8 weeks to wedding - matrons of honor fighting over dresses

Dear ESB:

A little background.  Several weeks ago one of my oldest and dearest friends took her own life.  I have been dealing with the grief as well as the memory of having been the person who went to her house to be with her mother while the coroner came.  My fiance has been a constant source of support.

In light of the tragedy as well as having lost another good friend in the past year, my fiance looked at me and said, "Life is too short to spend a year planning the the perfect party.  I want to marry you right away." We quickly found a venue available eight weeks from now, cleared the date with our family and closest friends and made some fast decisions. All has been going well until I spoke with my sister and best friend, both of whom I hoped would stand up with me, about what they should wear.

I thought I was being laid back by telling them there is no time to worry about traditional bridesmaid attire.  I let them know that what is important to me is that they are there by my side, and feel comfortable and beautiful in whatever they select. Since both ladies are infinitely more fashionable than I am, I didn't think it was my place to tell them what to wear.  They both are familiar with the venue, know what my dress looks like and attend formal events on a regular basis.  Wrongly. I assumed they would be thrilled for the chance to either shop for something new and fabulous without any restrictions, or wear something beautiful and appropriate that they already own. I offered to go shopping with them either as a group or each individually if they would like. `

Since I discussed this with them there has been nothing but drama.  Both are very concerned that the other is going to select something that will be "better or more sexy" than their selection.  I tried providing guidelines, based on their input, I even suggested that both just wear black to keep it simple. This escalated to more infighting and no one willing to even discuss what they might wear because they want to wait until the other one selects something.  I finally asked if it would be easier if I just picked a dress off the rack for both of them.  This was met by looks of horror and the exclamation of one with "You know Matron 1 is a completely different body type than me." and "That just won't work. I am not a cookie-cutter person." from the other.

How do I handle this? Do I give them each other's phone numbers and tell them to hash it out? I was in both of their weddings and wore the dresses they selected for their bridesmaids without complaint.  There is so much bad blood about something so trivial that I fear that the real reason My fiance and I are getting married is being eclipsed by this diva war.

Any advice would be very welcome.

Thank you

Still Secretly Updating My Playlist

Dear ESB,

My MOH is my best friend and generally pretty awesome. She is also FH’s cousin and currently planning her own wedding to FH’s friend. She got engaged a week before me (the fellas unknowingly bought rings on the same day) and set their date a few days later. FH and I had a harder time setting our date. We’d always envisioned fall, but have siblings getting married this year and next, and our other siblings couldn’t afford to fly across the country twice within a few months. Outdoor wedding was a must, so we chose next summer, six weeks before MOH’s wedding. She wasn’t happy but seemed to get over it, and our weddings are turning out to be quite different. Hers is a sit-down dinner at a beautiful but expensive country club. Ours is a (hopefully) relaxed and cheap beach ceremony followed by a party in my parents’ backyard nearby. A friend’s cousin will be doing our buffet-style catering. His wife is a DJ and offers discounts to people who book both of them. Sounds obvious that we should hire her, right? Nope. MOH was the one who first talked about this DJ, and then declared that we can’t have the same one because our weddings will be too similar and will have the same music. I thought all wedding DJs played basically the same music? The standards with some requests thrown in? Anyway, I never even wanted a DJ in the first place. After I got engaged, I started happily creating a playlist of my favorite love and dance songs peppered with the weird crap I like. But FH really wants a DJ and MOH convinced me that I should compromise. I agreed, and he said he would take care of the pricing, contract, etc. Then MOH called dibs on this DJ. FH thinks it’s ridiculous and plans on pursuing her anyway. A part of me feels like I should just let the two of them work it out. They’re family after all. But I love them both dearly and don’t want this to cause a fight, especially over something that is so low on my list of things to give a shit about. Any advice would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Still Secretly Updating My Playlist

Bridesmaid to Bridesmaid

Hey eastsidebride,

I'm 1 year married, and have been reading your blog forever. Love everything about it, keep it up!

So my sister in law is getting married in about 6 weeks, and has (obviously) been pretty stressed with last minute planning. To top it off, the caterer she had scheduled just fell through, and she's in a tailspin trying to find another one who's available on such short notice (total bummer)! Anywho, she has 6 bridesmaids who are all individually close friends of hers. One of them is kind of needy from what I can tell and is always texting her about her boy drama and "needs her." Well, my sister in law is the best and wants to be there for her Bridesmaid and help her with her problems of course, but it is SUPER stressing her out! We have talked about it a few times, and I can just feel the stress radiating from her body. She does not have time to deal with her trivial made-up drama, when she has actual drama to take care of, you know... a wedding to plan. I am not friends with this Bridesmaid, but I feel like I should interject and make her realize just how uncalled for this is right about now. I want to email her and tell her to back off! Nicely pointed out, of course, maybe she doesn't realize what she's doing. Is that totally rude, or is it something I should do in order to help the Bride out? Sister in law will definitely not lay it out for her. She is toooo sweet. Help!

happily-done-with-stressful-wedding-planning, but know-how-it-feels, bridesmaid