I agree with most of what you said, except for the part about letting the bridesmaids pick their own dresses. I've been to weddings where the bride gave everyone a swatch of material and told them to match the color, and they all came back with dresses that (a) were wildly different styles, and (b) didn't even remotely match each other in color. The result is usually pretty awful.
I picked out a nice dress and shoes for my BMs and told them to go order it. But I picked out something nice, that they could wear again. I was very flattered when I went to a wedding last fall to which my MOH was also invited, and she wore the dress I picked out!
Oh, and the one and only time I joked about eloping, my MIL threw a temper tantrum.
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