46 Ridiculous Vintage Bridesmaids Dresses That Show Just How Much Time Has Changed
The bridesmaids should never outshine the bride. Some brides, however, seem to be taking this to the extreme when dressing up their maids of honor. Or maybe time changes fashion trends so much, that after some the style that was "in" starts to look simply ridiculous. Either way, Bored Panda has collected a series of vintage bridesmaids dresses that are so funny, that you'll probably feel sorry for the women who wore them.
The 70s fashion brought outrageous patterns, floppy hats, and undiscernable silhouettes to the mix, 80s fashion later added vivid color, spandex, and space-filling hairdos. No matter the era, though, these absolutely unique vintage outfits would make your silly Spongebob PJs look like a classy suit. Scroll down to check out the images and upvote your favorite outrageous fashion statements!
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These women at least look somewhat comfortable and like they're having fun
Now these bridesmaids dresses are cool...unfortunately I don't think the groomsmen suits will ever come back in fashion
I really like the colours used here ! It doesn't look too bad when compared to the other hideous ones on top lol
I forget how young people got married back the day.....all these fresh little faces. Before someone jumps my shit....I'm not saying I think it's a great idea to get married fresh out of high school. I'm just observing.
Those dresses remind me of the non-slip decals we used to put in our bathtubs.
I hate to admit it but I think I like these ones! The bride looks lovely.
The dresses fit well. The line is flattering for any figure. Once again, a busy pattern is too much for a long dress.
I like the baskets full of flowers instead of bouquets. Not the yellow, though.
Popular pose, groom kissed by the maids. He looks kinda hidden though
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I actually took one of those dresses and re-made it into my prom dress. I removed the sleeves and took the rufflle off the shoulder and removed the set in lace around the neck and made it tea length. The colour was this amazing teal. White shoes, white mesh gloves and I felt like Madonna. It was 1986.
Great! Like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink! Which bridesmaid are you?
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Took me a second to figure out that was two ladies and not a Henry VIII looking guy. lol
Me too... I thought that was a guy in a big green dress!
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It took me a while. I thought it was a really fat guy in a dress. It's actually 3 people?
Strange configuration of wedding attendants.... Did the bride slip out the back door when she spotted Henry VIII groping the bridesmaids? Smart move, Bride.... well played.
Cutesy pic don't dos, photographers are as much to blame as brides, I think.
Weird picture aside, dresses aren't that bad. It seems the neck part looks much better when contrasting with the skin tone though so should be dark blue for fair skinned people and light for darker skinned ones.
This seems like more of what I saw at weddings back then. At least the color match is pretty good, and looking at the picture is not inducing vomiting.
Double take. I thought there was a very large male looking bride with two posies!
In the UK, that darker blue is known as air-force blue because the Royal Air Force uniforms were that colour. Not good for a wedding.
In Greece we call this colour "RAF blue" (pronounced as a word, not by initials).
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Which is the bride you ask...all of them. This is pologomy at its finest.
That was fun but Twenty years from now people will be making fun of our fashion trends too.
man-buns
I always feel like taking garden shears to them when I see them. Lately the fashion seems to be neon and leopard print. Role on 2038.
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." - Oscar Wilde
And ALL the strapless dresses! For a while it was almost impossible to find a dress with any shoulder straps at all, and honestly, most brides find those dresses do not do justice to their figures. Especially if they have big boobs. I've seen a couple whose top was nearly falling off, which would be a fun accident in front of all your friends and relations! Unless you want to knock off Granny with a heart attack so you can inherit her collection of Precious Moments figurines or something.
Hell, I'm already making fun of your fashion trends ;-)
Everyone wearing strapless dresses no matter what size they are *cringe*
That's why you don't follow trends, and go for classic looks instead. Some of us are more timeless than others.
Interesting collection, perhaps if dates and places were provided the trends could be better understood. Are they from the U.S.A., Eastern Europe or where? When and where were the awful floral prints in vogue?
Most of the floral prints were probably late 60s and into the 70s here in the USA. The big hair and "prairie-like" dresses were probably late 70s early 80s... Not sure about the one with the bride with the basket on her head, I'm thinking Europe somewhere?
It'd be nice if this was updated with the time and location of each picture if possible. Good idea, Rose!
Maybe I'm weird but I genuinely think most(not all for sure but still lol) of those were not so bad at all. Not up to modern fashion standards perhaps but then if you look up modern wedding fashion you'll probably end up with some much weirder sh**. Some of those kinda look like people were short on money and perhaps couldn't afford more intricate designs and others are just bad pictures of not so bad outfits(no making 300 pics while seeing the previews of all them and then photoshopping them to perfection back then, remember)
Decency. My respect to them all
A lot of these photos look like they were from weddings in the 70s. If you're too young to remember that time, we had avocado green refrigerators, burnt orange shag carpet, TVs the size of coffins, bell bottoms and cars that got worse mileage than a lot of military vehicles. Most of all, we had color and weren't afraid to use it. Subtle wasn't in our vocabulary.
