A New Bridesmaid Concept

So in my last post I alluded to the fact that my bridesmaids and I came to some decisions about dresses... After deciding that orange BM dresses were out, I got to thinking... I love the weddings that I've seen where the bridesmaids get to wear a little black dress (LBD) of their choice, and then accessorize with colorful shoes or a wrap. The effect is so beautiful... and also so practical, since every girl could always use another really great LBD in their closet. Unfortunately, black doesn't have much of a place in our brightly-colored summer wedding -- except maybe on the groomsmen. I'm still trying to fight this one out with the Architect, but it seems to be a losing battle. Afterall, the Architect is, afterall, an architect... and people in his profession just LOVE to dress like slightly hip vampires at all times (think: black trousers and a cool black turtleneck sweater).

But I digress... black was definitely not an option for BM dresses, and if we couldn't go with black, what could we do to ensure that the dresses were something that my girls might actually want to wear again in the future? Then it hit me... neutrals!! There are lots of beautiful dresses out there in beige and other neutral make-up type colors. I went ahead and checked out J. Crew's website (b/c really, where else would a preppy girl from New England go to look for BM dresses?), and I think I found some winners. My awesome bridal party seems to think so too. Enter, attempt #2 at choosing BM dresses:

Preettty! -- all of the dresses, necklaces, and shoes are from J.Crew and the bouquet is from theknot

We are now looking at knee-length J. Crew dresses in 3 possible colors -- going clockwise from the top left they are "barely peach", "champagne", and "light caramel"... and BTW, whoever has the job of naming the colors for J. Crew has pretty much the most awesome job ever. I'm a little worried that the champagne might be too close to white, and the barely peach might be closer to a pink than a very pale orange, so I have ordered fabric swatches from a very nice lady in customer service at J. Crew. I should be receiving my swatches sometime in the next week to make some final decisions on colors, and then I'll be all ready to send my girls out into the world to find their dresses. (No clone bridesmaids for me, so each of them will have to do a little legwork and figure out which dress styles they like the best.) Yay!

What do you think of these dresses? Did your choice of BM dresses go through more than one iteration before you finally figured out the look you were going for?