Bridesmaid Dresses: the Search for the Holy Grail

I have looked at what feels like thousands upon thousands of bridesmaid dresses, searching for something that looks great on different body types, won't break the bank, and (most importantly) comes in my elusive dark champagne/latte/taupe/acorn/whatever color. My idea for the bridesmaid dresses was to choose a designer, a fabric, and a color and let the girls choose their own styles. This way, everyone has input on what she wears, but everyone still matches. The problem with this idea has been that the only dresses that come in the color I'm looking for tend to be way more expensive than ideal and most of them aren't very flattering. And so the search continues with a combination of websites, magazines, and random visits to dress shops.

On a spur-of-the-moment bridal shop trip, a few of my BMs (That's wedding talk for "bridesmaids". Do you like the new wedding lingo I'm picking up? hahaha..) tried on about 10 dresses that I had looked at online and thought would have met all the criteria. I was mostly wrong. The dresses all came in the appropriate color; however, were way pricey and only 2 of them looked good on everyone. A couple of weeks later, I found some dresses online that I thought were way cute, over $100 less than the ones we tried on, and had the right fabric/color. The only problem was that they only have 3 stores in the country. My sister happened to be going to Boston (one of the three cities) that week and was able to get a last minute appointment to try on a bunch of dresses and take pictures. There were some seriously cute options, and they're all styles that are classic and won't be out of style by the time of the wedding.

I'm still conflicted about one thing, though. I prefer knee-length dresses. I think they're more fun, have a younger look, and just generally look cuter. However, everyone keeps telling me that because I'm planning for an evening wedding the dresses should be floor length. While they're still nice and all, I kinda feel like they're stuffier. Plus, given the color I'm looking at for the dresses, if they do actually want to reuse the dresses, the bridesmaids wouldn't have to pay the extra money to get them in floor length as well as to get them shortened after the wedding. In the end, I generally feel like the bridesmaids should choose the dress(es) because I want them to have input about what they will be wearing. But I always pictured knee-length dresses. Maybe I always pictured a daytime wedding and never realized it. Although, in late May there will still be daylight at 7 PM.

So can I have short dresses for an evening wedding that takes place during daylight? Seriously. I need help with this one. Pleeeeaassseeee comment/facebook/email/whatever me with your thoughts on this.

Thanks. :)