Preface: If I have participated in your wedding as a bridesmaid, or one day you were planning on asking me to be your bridesmaid, this legit has NOTHING to do with you. Your weddings, future weddings were and will be forever and ever lovely and it was an honor to be apart of them slash WILL be an honor to be apart of them. There.

This is about bridesmaid dresses, the bridesmaid dress industry, and the people who sell them. First, and most importantly, what a rip off. I’ve found, that as a seasoned bridesmaid, the minute you walk into a bridal boutique to shop bridesmaids dresses … you are going to get shook down by some bully in a skirt suit who will take her pretty little tape measure and get your sizing completely wrong (which I think is on purpose), but will tell you it’s right because “she’s a professional.” I’m like a size 22 in bridal boutique world … what … the … fuck. Oh also, girls over 5’8 need “extra length” added to their dress ALWAYS, which is a damn dirty lie, too.

Now if you are the type of bride who is in it to make your bridesmaids look like absolutely shit because it’s “your day dammit,” why? Seriously, no one gives a flying fuck about the bridesmaids besides the single dudes at the wedding. Also, bride, are you paying for their dresses? If so, go to town, make them look like a clown school exploded all over them, but if you’re not, that means you’re making them spend their hard earned money, and a lot of it, on an ugly dress they will wear once. ONCE. Is that what girlfriends do to one another? Not in my house. I’ve had the pleasure of being in two weddings where the bride was open to our opinions and made sure the dress complimented each bridesmaids body type. Hell, the last wedding I was in, the bride let us pick out the damn dress. Now THAT is friendship.

As women, dress shopping should be fun. You know what’s not fun? Walking into a bridal boutique where bridesmaids dresses are shoved so tightly onto a rack you literally have to roll up your sleeves and dive in to awful shades and styles until you find a diamond in the rough. The whole experience is pretty heinous, I gotta say.

And why, dear God why, do they only have sample sizes. You walk into Bloomies, Saks, and you see racks and racks of lovely dresses in a multitude of sizes. And if they don’t have your size, they can ship it to you … what?! Some sales person doesn’t get all up in your bidness in the dressing room, literally seeing you naked and strapping you into some weird sample dress that 1,500 other girls have worn and clamping it closed with a binder clip only to get the wrong sized dress to you four months later. Could you imagine falling in love with a Monique Lhuillier dress at Bloomies and having to wait four months to get it?

Brides, think outside of the bridesmaid dress bubble. I know it’s tradition … blah, blah, blah, but it’s 2014 for crying out loud. I’m over seeing the same dress again and again in different colors rolling through my Newsfeed (you know the strapless number I’m talking about, see below. We should all get together and wear these dresses at a party while we drink wine and eat french fries).

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but J. Crew has done some really innovative shit with bridesmaids dresses, because they are legit wearable again, not the whole, “OMG girl, you could TOTES shorten it and wear it again!” Listen, when people say that to me, it makes me want to head butt them … and I don’t do that. You can NEVER alter the typical bridesmaids dress. Why? Because those dresses are made from material that if a bridesmaid got too close to a flame, they would be done for.

Think about a bridesmaid dress as an investment piece for the girls you so specifically picked out to stand beside you as you take a huge and monumental step into the future. Actually get something they can wear again! Dresses should be fun and should make women feel amazing and special … even if it isn’t “their day.” But if you are in it to make them look meh, I have no idea why you would even ask them to be apart of your party, to be honest. It’s just rude and awful.

Now THIS is how bridesmaids dresses are done. BOOM. :::Drops mic:::