5. I opted not to do #5 because a large block of black fabric might be hard if I couldn't find a fabric similar in texture. So #2 it is!

I bought three extra dresses to take apart and use for fabric. Those were more expensive because two of the three I bought were $13.50 since they had size large (more material!) for me to take apart.

Here are the extra dresses deconstructed. Made me quite nervous! Hoping that I didn't just make a mistake in my decision to do this!

I decided to tackle what I thought was going to be the most difficult: the hem.  The hem was pretty easy (even though I had to redo it a little bit later to taper the dress in).  The straps, which I thought was going to be easy was really the HARDEST thing to do!  But they're done!

And of course, I made sashes.  Sashes were so easy.... I felt like a sash making beast after I had finished my own sash!

So I originally wanted to add 2 black stripes at the bottom:

Seam or stripes?

 By popular vote from friends, I decided to not add stripes and just keep the seam showing.

Not bad, right?  I also bought rhinestone brooches to go on the sashes as well.  All that's left to do is get all the girls fitted so I can properly attach the straps to the dresses.

Cost of this project:  Under $30 per dress

Dresses: $9.99 x 5 plus tax (1 extra to take apart)

2 extra dresses for more scrap fabric: $13.50 x 2 plus tax

Fabric to make sashes: $4
Extra sewing materials (thread, fusible interfacing): $4
Brooches (5-pack): $25 on eBay
Time spent: 2 months on and off
Money saved: $85 under budget

They may not be as nice as the above dress that was made especially for wedding occasions.  But I think I managed to have bridesmaids dresses that fit the look I wanted and are well within my budget so I can afford to buy the girls accessories AND nicer bridesmaids gifts.