For House Party gal "M"'s wedding in 2011, she knew she wanted coordinated, but not matching bridesmaid dresses. She decided on a color palette (rust, brown, and gold/copper) and decided to let us pick out our own dresses from there. However, the reality is, in order for this to work, there was has to be a certain amount of balance of colors. We couldn't have five of us in brown, and one in gold and one in rust! Since it was a bit of a project, the bride asked me to be her "Dress Wrangler," helping sort out and suggesting dresses for the group.
Not too long after, another friend, Bridesmaid K, became engaged and developed a color palette along these lines:
This time around, it was much easier to coordinate, because Pinterest was around! I created a board, then added any coral dresses I could find to it. Then I just shared it with the rest of the maids. It also turned out gorgeous:
I definitely didn't think I would be straying from the mismatched idea, but we all surprise ourselves sometimes! To be continued...