I’ve never had a lot of close girlfriends. Most of my friends in high school were boys – the band guys and the Dungeons and Dragons set – and with a few notable exceptions, I felt that I had very little in common with most of my female classmates. In fact, there was a time in my life when I had decided that I just didn’t really like girls.

Luckily, I was quickly disabused of this rather unhealthy notion upon meeting some really cool girls in college. I never would have imagined myself choosing to live with other women, but I spent my final year as a college student living with four unique, lovely ladies, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. Then, after I graduated, I met another group of interesting, fun, down-to-earth girls when I started hanging out with a group of music fans who I found through the Chicago Widespread Panic listserv. I’ve also encountered many strong, open-minded, socially conscious women though my work in nonprofit development, a career path dominated by females. Ten years after my high school graduation, I was surrounded by fabulous women, and my attitude about others of my own gender had completely changed.

Yet, as my relationship with my fiance became more serious, and our friends started getting married, and their weddings inevitably made me think about the possibilities for our wedding, I wondered if I really had enough close girlfriends to be my bridesmaids. My fiance has three brothers and a lot of close male friends, so I knew he would have no trouble finding groomsmen, but I wasn’t sure I could produce enough bridesmaids to create an even wedding party. This was such “cart before the horse” thinking – I mean, we weren’t even engaged – but I’m the kind of person who worries in advance. Many of my girlfriends are several years older than I am, and I felt like most of them already had their own circles of close girlfriends when we met, so I wasn’t sure whether they considered me among their close friends, as I considered them. Thinking about it after the fact, a lot of my anxiety was due to my own insecurity. All four of the girlfriends I asked to be my bridesmaids were delighted to accept. Since I have no sisters, and we would have such family representation on the groomsmen side – we asked my younger brother, along with my fiance’s three younger brothers – I also asked my one female cousin if she would be a bridesmaid, and I think she also was pleased to be asked. Coincidentally and conveniently, my cousin met three of the other four girls when we were down in Nashville for one of their bachelorette parties a few years ago, so she won’t feel completely out of the loop.

It just so happens that only two of my five bridesmaids live in Chicago – the others are in Louisville, Kansas City, and Atlanta – and one of the two Chicago girls did a lot of traveling this summer, so it wasn’t until two weeks ago that we had an opportunity to try on bridesmaids’ dresses. I actually was lucky enough to have three bridesmaids in town at once, since my Louisville girl drove up to Chicago with her boyfriend for Lollapalooza. So on Saturday morning, we got together for the "Biker Brunch" at one of our favorite places, Twisted Spoke, and then went to the Ann Taylor store on Michigan Avenue so that they could try on bridesmaids’ dresses.

I really didn’t do a lot of looking around for bridesmaids’ dresses. I ripped some pictures out of wedding magazines, but I already knew that I liked the dresses in Ann Taylor’s Celebrations collection, so once I decided that I liked their “meadow green” as our primary wedding color, and I visited the store myself to see the color in person, and I even showed the dresses to my fiance to make sure that he liked the color too, I looked no further than the multiple styles offered in meadow green. I really wanted to find dresses that my girls actually liked, that weren’t too expensive, and that they could wear again. I told my girls that I preferred the idea of different dress styles in the same color to everyone wearing the exact same dress, so we went to see which dresses looked best on them, and how various dresses looked in combination with each other.

We had some trouble finding parking downtown, but otherwise it was a fairly quick and painless process. I had connected with the “Celebrations specialist” a few times and let her know that we were coming in that morning, and she was very helpful – she shared her opinions on various dresses without being pushy, let my petite girl know which dresses came in petite, and found additional sizes for us when necessary.

Here’s what we ended up with – two Daphne’s (left), and one Averie (right).

Images courtesy of Ann Taylor

I hadn’t considered the possibility that two girls might choose the same dress, but I quickly decided that was fine as long as nobody else wore that dress – we just won’t put the two dresses next to each other when we line up and take pictures. The biggest question in my mind going in had been whether the styles in different fabrics looked good together – would the dresses in satin back dupioni look good beside the dresses in silk georgette? The Celebrations specialist advised me that having all the dresses in the same fabric would produce more of a “unified” look, but I decided that I liked the different fabrics together, that the color was enough of a “unifying” feature, and anyway, it was most important to me that my girls chose the dresses that made them feel really beautiful! Besides, I knew that my cousin favored Chloe, which would give us another dress in the satin back dupioni, and when I talked to my MOH a few days later, she said that she probably would order Daisy, which gave us another silk georgette – and then we would also have the balance of two strapless and three with straps. I hope this mix is actually what we get!  Daisy is on the left, Chloe on the right.

It was so much fun watching my girls try on the dresses – and they all looked so good in them! I can’t wait to see how our bridal party attire comes together.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

– Mother Goose