25 of our favorite mismatched bridesmaids #Fashion#bridesmaid dress#mismatched-bridesmaids#wedding party February 3 2016 | Catherine Clark bijouxandbits Photo by Loren X Chris Related Post Use watercolor swatches to share your wedding color scheme I've been wringing my hands over my "dusky" wedding colors, and it's been difficult to explain to my bridesmaids what I generally had in mind.... Read more One thing we know: matching wedding parties is SO not required anymore. I'd say about half of the weddings we receive as submissions stray from the matchy-matchy tradition in favor of mismatched bridesmaids and wedding parties. They range from mildly varied fashion to wildly different looks, and we love them all. Let's travel down memory lane to revisit some of our very favorite mismatched bridesmaids and wedding parties, starting with this A very Wes Anderson wedding with bridesmaids in berets and Fantastic Mr. Fox-inspired groomsmen. Photo by Loren X Chris The front-facing view of these 1960s bridesmaid vixens and below, the other half of the crew including a groomsgirl! Photo by Loren X Chris Kim and Cole's barn and bonfire wedding. Photo by Kym Ventola Photography Kimber and Kaylee's boho wedding. Photos by Alex & Cammy Photography Foggy mountain top wedding full of craft beer. Photo by Amelia Fletcher Must-see vegan Jewish wedding. Photo by Love Me Do Photography Katrina and Joshua's fall florals wedding. Photo by Jennifer Rice Photography Morgan and Dominic's handmade backyard wedding. Photo by Christina James Photography Lacey and Jason's mountain dance party. Photo by RubySky Photography Photo by RubySky Photography Matching clutches by Red Ruby Rose! Chris and Joe's dancing barefoot in the rain wedding. Photo by Love Me Do Photography Erin and Samantha's candlelight wedding. Photo by Pritchard Photography Carrie and Mason's barefoot mountain wedding. Photo by Jessica Fey Liz's gloriously sunny yellow and gold dresses. Photo by Rachel Joy Photos Kimmy and Erik's "party forever" wedding. Photo by Oliver Barth Helen and Deepak's multicultural wedding. Photo by Mark Dickinson Photography Lauren and Vaughn's Mennonite farm wedding. Photo by Simple Life Portraits Jessica and Grant's Victorian winery wedding. Photo by Hettinger Photography Rachel and Dave's urban clock tower wedding. Photo by Gathering Light Photography Bobbie and Mario's ranch wedding. Photo by Brynne Owen Photography The dudes on Mario's side. Photos by Brynne Owen Photography Sam and Eric's Star Wars wedding. Photo by Evoke Photography Christine and Derek's misadventurous rainbow wedding. Photos by Milestone Images Stephanie and Morgan's whiskey and wildflowers wedding. Photo by Richard Cao Jenn and Doug's silly colorful trivia-fest. Photo by Kevin's Photography Jen and Clynton's South Africa wedding. Photo by Candice Dollery Photography Ryan and Kesslan's rainbow dance-fest. Photo by Jason Comerford And when it comes to wedding party fashion, these guys know not to take it too seriously… Ellen and Paul's summer camp peacock handfasting. Photo by Ann & Kam Photography and Cinema Are you having a wedding party? Will they match? Reporter Name * Reporter Email * Original text Enter the original text here. Edited text* Enter your suggested copyedit here. Notes You can add a note for the editor here. * Required information. Fix Typo Catherine Clark Catherine Clark is Offbeat Bride's Senior Editor. In her spare time she loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur baby, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com. @enidjcoleslaw @bijouxandbits @bijouxandbits PREVIOUS Magical bespoke wedding jewelry for artists, nature-lovers, and cosplayers NEXT Two ladies finally celebrate 20 years with a garden wedding in Utah Show/Hide comments [ 11 ] I think one of the best things about non-matching bridal parties is that (usually) the outfits seem like something they can wear again. My mother has several bridesmaids dresses that she spent a lot of money on and only wore once because they just weren't flattering on her. It's hard to choose a style that works on various body types and I think that's a huge advantage of non-matching bridal parties. 2 agree Reply That's exactly why I'm having my bridesmaids wear knee length floral dresses. They can pick any style, any type of floral pattern, sleeves/no sleeves, etc. My bridesmaids are my guests of honor, and I want them to wear something they like that looks good on them. That just wouldn't work if they all had to wear the same dress. 