- The Bridemaid's dresses

You always hear horror stories about bridemaid's dresses, and often, the bride is referred to as a 'Bridezilla', because the bride is SO in the zone, that she puts her maid's in hideous outfits..... not me!

Luckily, I enjoyed the outfit I wore as a bridesmaid - although I was pretty young  at 6 years old and didn't have much of a choice! - so I was very keen to make sure my girls like their outfits and had a part in choosing them.  

I have four of these beauties: My sister, C as Maid of Honour; G, who you met at the beginning of this journey; S, who is another dear friend of mine and G's sister;  and R, who is J's younger sister, who also lives in Qatar.  

The three UK-Based bridesmaid's and I, met up in Kingston-Upon-Thames, a convenient location for our various living coordinates, and aimed to spend the day going around the shops looking for ideas and if possible, buy the dresses! 

Looking around during the January sales is a wonderful advantage to ensuring this wedding will not cost the earth!! We started in Zara, H&M, Bentalls and didn't see anything which we were looking for: something acceptable in church and lilac.  Deciding that the colour was making this task too time consuming, we just stuck with one need: something acceptable to wear in church.  

With this in mind we stepped into French Connection... BINGO.  G walked over to the sale rack and found satin, champagne coloured, skater dresses.  The girls picked their sizes and tried them on.  As they stepped out, a lady walked into the changing room to try something on and said ''Oh, French Connection do bridesmaid dresses?''..... SOLD.  They fit well and looked the part, the next part was to look at the price tag..... 

£100 reduced to £23 - whoo hoo!  I'll take four please :)

Pretty pleased with ourselves, we trotted over to John Lewis to look at shoes.  S, was delighted to spot some purple, diamante heels by Nine West named Coldfeet, which we all liked - yes, my bridal shoes will be purple!  The cost?.....

£89 reduced to £35, this day was going very well indeed!!

Final stop,  the glitz and glamour, the attentions to detail, the hair decor and body candy: accessories!  Naturally, we skipped over to Monsoon's Accessorize to view what was on offer. As the overall look for this wedding will be largely traditional and minimal bling in sight, we spotted silver and pearl hair slides which would sit nicely in the hair while the bridesmaids don messy side buns!  Sadly, the price was not nice, but these kind of things can be sourced for cheaper elsewhere, but at least we all had an idea of what we wanted.

 The Hairclips

S with the complete look!

We will add a purple sash to the waist of the dress later on.

3 hours later we took our separate paths home, while skipping along carrying the day's deals.

Cost so far:  £58 per bridesmaid  

Love,

International Bride

xoxo