Meet Charlotte: Our Bridesmaid Expert

The other day I met with Charlotte, a friend who’s also been in 13 wedding parties. Over the next few months, she’ll be sharing some of the insight she’s gathered from being involved in all those weddings.

Charlotte’s biggest piece of advice for brides is to have clear idea of what you what and then accurately communicate it to your maids. She says that many of the weddings she’s been involved with begin with the bride being laid backed.

”She starts off with letting the bridesmaids make the decisions,” says Charlotte but eventually, as the bride sees that those decisions aren’t matching her vision, her relaxed nature changes. “That’s when things get bitchy.”

A common mistake is for the bride to tell the maids that they can wear whatever dress they want as long as the colour or fabric matches. Charlotte’s been involved in multiple weddings where this approach has led to alterations and new dress purchases. While she didn’t sound bitter about this, I know I would be if that happened to me.

Keep this from happening to you maids by together picking a common dress design and fabric. This doesn’t mean that everyone has to match but instead, that all the designs work together. Charlotte suggests picking necklines that work for each girl but keeping the rest of the dress the same. “That usually looks really flattering.”

Charlotte points out that you need to consider all details: open-toed shoes or closed; hair up or down; dangling earrings or studs. Once you know what you want, tell your girls and only let them make their own choices if you trust their style.

She tells the story about one wedding she was in where the girls where allowed to wear whatever necklace they wanted. The bride thought that her maids would wear a small floating diamond or pearl necklace and that’s what almost all of them ended up wearing except for one girl, who was a bit of a hippy. She showed up in a large, three-strand necklace. “It looked good,” says Charlotte but when the girl was lined up with the other maids, the hippy necklace really stood out. “The little things are really noticeable,” she says.

Having a plan for your maids look doesn’t mean you’re a Bridezilla. It just means that you’re organized and know that being a little bossy now can prevent a big headache in the future.