Ready to pull out the Bridemaids' hair for THEM

Dear ESB,

My fiancee and I are getting married in November.  Yayyyy!!  I've asked my closest family and friends to be the bridesmaids.  Yayyyy!!  My dilemna lies with the anxiety these tricks are giving me.  None of the girls are married (the ones that are causing anxiety anyway) so they really have no idea how many miniscule idiotic details are entailed in planning a wedding.  My fiancee and I made a pact at the point of the engagement that we would NOT stress about planning this wedding.  We want to fully enjoy this momentous ocassion to its fullest extent.  Now, I know that (at least for me) it will be nearly impossible to be stress free when planning the wedding however, we have succeeded as much as possible to date.  A couple of the girls are LITERALLY up my rear end about picking a dress.  I told them that they'll be wearing black dresses and I've been on the hunt for cheese free but still reasonably priced bs dresses but this isn't sufficient for them.  I know there are a ton of places that do cheese free bs dresses but can't find any that offer dresses that cater to the budget of less than $200 that I'm looking to fulfill and I abhor the idea of getting dresses at someplace like David's.  I'm not concerned, at least not yet, that there won't be enough time to get the girls dresses.  So I guess my questions for you are: A) Am I warranted in wanting to issue the bridesmaids that are causing stress a big STFU (shut the f**k up until I find something?  and B) Could you suggest places that I can look to secure dresses that would suffice for a wedding in the budget price point of less than $200??

Signed,
Ready to pull out the Bridemaids' hair for THEM

My Maid of Honor Is Clueless

My maid of honor is my wonderful college roommate that I've known for eight years. After college I moved from Colorado to DC to be with my now fiance and she stayed in Colorado. Knowing that friendship fades with distance we make a point to vacation with one another every year. While vacationing together last year, she told me that she was sick of the corporate grind and was going to quit her job in February to backpack around Asia and Europe for five months. I thought it was a little silly to quit her job in this economy but I wished her the best and asked her to email when she could. Then I got engaged in December.

I'm not a particularly needy bride, so knowing that she was going to be traveling for five months I still asked her to be my maid of honor for my October wedding. I figured that she would be back in the states by July and could start planning a bridal shower and bachelorette party then. A few months ago my future mother-in-law approached me about hosting a shower and my MOH thought it would be better if she hosted it because she wasn't familiar with my fiance's family and the city. I was ok with the decision and just asked my MOH to help with the planning (e.g. no silly games, no ribbon bouquet).

The shower is planned for early-July and my MOH is flying into DC from Paris (the last leg of her five month trip) then flying home to Colorado after the shower. Again, I was ok with this and assumed that she would come in a few days before the shower and leave a few days later so that we would have time to catch up and talk about her travels and the weddings plans.

Well it recently came to my attention that she's flying into DC the afternoon before my shower and leaving at 7 AM the morning after. Essentially she's going to be in DC for 36 hours. Jet lagged. With five months worth of laundry. Then, one of my bridesmaids let it slip that they're planning my bachelorette party for the night of the bridal shower.

After I found out about the plans I offered my MOH my frequent flyer miles (enough to purchase a roundtrip plane ticket) so that she could come back to DC and plan my bachelorette party for later in the summer (like closer to my actual wedding date). She declined and said that she didn't mind pulling an all-nighter. I pointed out that I would rather her enjoy my bachelorette party and that I didn't feel like the timing was right. Again, she declined.

I'm really at my wit's end. I didn't ask my MOH for much but I did ask her to plan a kick-ass bachelorette party. I feel like she doesn't give a crap about my bridal shower/bachelorette party, and now I don't want her to plan my bachelorette party if she can't take the time to do it right. What do you think? Am I being oversensitive?

- PO'd in DC