the bridesmaid dresses

I've been looking for bridesmaid dresses for a long time, but it's been hard to find anything i like that's within budget. My original plan was to buy them for the bridesmaids (there are three by the way), so I needed them to be less than $50 a person... impossible I know, but because we're not having a formal wedding I figured I could find something. So I started looking at forever21 and oldnavy. My biggest problem is that my maids are far flung (Utah, Louisiana, & Ohio... I'm in Wisconsin). So it was impossible for everyone to just get together and go shopping. On top of that, they were all completely different body types (one's sexy hourglass, one's broad shoulders, big boobs with no butt, and one's small on top with amazing birthing hips) so I was really afraid to pick something without having seen them in it. After a slew of emails to the three of them with pictures and links we decided that there was nothing in that price range that they felt comfortable wearing/buying so we changed plans and agreed that they should buy the dresses. Everyone is comfortable spending $100 but is willing to spend up to $200 if need be. That opened up A LOT of options. I started looking at Anthropologie, j.crew, banana republic etc. I eventually settled on two from j.crew.
found here
found here

the first is $99.99 in that color, and the second is $180. A big difference. My biggest hesitation about the first one is that it looks very similar to my wedding dress, which shouldn't be a surprise because my wedding dress is from j.crew as well. I can't decide if that would be an issue or not. I've asked a lot of people and I've gotten mixed opinions. Some people say that it would be a good thing because it would reinforce the "theme" and others think that my dress should be special and unique to the bridesmaid dresses. The first dress is silk taffeta which gives is a shiny stiff quality while the other is silk chiffon which gives it a light airy quality. The bridesmaids are happy with either one so it's on me to decide and I'm having a hard time. Which one do you like?