So your NCAA point guard sister is supposed to wear the same dress as your best friend the ballerina? Let us know how that one goes. Yes, that strapless dress (you know the one. It’s the one every bridesmaid has to wear – the one that looks like she got caught in her towel on the way to the shower) looks great in the photo – where some size 2 model is standing still. Once your real-life bridesmaids start moving around, or breathing, or having any kind of discernible bone structure, that dress will not look the same. It gaps in the front, it slips down in the back, and worst of all, it will wreak havoc on your pictures. In nearly every shot, it’s guaranteed that at least one of your lovely bridesmaids will be frowning down her cleavage, elbows chicken-winged out to the sides while she yanks up the seams of that pretty, pretty dress in an effort not to be the wardrobe malfunction that ruins your wedding.
These ladies are your friends, so don’t put that kind of pressure on them. Just let them be excited for you, drink a few too many glasses of champagne and make out with one of the groomsmen. And for the love of chiffon, give them the sartorial freedom to do it.
I Just Want It To Be Perfect 
As someone who hates to wear strapless dresses (seriously, how do people put up with pulling them up all day? or so there some secret strapless-wearing-trick that I’ve just not been taught yet) I’ve never worked out why it is that so many people choose them as a) wedding dresses (although I suppose once you’ve been corseted to within an inch of your life that dress ain’t going anywhere) and b) bridesmaid dresses. Especially busty bridesmaid dresses. It’s just plain cruel!
I like all your posts. Very intuitive. Well written. Nice photographs. Almost as if I am attending 365 weddings a year.
365 weddings a year!! That would have to be some kind of world record. Thanks for writing.