2 agree Reply When I get married, I'm inclined to say to my bride's people (sister and two male friends) and to my boyfriend's groom's siblings (sister and two brothers) to wear something in the neighborhood of purple for me and something in the neighborhood of green for him. Reply Aw yay! we're doing purple and green for our wedding colours! we're wondering a bit whether it'll be unintentionally willy-wonka-ish, but hopefully it'll work on the day. we're doing mismatched dresses in purple or green – any style/length/shade and mismatched groomsmen, with some gold accessories to pull it together. Reply My maids will be rocking mismatched 50s style swing dresses in assorted florals to compliment my ivory swing-style wedding dress! Different necklines, different colors, but all the same general vibe – that way everyone could pick something out that they loved that worked for them (I have bridesmaids from 5'1 to 6'3) – plus, TWIRLY DRESSES FOREVER! 😀 Reply Great article! My bridesmaids will be mismatched at my wedding this September, so thank you for sharing these ideas from other weddings! -Alisha Reply I love the different degrees of mismatching here! Some of these look like the bride gave no instructions at all, but others are clearly planned or coordinated. 1 agrees Reply For a minute I was like "but some of these match- they're all in green/yellow/flower prints!" because I was using my normal logic. Then I remembered that "matching" when you talk about bridesmaids and weddings usually means everyone wears the exact same dress in the exact same shade of color, ideally from the same dye lot… Oh, right, forgot about that. And looking at all of these they look great whether they were coordinated or free-form, so yay! It just looks so much more natural to me this way, personally. If only everyone applied their everyday-life logic to weddings all the time! Then we wouldn't need to keep reminding people to chill out about it- at least not so much. I can dream, right? It's so hard to just plan the thing without being consciously for or against tradition. 1 agrees Reply I love the idea of mismatched dresses not necessarily for the aesthetic but really because hey, everyone involved are grown adults and should pick what they want to wear. The problem I've encountered is I asked that my bridal party (2 guys, 3 ladies) choose something with blue in it. Guys – no problem. Ladies – but what style of dress? Any length? But what shade of blue? Are you sure? There's a lot of blue shades? As in….aquamarine or more navy? But what about sleeves? ….so please be prepared that sometimes, out of love (and maybe a bit of misplaced "shoulds"), no matter how offbeat your friends are normally, they may like some additional guidelines. In my case, I turned the task over to my maids of honor and let them run herd since they care more than I do. Too terrible? 😀 Reply Hi, Ellen from the Wes Anderson wedding here. I had that wonderful "problem" with some of my bridesmaids. I love your solution of the maid of honor which would have worked if I had one… >.< My bridesmaid was just so eager to please and to be sure that I was getting the day that I wanted! In that case, I gave the bridesmaid three different options of dresses that she liked that I thought looked good on her that fit with the theme. She even ended up customizing the dress she wore with a cute peter pan collar! Also, I can tell you that for a fact not one dress was going to fit everyone, as I had girls of all sizes and shapes up there with me. So the mismatch-y thing was almost a necessity! Reply I'm a little late replying, but I'm going with choosing a length and then letting them pick whatever style they want. And for colors, I was going to give them paint swatches from the hardware store for guidance. That way I could say, "Yes to these ones and definitely no to these." I'm probably gonna end up going with red and dusty rose (or something along those lines) and just want to avoid anyone getting crazy with pinks. Reply Join the conversation Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Sign me up for your offbeat awesomeness newsletter! No-drama comment policy Part of what makes the Offbeat Empire different is our commitment to civil, constructive commenting. Make sure you're familiar with our no-drama comment policy. Biz owners & wedding bloggers Please just use your real name in your comment, not your business name or blog title. 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I think one of the best things about non-matching bridal parties is that (usually) the outfits seem like something they can wear again. My mother has several bridesmaids dresses that she spent a lot of money on and only wore once because they just weren't flattering on her. It's hard to choose a style that works on various body types and I think that's a huge advantage of non-matching bridal parties. 2 agree Reply
