<p>The wedding thread had be replaying pictures in my mind and I can’t shake the photo of me at my sister’s wedding. I was the maid of honor and I had to wear an off the shoulder peach lace gown with a HOOP skirt underneth…OMG! It gets better…matching peach shoes…not that you could see them under all that fabric and a matching peach hat with a brim wider than the bottom of my hoop skirt. And yes…I had a matching parasol. Era 1980’s, place: Georgia. Bet you would never guess that one…lol.</p>
<p>late 1980’s - Puff sleeves, “tea length”, trimmed with wide lace. It wasn’t so bad except that the color (deep wine) washed me out so bad I had to wear a ton of makeup to avoid looking sick. Need I mention my 80’s perm?</p>
<p>Dress got a second life in a school production of “Hello Dolly” worn by my neighbor’s D.</p>
<p>Early 80’s pink flowered dress with a pillbox hat with veil coming down from into over our faces. Really.</p>
<p>Around 1978 - peach polyester dresses, truly hideous. And the ushers wore beigey-brown polyester tuxedos. Eeeuw.</p>
<p>Also had a hat with a veil coming down over my face as a bridesmaid in the 80s. My kids used it for dress up for years, until it got smashed. The dress that went with it was not much better as it looked like a maternity dress.</p>
<p>Polyester dresses- one light orange, one sky blue- dresses weren’t so bad but the hats! They were huge, floppy ones. My kids liked to play with them too.</p>
<p>1979… The dress I wore was dark peach almost orange. It was floaty polyester with a big poofy skirt and an off the shoulder top (could barely raise my arms more than a few inches fr. my sides) with a fakey silk flower attached to one side of the bosom. The men wore taupe tuxedoes with cowboy style ties. t</p>
<p>My SIL had to wear an electric-blue satin dress, tea-length, puffy sleeves, puffy skirt,and a huge bow on the butt. (Ah, the 80’s… were they even worse than the 70’s?) My D wore it years later with a pillow stuffed under the butt when she and a friend went out for Halloween as Cinderella’s Ugly Stepsisters.</p>
<p>A Southern wedding in the 70’s and another peach concoction that had two rows of ruffles running from the waist in front, over the shoulders and down the back, continuing to the floor–on other word, two rows of honking big ruffles over my butt–I’ve always prayed no photos exist with a rear view of me. On another note–the brides gown had a pale yellow underskirt that added just a hint of color, and her mother freaked out when she first saw it, convinced that all her friends would conclude her daughter wasn’t–horrors!–a virgin.</p>
<p>Sorry, girls, these are dream dresses compared to what I am about to describe.</p>
<p>It must have been around 1971 or 72 - I was a junior bridesmaid for my “big sister” at church. </p>
<p>Yellow satin brocade (patterned)
All-in-one pantsuit with wide legs, and a diamond shape cut out at the chest
Yellow chiffon puffy (genie) sleeves cuffed every so cleverly with the brocade</p>
<p>Heaven knows I can’t remember what we wore on our heads and feet, or what we carried. </p>
<p>It was also in August, in coastal Virginia, and it was about 103 degrees that day.</p>
<p>Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the marriage didn’t last.</p>
<p>I didn’t like the peach polyester dress I wore either. The color was just too close to my skin tone.</p>
<p>I also had the pleasure (being sarcastic here) of wearing an emerald green bubble-hemmed dress, as a bridesmaid. They are back in style now.</p>
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<p>collegeshopping, I had a dress similar to yours only pink and not lace, but some filmy polyester stuff, and we wore silk flower and ribbon wreaths instead of hats and we carried fans with silk flowers glued on instead of flowers. We didn’t even have the Southern Belle excuse – we were in Ohio. This was 1981-ish and I had only been dating my husband for a few months. He was my date for the wedding and I was so nervous he wouldn’t like me any more after he saw me in that dress. The most notable thing about that wedding was the bride’s sister and my fellow bridesmaid was a prostitute.</p>
<p>I still have that dress and it has been worn several times by me and my friends to little girl princess parties, retro prom fundraiser parties, tacky bridesmaid dress parties and I made a Christmas tree costume that can be worn over the hoop skirt which has been worn by various people to hand out flyers for a Festival of Trees fundraiser. Who knew that dress would come in so handy? I did have to let it out a little since I first wore it when I was 19.</p>
<p>Ok! So we definitely have determined that shortly before the early 80’s dusty pink dresses, PEACH was in!</p>
<p>Yep, in 1977 I too wore one - 110% polyester I think! With a wide brimmed hat with a big peach bow. Brother…</p>
<p>This one wasn’t too bad as mid-80’s bridesmaids dresses go … dark blue satin, spaghetti straps & a little jacket. The problem was, the bridal shop’s seamstress insisted on taking the top in more than a little too much (I am not THAT small-busted …). A week after the final alterations, I donned my maid of honor dress for the Big Event. Much to my dismay, the zipper (in the back) split … my friend had to sew me into the dress so that I wouldn’t give too much of a show to the guests in the church. To top it off, it was about 100 degrees at the reception & I had to keep the stupid little jacket on to cover the mess in the back. Guess it beats duct tape, though! :)</p>
<p>I think I was in 5 or 6 weddings in the weddings in that hideous pink satin taffeta. And got to pay for the privilege of being in those weddings, besides. </p>
<p>I am not going to even go there on how many of those brides are still married. I will say that anyone who would treat their best friends this way were probably not the best brides to their grooms, though. ;)</p>
<p>My sister wore a hoop skirt dress with a big ruffled off the shoulder neckline in white eyelet with yellow embroidery for her roommates wedding, the same dress in blue for her high school best friend’s wedding, and the SAME dress in lavender for another roommates wedding. SHe would have dyed them, but the only color was the embroidery-- so she ended up with three dresses all alike, but in different colors. She was going to make my other sister and I wear them for her wedding, but they were much too big for us. Instead she chopped them up and made them into baby quilts for the girls whose weddings they were from.</p>
<p>I’m crying I’m laughing so hard!! I played in a Bunco group 10 years ago and we had a Bridesmaid Bunco where you had to wear your ugliest dress in your lineup. I found sequins and beads in my house for ages…</p>
<p>
Okay, I have to ask: if all the bridesmaids thought the dresses were ugly, what was the bride thinking? She either has terrible taste, or wanted to look better than the bridesmaids. I picked dresses I liked for my bridesmaids. I still like them 30 years later.</p>
<p>In the late 70’s, in some areas of the country rainbow weddings were in style. Each bridesmaid wore a different color and they stood in order…pink, peach, yellow, mint green, pale blue, lavender. The corresponding groomsmen wore matching bows/cummerbunds or (worst idea EVER) matching tuxes. Add in the floppy hats and parasols (indoors?) and it was a horror show. I participated more than once.</p>
<p>One of my friends had a bridesmaids dress birthday slumber party for her 40th. She dressed in her wedding dress and we all wore an old ugly bridesmaid dress and then we went out to some clubs downtown. I think there was about 15 or 20 of us; it was quite a sight and we were quite a hit. We had a blast.</p>