Who pays for the bridesmaid dresses/groomsmen suits?

We paid for ours and thankfully they all loved our picks, that said we all had an evening of looking for groomsmen suits and BM dresses and all picked a few, we ordered and then had a try in sesion and we all loved the same ones so was fairly easy.

In your case I think you are being reasonable to say you will only pay what you originally agreed to, it is quite rude of them to demand something else and expect you to pay more! At the end of the day they get to keep them so shouldn't be demanding changes, bit if they want more,and you agree to change them they should contribute the difference.

With the boys, it will be alot easier as men are normally less fussed as a suit is a suit, unless you are going for an odd stylenot garish colour them am sure they will be ok. Maybe you can say this is the budget, if you want something else then you will all have to agree to pay the difference above what you set.nat lessy you are fore armed this time so can set the expectation at the outset.

Usually, the bride pays if she is requesting a specific item be worn, but the bridesmaids pay if they can wear what they want within reason. So if you were happy for them to wear 'any ankle length dress' or 'any navy dress' then they would pay,

For the groomsmen, I would have the same approach as the brides - you will buy suit x for each groomsman or if they want the more expensive suit y, then you will contribute the price of suit x toward it and they pay the rest.

I had a chat with my bridesmaids when we started looking at dresses and planning things.

We came to an agreement that I would pay for their hair and make-up and half of their dresses. They will pay for the remaining half and buy their own shoes. They actually were willing to pay for all their dresses, but I wanted to put something towards it.

We are paying to hire the groomsmen's suits. Seems we wont be booking things like hair and make-up for them, we wanted to pay for their suit hire, which includes Jacket, trousers and waistcoat. They will buy their own white shirt and black shoes.

I think there just has to be a conversation about it and agree in advance on how best to approach it.

Thank you all for your comments! Since posting this I have found another alternative dress, its slightly more expensive than the original one I found but it works so much better and is a better fit for everyone!


Still the groomsmen to tackle 🙈 since we get married abroad I didnt want 3 piece suits anyway, so we have said we will pay for their trousers and shirts and they can buy or wear whatever shoes they want.
Thank you again x