Wow. And I thought I asked a lot of my bridesmaids, but I picked a color at David's Bridal and just asked them to match it... it was periwinkle/bluish, so theoretically if they got a skirt with a top they might have been able to wear it again, although it wasn't the best color it wasn't totally ugly either. I had 3 girls, and all were various sizes and shapes, so no one dress would do it for them. And I couldn't care less about shoes or hair or whatever, as long as they had them :)
I almost... almost... used a white homecoming dress for a wedding dress. Then the girls made me try on dresses at DB and decided that would be their wedding present to me, was one of the (sale!) dresses. It was beautiful, but I did spend more on alterations than they did on the dress.
We were all young, and broke, so they didn't even really have obligations like parties and showers and such since WE lived out of town! I mean, we did things, but nothing extravagent or whatever.
We financed nearly the entire wedding ourselves, with everything we wanted, for roughly $7000. With a buffet dinner and open bar for 80 people, and flowers and DJ and invitations and photography and all the hoopla involved. It was really nice, but I STILL thought it was pricey, and we're on the lower end of a "normal" wedding. We did do JP in an outdoor gazebo, too.