This is for my future-bridesmaids out there

I know I'm not even close to planning this wedding but I can't help and look online for inspiration. When it comes to my bridesmaids and their future dresses, I'm pretty set on the idea of having different dresses in the same color tone. I hate the idea of forcing them to buy the same dress that they will probably never wear.

So I was thinking of deciding on a color and letting them run with it. One of my only criteria - no long dresses, only short! The problem I'm running into is deciding on a color. I think my theme will probably be a nice aqua/teal (not crazy bright), cream/khaki/tan, and white? I don't know.

I think telling them to get a blue dress is way too complicated - have you seen the millions upon millions of different shades of 'aqua?' Yea, way too many. So my next thought would be a cream/khaki/tan color. But does that color look good on all skin tones? And if it does, there's also a million tones out there. But (there's a lot of but's in this conversation) sometimes I think having different shades of tan will actually look nice. This idea is probably my favorite so far.

I also thought of black. The writing on my invitations will be black but at a beach? I think it's way too dark for a Sunday afternoon wedding on the beach. Ehh. How about white? Since the dresses will be short, it won't compete with my wedding dress. But who will wear a white dress again? Ahhh.

What do you think? Should I choose a single dress or just decide on a range of colors they must wear? I like all these...

These dresses are all from lulus.com and range from $25 to $70!