Here J Crew Comes to Save the Day!

The road to finding the perfect bridesmaid dresses was certainly not an easy one. Having a bit of a perfectionist streak didn't really allow for much wiggle room once I had a set vision of what I wanted. As I previously mentioned here, I had my mind set on a more organized version of mismatched dresses. I loved the look of completely individual non-matching dresses, but I did worry about creating a cohesive look. (Remember when I described my active imagination? Well it was telling me free reign could equal complete and utter chaos.) I thought that an easy compromise would be to find a collection with many options for my ladies to chose from. But when it came down to it, shop after shop left me feeling disappointed and less confident about my decision.

Now for a little backstory that y'all are missing... Long ago when I first started researching options, I found the J Crew bridesmaids dresses online. I immediately liked them, but there wasn't a J Crew Bridal Shop in Richmond and I've never really been the type to order clothing online willy-nilly. I wanted to be able to hold them, touch them, feel them, smell them... (Well maybe not smell them, but you get the idea.) So I pushed the option to the back of my mind and went about my way, visiting every bridal store in town; however, with the passing of every failed appointment, I found myself back at J Crew's website admiring the dresses.

L.O.V.E. Image via Once Wed Photo by Jill Thomas Photography

Finally after talking (er, maybe whining) to MOH A after our last appointment, we realized that there was only one dress shop left in all of Richmond that we hadn't visited. (And I'm pretty sure no department store or boutique website that I hadn't visited half a dozen times, hoping that new stock would arrive and blow my mind.) The options were very quickly dwindling. I finally gave in, deciding it was time to give J Crew an honest-to-goodness chance. I learned that there was a store in Georgetown that featured bridesmaids dresses. Mr. Hawk and I happened to be planning a Saturday trip up to the DC area to visit a jeweler, so I made an appointment at J Crew and convinced MOH A and her SO to come along, bribing them with Georgetown Cupcakes.

It literally took me seeing MOH A in only three dresses to know that my search was over. (Although she patiently continued to try on every dress I supplied her.) Of course there were some we preferred to others, but overall there wasn't a single dress that we disliked. (MAJOR sigh of relief.) I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I practically skipped with joy out of the shop. The only things left are to come back for the ladies to make their final selections and to place the order. (The beauty of J Crew is that the dresses come in within three to six business days, so there are no worries about a meeting super-specific December or January deadline.)

They say hindsight is 20-20 and in this case, I would say it's true. From the beginning, I really liked the dresses J Crew offered. I don't know why I fought it. I guess I incorrectly assumed that the bridal stores would feature a designer's entire chiffon collection or entire satin collection. And I also assumed that all designers would have the perfect color of yellow I envisioned. Instead of using the J Crew dresses (that were the perfect shade of yellow and featured many options) as my fall-back option, I should have tried to rule it out first before moving on. If I had, my search would have been much more simple.

Did y'all ever regret ignoring your first instincts for a seemingly easier option?