That's exactly why I'm having my bridesmaids wear knee length floral dresses. They can pick any style, any type of floral pattern, sleeves/no sleeves, etc. My bridesmaids are my guests of honor, and I want them to wear something they like that looks good on them. That just wouldn't work if they all had to wear the same dress. 2 agree Reply
When I get married, I'm inclined to say to my bride's people (sister and two male friends) and to my boyfriend's groom's siblings (sister and two brothers) to wear something in the neighborhood of purple for me and something in the neighborhood of green for him. Reply
Aw yay! we're doing purple and green for our wedding colours! we're wondering a bit whether it'll be unintentionally willy-wonka-ish, but hopefully it'll work on the day. we're doing mismatched dresses in purple or green – any style/length/shade and mismatched groomsmen, with some gold accessories to pull it together. Reply
My maids will be rocking mismatched 50s style swing dresses in assorted florals to compliment my ivory swing-style wedding dress! Different necklines, different colors, but all the same general vibe – that way everyone could pick something out that they loved that worked for them (I have bridesmaids from 5'1 to 6'3) – plus, TWIRLY DRESSES FOREVER! 😀 Reply
Great article! My bridesmaids will be mismatched at my wedding this September, so thank you for sharing these ideas from other weddings! -Alisha Reply
I love the different degrees of mismatching here! Some of these look like the bride gave no instructions at all, but others are clearly planned or coordinated. 1 agrees Reply
For a minute I was like "but some of these match- they're all in green/yellow/flower prints!" because I was using my normal logic. Then I remembered that "matching" when you talk about bridesmaids and weddings usually means everyone wears the exact same dress in the exact same shade of color, ideally from the same dye lot… Oh, right, forgot about that. And looking at all of these they look great whether they were coordinated or free-form, so yay! It just looks so much more natural to me this way, personally. If only everyone applied their everyday-life logic to weddings all the time! Then we wouldn't need to keep reminding people to chill out about it- at least not so much. I can dream, right? It's so hard to just plan the thing without being consciously for or against tradition. 1 agrees Reply
I love the idea of mismatched dresses not necessarily for the aesthetic but really because hey, everyone involved are grown adults and should pick what they want to wear. The problem I've encountered is I asked that my bridal party (2 guys, 3 ladies) choose something with blue in it. Guys – no problem. Ladies – but what style of dress? Any length? But what shade of blue? Are you sure? There's a lot of blue shades? As in….aquamarine or more navy? But what about sleeves? ….so please be prepared that sometimes, out of love (and maybe a bit of misplaced "shoulds"), no matter how offbeat your friends are normally, they may like some additional guidelines. In my case, I turned the task over to my maids of honor and let them run herd since they care more than I do. Too terrible? 😀 Reply
Hi, Ellen from the Wes Anderson wedding here. I had that wonderful "problem" with some of my bridesmaids. I love your solution of the maid of honor which would have worked if I had one… >.< My bridesmaid was just so eager to please and to be sure that I was getting the day that I wanted! In that case, I gave the bridesmaid three different options of dresses that she liked that I thought looked good on her that fit with the theme. She even ended up customizing the dress she wore with a cute peter pan collar! Also, I can tell you that for a fact not one dress was going to fit everyone, as I had girls of all sizes and shapes up there with me. So the mismatch-y thing was almost a necessity! Reply
I'm a little late replying, but I'm going with choosing a length and then letting them pick whatever style they want. And for colors, I was going to give them paint swatches from the hardware store for guidance. That way I could say, "Yes to these ones and definitely no to these." I'm probably gonna end up going with red and dusty rose (or something along those lines) and just want to avoid anyone getting crazy with pinks. Reply