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A Guide To Bridesmaids Dresses And Wedding Planning

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Bridesmaid dresses are shedding the identical-satin-gown look for 2020, and color is doing most of the work.

Bridal parties heading into the 2020 wedding season are trading matching gowns for coordinated palettes, letting each bridesmaid pick a silhouette that actually fits her body. The shift has been building all year, pushed along by Pantone’s 2019 Color of the Year and a wave of stylists pushing brides toward mix-and-match over uniformity. Here’s what’s actually driving those choices right now, and how to translate a Pinterest board into dresses that survive a full day of standing, hugging, and dancing.

• Pantone’s Living Coral, alongside Princess Blue and soft pastels, has dominated 2019 bridal-party color boards, with fashion outlets reporting a clear move away from identical bridesmaid gowns toward mix-and-match silhouettes.
• Wrap-style and one-shoulder dresses, tea-length gowns, and halter necklines have overtaken the traditional strapless cut as the go-to options for mobility and comfort at receptions.
• Empire waists, A-line skirts, and flowy chiffon remain the most requested combination because they flatter the widest range of body types across a single bridal party.

The Palette Doing the Heavy Lifting

Living Coral’s reign as Pantone’s Color of the Year has bled straight into 2019’s bridal-party palettes, showing up as everything from full-length gowns to sash accents on neutral dresses. Princess Blue has run alongside it as the richer, cooler counterpoint, while soft pastels — lilac, powder pink, eggshell blue — continue to earn their reputation as the safest match against an ivory or white bridal gown. The common thread in this season’s styling advice isn’t a single hue; it’s choosing a tonal family and then letting individual dresses vary within it, rather than forcing six bridesmaids into six identical bolts of fabric.

The uniform bridal party is out — the coordinated one is in.

Silhouettes Replacing the Matching Uniform

Wrap-style and one-shoulder dresses have become the default recommendation for brides who want flexibility without sacrificing polish, largely because they move well through a reception and photograph as flattering on nearly any frame. Tea-length gowns have found a following among brides chasing a vintage look while keeping their bridesmaids mobile on a dance floor. Halter necklines, meanwhile, are increasingly cited as the modern stand-in for the classic strapless bodice — offering more support without losing the bare-shoulder look brides still want in their wedding party photos.

Underneath all of it, the fabric and cut choices haven’t changed much from what’s worked for a decade: empire waists, A-line skirts, and chiffon remain the safest bet when a bridal party spans multiple body types and heights, exactly as they did when brides were told to prioritize shapes “that will flatter everyone’s figure” over a single dictated style.

Making the Colors and Cuts Work Together

Stylists this year have leaned on the idea of choosing a fabric or crossweave color and then matching the bouquets to it, so the flowers pull out and amplify a tone already built into the dress rather than fighting it. That approach pairs naturally with the mix-and-match silhouette trend — a bride can lock in one palette (say, Princess Blue with a coral accent) and let five different necklines and hemlines sit inside it without the wedding looking disjointed. It’s a more forgiving system for budget too, since bridesmaids sourcing their own dress within a shared color code have more room to shop within their own price range, an important detail when $100 to $250 per dress is still treated as the realistic range for most bridal parties.

Accessorizing Without Overdoing It

The accessory advice hasn’t shifted much even as color and cut have: keep jewelry simple, let the dress and the palette carry the look, and prioritize shoes bridesmaids can actually stand in through a ceremony and a reception. Shawls, gloves, and small hair pieces still show up for more formal affairs, but this year’s guidance keeps circling back to comfort — a wrap dress in a rich tone paired with block heels does more for a bridal party than a strapless gown and stilettos nobody can dance in. For brides working through the rest of the checklist, that same logic — planning early, keeping communication open with the bridal party, and scheduling a final fitting before the big day — is what keeps six different dresses looking like one cohesive wedding.