Long vs. Short

Through my (seemingly ongoing) experience of selecting bridesmaid dresses, I found myself asking lots of questions related to etiquette and traditions. Do the girls need the same style? Will it be to "off" if I let them choose their own styles? Will mis-matched bridesmaids go the way of shoulder pads in the 80's? I'm no expert on fashion, but I want my girls to look fantastic.

I don't abide by the notion that I'm the queen, and my bridesmaids are my loyal subjects. Never. These girls are my closest, absolute best friends. I want them to feel just as happy and pretty as I hope to feel on our wedding day. It was important to me that their"look" had a somewhat cohesive feel, but was able to let each girl showcase their own style. So I chose the color and material, but let them choose the style. If you've read my earlier posts, you also know that they're wearing gold shoes of their own choosing.

All of this is to say, I'm still stumped about the division between long and short dresses. It seems that the older wedding-goers associate long dresses with a formal wedding. But here's my question: Is it only the dresses that dictate the formality?

{Long dresses. Clearly formal. But sometimes these look just like a casual summer maxi dress}

{Short dresses. But they definitely look formal to me. Is it the formal updo's that make this look?}

While I love the look of long dresses, I don't want to deal (or have my bridesmaids deal) with the following things: dresses hemmed to short, dresses dragging, potential trip on said long dress, TN heat in August, slim possibility of ever wearing a fancy long dress again. Here's the plusses I came up with for the short dresses: shows off their cute gold shoes, everybody will have tan legs!, they'll be cool during our 2hr photo session between the ceremony and the reception, they can have both hands free while dancing (there's no bustle on a BM dress). And if both of their hands are free, that leaves 1 for a bouquet, and another to help hold up MY dress from the heat! Just kidding. But seriously, that tulle will be a steamer!

Well this turned out to be quite a long-winded post. So give me the deets. Long or short? What are your thoughts? Do you think there can be a formal wedding with the bridesmaids in short dresses? Or do you think short automatically dictates casual?


all images from The Knot