Choosing Your Bridesmaids
Choices, choices, choices! Planning a wedding is full of making decisions and choices. Like finding the perfect dress or deciding the color scheme or the flavor for your cake all are important decisions. But there are os feelings or exclude anyone; like putting together your guest list for the wedding.
None is as daunting as choosing your bridesmaids and maid of honor. We have a list of suggestions you can use as a guideline to aid you in choosing your maids and hopefully remove the stress, well…maybe not all the stress. These guidelines will certainly point you in a direction to get you moving on the right path…the wedding party path.
You could always be like Manhattan bride Jamie Jacobs and ask your 95 year old grandmother to stand in that honored position as your matron of honor. Not only was grandma the matron of honor she was the only maid who walked down the aisle and stood with Jamie at the altar. Grandma, Dorothy Shapiro recounts her experience, “That was one of the biggest honors that a grandmother could have — that she chose me, an old lady!”
- How many maids should I have?
Tradition and wedding etiquette would have you make this determination based on the size and type of your wedding. Typically formal weddings have larger bridal parties. Informal wedding tend to be on the smaller side. The general rule of thumb, and today those rules really are very loose, it’s smart to keep your bridal party proportionate to the number of guests you have invited. You wouldn’t want to have 10 maids for a wedding with only 50 guests it’s a bit excessive, although we’ve seen it done.
- What does my groom want?
Believe it or not he will have an opinion and it does matter. You will want to make sure what you have in mind doesn’t conflict with his ideas. While his opinions might not always mirror yours, you want to be in agreement on the number of attendants as soon as possible. It’s not a huge deal if you have a different number of groomsmen and bridesmaids, but you’ll just need to get creative with your processional
- How long have we been friends? Will we be friends in 10 years? 20 years?
The one biggest requirement here is that you choose the women in your life that mean the most to you. Family, forever-friends, soul sisters, you know who they. Keep in mind once you’ve asked someone to be in your wedding party, you can’t go back. While it may be tempting to ask all of your favorite friends to be in your wedding party the minute you get engaged…DON’T…take a few breaths and take your time. Give yourself at least a month to put your long list together. Then mull it over for a few more days and really ponder why you put them on the list. Now it’s time to make the short list and see who survives the final cuts. Then go one by one on the lists and ask yourself theses questions…5, 10, 20 years from now do I imagine or think we’ll still be this close and will they still be in my life? Make sure they are the special ones that have the staying power to be in your life for the long haul. Here’s another great question to consider, how well will they fit in with the rest of my attendants and my entire wedding party? If you don’t think they’ll mesh with your crew, leave them off the list. And don’t ever feel like you need to ask someone because they asked you to be in their wedding.
- Is she bridesmaid material?
Ouch…isn’t that a bit of harsh question…Nope! After all this honored position does come with responsibilities. If your friend is so wrapped up in her own personal life she can’t even find the time to text you once a month to touch base…then chances are slim to none she’ll be able to join you for dress shopping, your bridal shower or even the bachelorette party. If it’s still important to you to invite her despite her circumstances, politely acknowledge how busy she is when you ask her or consider offering her a less-involved alternative, like greeting guests or doing a reading in case she just can’t commit.
- Is she supportive of our marriage?
- Traditionally speaking, your bridesmaids arethere to support you and hold you accountable to the vows made on your wedding day. Let’s be honest, if she’s not totally on your team because she has never been fond of the love of your life and she has issues with your engagement, then most likely she is going to be the stick in the mud that takes the fun out of all the planning and wedding activities. Really…ask yourself…is this who I want standing beside? We don’t think so.
Yes, these are important decisions and to tell you the truth we asked the gals on our team how many of their bridesmaids were they still friends with and had an active part in their lives along with their maid of honor. Were they still besties? The answers were sweet and refreshing.
Here’s how they weighted in. All of the gals said, “yes,” their maid of honor was still one of their best friends along with admiting their maid of honor loved their fiance back then and today.
As far as how many of their bridesmaids they were still friends with and active in their lives today…it was about 50%. Some admitted they didn’t even know where some of those friends were. But all of the gals admitted to having the fondest of memories of those who took part in that honored day.
Remember to enjoy the planning process and make choices that are going to truely support you and the love of your life!
Life is Delicious!