porcelainbride's Green wedding

originally, we'd been planning a garden wedding because it seemed to be that we couldn't find any other venues that we really loved. Fair enough, so we decided to put the girls in tea length dresses- not only for practicality, but because you don't usually expect a garden wedding to be black-tie. So we were going with cocktail formal.

However, in the past week we discovered The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond and we've decided that's where we definitely want the wedding. The hotel's much fancier and more elegant than the garden would've been so we've upped the formality to black-tie. Tea length dresses go out the window.

Now here's the issue. There are plenty of beautiful full length gowns out there, I realize this. But, we're going to try and keep with the feel of the hotel which is a very retro glam appearance. The bridesmaids were originally going to be wearing teal (because our colors are white & teal with accents of silver & black) but looking around, I'm having a hard time finding long dresses that come in teal that have the right look about them. Not to mention, teal's not a very antique-y, or glamourous type of color. So would it look really odd to have the girls wearing silver/gray?

I can't have them in black (as easy as that would be) because its the only thing my grandmother's asked for in the entire wedding. She's being so good about being supportive of my ideas etc. that the least I can do is keep my promise to her.

(btw, i'm not interested in any of the alfred angelo or DB's dresses)