The hot, new trend in wedding apparel this season is to have the girls in the wedding party wear black bridesmaid dresses and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Every woman owns at least two or three items of black clothing. Because of it's slimming effect and because it looks so elegant we go for those black pants or that black skirt whenever we want to look our very best. And what color is it that we most often turn to when we choose party attire? Black! Nearly every woman on the planet owns a little black dress. It's a wardrobe staple in every closet.
Women have been complaining about bridesmaid dresses for years. When asked to be an attendant at a friend or relative's wedding, a lot of girls won't accept until they know what they're going to have to wear. And the problem, as I see it, is that brides are not fashion designers. They know what looks good on them (well, some of them do) but they have no idea how to choose a dress that will look good on someone else. All the bride is thinking about is the effect the color of the dresses will make. "Wouldn't it look beautiful if I were standing there in my beautiful white dress surrounded by seven of my closest friends all wearing yards of bright pink taffeta with a with big floppy bows on their butt?"
Brides also get all caught up in wedding planning and seem to forget that those horrible bridesmaid dresses cost a lot of money. The tradition that had the bride paying for the dresses for the girls in the wedding party has long since been thrown out the window. Today, the poor girl who accepts the honor of being in the wedding party has to foot the bill for that dress herself. So it would be nice to be able to wear the dress more than once so you can get your money out of it. But where in the world will you ever wear a lime green or lemon yellow dress with a big floppy bow on the butt? Sorry, girlfriend, I love you, but not enough to wear THAT.
To further prove my point, look at the men in the wedding party. You can always tell who won the fight to get to pick out the groomsmen's attire. When the groom chooses the tuxes, the guys all look elegant and sophisticated in a snappy black tux with a black cummerbund and a white shirt. If the bride wins, the guys all look like they just stepped out of that "Sixteen Candles" prom scene. The tuxes are white or pink or blue or some other ungodly color and if she could get away with it, she'd probably have THEM wear a big floppy bow on their butt.
Brides will never change, so it's a good thing that the popular wedding colors do. And they've finally come around to the dark side. Black is in and black is beautiful and women around the world are once again stepping up to accept the honor of being a bridesmaid. They're even happy to pay for the dresses now. I can see this trend catching on and soon, even the bride will realize that she looks much better in black than she does in all those yards and yards of waste widening white.
In fact, I think it should become a grand tradition that all members of the wedding party wear black. Look how much easier wedding planning would be. Just tell everyone to wear their best little black dress, hand them a bouquet and send them down the aisle. Bridgette Bayer