Truthfully, to state these dresses ridiculous is uncalled for. It was the style then, and it isn't the style now. It was simple, well tailored, modest and gave a vibe of elatedness.
Fashion changes. Fashion magazines, designers etc. would be out of their jobs otherwise. And every new generation wants to look at least a little bit different then the previous one.
I really don't understand why there's "Ridiculous" in the title. This was the fashion in that time and noone considered it ridiculous back then. Ok, there are some pictures which are over the top. But even they are still a whole better than what a lot of people wear on weddings now.
they were appropriate and beautiful for the time, not "ridiculous", get over yourselves, we'll be called ridiculous in future (in fact i think everything is ridiculous now)
They have fun at this time!…
They had fun at this time!… (I meant)
My mother was a dressmaker. I can imagine her having make some of these dresses, except the yellow polka dot set. I think/hope/pray she would have drawn the line at that!
My bridesmaids (mid 90s) wore cowboy boots and denim mini skirts. The groomsmen had bolo ties. My gown had fringe and the groom had a suede vest.
I just recently signed up for bored panda but this collection and the BP comments leaves me wanting to already drop out. I don't think it is right to ridicule the tastes of another age, or for that matter to ridicule much of anything. For the age, I found many of these precious.
Wonderful... A hideous display of tasteless excess. A parade of baked potatoes, old lady furniture, and hoedown fantasies. I loved this. Kudos.
First off there is nothing wrong with man-buns. They are comfortable for us people who don't like going to get our hair cut. Hehe. Also none of these were awful. A lot of them appeared to have culture behind them, some didn't. The whole wedding ceremony itself is an odd thing to do anyway, require a bunch of people to get dressed up, wait around for a long time, all this just so a couple of people can talk, cry, laugh and then kiss. Then they all move to another place just so people can dance, laugh, eat, and get drunk. I think it is interesting that out of all this silliness the white dress is always there no one changes that one.
The one with Mia Farrow on the end is Mia Farrow. Robert Altman's movie The Wedding.
Aw, in my country every guest can dress as he/she like. It's so intetesting to see that people there... now I'd like to see this tradition nowadays. Do they still do it? How they are dressed now? Where is it? I asume that USA, UK...
Just say no. You have a voice. Plus you have to pay!
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Whaaaaat??? I thoght the bride paid for them! =8O
My late mother once showed me her bridesmaid outfit to a cousin's wedding. It looked like something out of the Arabian Nights complete with a feather headband.
Everyone who says "Thwt was just the fashion of the time!" obviously isn't aware of the reputation bridesmaids' dresses had back then -- that they were some of the most hideous, impractical outfits possible, unflattering and nothing you would *ever* be able to wear anywhere else. People joked that they were a loyalty test on the part of the bride, sort of "Let's see if you're *really* good enough friends to be willing to pay good money for these hideous things and wear them in public!" And everyone else just figured they were meant to make the bride look good in comparision!
The hats make them so much funnier!
The hats make some of them so much funnier!
I was a bridesmaid seven times. Every bride, without exception made sure that I and my fellow bridesmaids wore the most hideous dress imaginable. One bride, who put us all in taffeta for a mid summer wedding, had the gaul to get upset when we all pitted out the underarms. And every bride always says, "You can shorten it and wear it again!" B.S., I would never wear anything that ugly again no matter what length it was.
Oh lord, I felt embarrassed myself going through all these photos...
There's only a few of them that stand out, either for the right reasons or the wrong reasons...80% of them are exactly what you expect though, and nothing noteworthy.
I don't feel so bad about my wedding pictures now. Tried to do a rainbow theme that was popular eons ago, but most of my bridesmaids dropped out at the last minute, so I ended up with only one in yellow and one in green. With five groomsmen in blue, it looked rather odd and very unbalanced.
I let my bridesmaids pick their dresses and both my best friends and my nieces (jr bridesmaids) all liked the same dress! Made my life easier. My nieces were to be in light blue and my Friends in Royal blue but my nieces asked to be in Royal too...and the color suited all skin tones! Best part was the only alterations anyone needed was in the elastic in the off the shoulder sleeve!
I am sure all parties in these photos must be with either cringing with embarrassment or killing themselves laughing.
Fashion changes!
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They were supposed to be memorable for the event. And boy that nobody will ever forget them.
This thread made my eyes hurt!
The conclusion is: always dress in a normal way, don't follow trends and you won't be ridiculed after a few years. Also: why would anyone need bridesmaids all dressed the same? Or bridesmaids in general?
I agree. I worked very hard to find outfits my bridesmaids and groomsmen could wear again. And I succeeded. They've all told me they wore them again. That goes for my non-white, non-bridal gown. I never understood the point of spending a lot of money on clothing (and shoes!) that you only wear once. As for these pictures, even for the times, which I lived through, some of these are ridiculous. The dresses I had to wear were ridiculous at the time, or so I thought. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through this post and comments.