Wedding Planning Advice, Wedding Planning Tips
In short, no. Never. Ever. All right, firing a bridesmaid sometimes must be done, but think carefully before you tell one of your ‘maids to take a hike. Did she do something illegal or continues to do something illegal, like take drugs or prostitute herself? Is she in danger of hurting herself or hurting others? Maybe she’s just plain mean to you and your bridesmaids.
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One of the first things any bride-to-be must do, right after joyfully calling mom to announce her engagement and then changing her relationship status on Facebook, is decide just who will stand beside her as she says her vows. As you might imagine, it’s not always the easiest decision in the world to make. Unless the wedding ceremony will be held in a cathedral that can accommodate a very large bridal party, the spots are limited. If the bride-to-be has a lot of close friends or a bunch of sisters, things can get even hairier. And you’d think that a groom who wants a huge number of groomsmen would make the bridesmaid selection easier, but what if the bride-to-be wants a symmetrical wedding party but just doesn’t have enough girlfriends?
So first things first — how should the bride-to-be choose her bridesmaids? There are no right or wrong choices, of course, though we at TeamWED would suggest not choosing bridesmaids on the basis of obligation alone. In other words, just because someone asked you to be a bridesmaid in her wedding does not mean that you have to invite her to be a bridesmaid in your wedding. Is it nice to return the favor? Sure, but it’s nonetheless not necessary. We also recommend that you not choose your bridesmaids simply because they are family or a part of your spouse-to-be’s family. While it would be sweet of you to include your future sister-in-law, only do so if you and she are actually on good terms. You can’t create or repair a meh relationship by including someone in the bridal party, and you might even make things worse!
Who should the bride-to-be choose to populate her party? Friends, beloved sisters, close relatives… heck, even her mom if she really wants to! And naturally, while we have been calling the bride’s attendants bridesmaids and implying that they’re ladies, there’s no reason why the bride-to-be can’t choose a man of honor and bridesmen instead of a maid of honor and bridesmaids.
After the bride-to-be has chosen her bridesmaids, the next thing she must do is ask those she has chosen to be a part of the bridal party. There are a few ways she can do this. There is, of course, the old standard method, which is asking directly via telephone or email. If the bride-to-be spends a lot of time with her chosen bridesmaids, they may already have an inkling that they’re on the wedding party roster. Presumably the bride-to-be knows her prospective bridesmaids well enough to know that they will say yes, but she should prepare herself for the fact that one might say no. Sometimes, logistics will prevent a potential bridesmaid from attending (and thus participating in) the wedding. A potential bridesmaids who is only just pregnant may not feel comfortable committing to be in the bridal party when her due date falls around the wedding date. And some people may simply not have the time or money to devote to being a bridesmaid. If you get a negative response, try not to be offended, since it’s likely that no offense was intended.
Other ways of asking your sisters and gal pals to be your bridesmaid include taking all potential ‘maids out to a special dinner where you ask them all at once and pre-printed Will You Be My Bridesmaids cards. They’re a bit silly, sure, but make for a great keepsake!
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Some engaged couples feel uncomfortable attending pre-wedding parties that are segregated by gender since it’s common nowadays for brides and grooms to have male and female friends. While having separate pre-wedding parties – a bridal shower for the ladies and a bachelor party for the gents – is still more common, there’s no rule that says the festivities have to be all-girl or all-boy. The co-ed bridal shower is one answer to this dilemma. But brides who’d rather have a co-ed bridal shower should spread the word among family and friends so that whoever decides to throw the bridal shower knows that male relatives and friends should be included on the guest list.
(Photo by Mary Witzig)
We won’t say all, but it’s true that *most* mothers of the bride cannot get enough of wedding planning. Brides with moms who know all about how to plan a wedding are in luck. They don’t have to coach their moms through the process of hiring vendors and shopping for the wedding gown. Brides whose moms are younger and have never planned a wedding, on the other hand, may find that they have to walk their moms through some of the finer points of wedding planning. To help these latter brides check items off their to-do lists while also staying sane, we’ve compiled a list of mother of the bride duties.
That’s right, mother of the bride duties. While the mother of the bride can help any which way, there are certain specific mother of the bride duties that we’ll enumerate below. The mother of the bride can and should:
1. Gather venue recommendations, and help her daughter find the perfect one. MOBs with contacts in the wedding planning world should utilize their personal networks to complete this most important of tasks
2. Work directly with the wedding coordinator (if her daughter has hired one). She may even be the primary contact for the coordinator in the months leading up to the wedding. The MOB may not be making decisions, but she can help keep things organized.
3. Help the bride choose her wedding dress and attend all of the fittings. Those dull fittings can be great mother-daughter bonding time!
4. Maintain the master guest list. Let’s face it — a lot of the wedding guests at today’s weddings are invited by the MOB, so why shouldn’t she help with the guest list duties? The MOB can collect addresses from the groom’s family, collect RSVPs, and get in touch with all those invitees who are slow to respond to the wedding invitations.
5. Work with the MOG (mother of the groom) to find coordinating wedding day outfits. This is more important than you think, at least to the moms themselves. It wouldn’t do to have them clash or, worse, for one mom to wear a suit or dress that is much more formal than the other.
6. Help organize and then attend the pre-wedding parties. The MOB might plan an engagement party or the rehearsal dinner. Nowadays, the MOB can even help plan the bridal shower, though this was frowned upon back in the day because it supposedly made the bride’s family seem greedy.
7. Give the bride something blue or lend her something borrowed.
8. Keep things running smoothly on the day of the wedding. The MOB usually feels invested in the wedding, making her a great candidate for unofficial day-of coordinator. She can hand out tips to vendors, make sure everyone is standing where they ought to be standing, oversee the dinner service at the reception, etc.
9. Stand in the receiving line. It’s boring, but you’d be surprised how many MOBs love standing in the receiving line because it’s there that they can boast of their extreme happiness. Doesn’t she deserve to sparkle?
10. Be there for the bride (and groom) every step of the way. The bride may need to cry when planning her wedding. She may need to cry just before the wedding or just after. The MOB should offer her shoulder up whenever the bride needs one.
Oh, how we here at TeamWED envy the men in the wedding party. Unlike the long list of bridesmaid duties one sees practically everywhere, the groomsmen have very little to do in preparation for the wedding. While the bridesmaids are folding invitations and calling around to shops for the perfect shade of shoe, the groom and his groomsmen are usually out somewhere playing video games or a round of golf… oblivious to all the wedding planning going on around them, of course.
And yet, we still love the men in the wedding party, even though the typical list of groomsmen duties is shorter than Pamela Anderson’s skirts. So what are the groomsmen duties we *don’t* hear so much about when planning a wedding? We’ve compiled a list of groomsmen duties that you can give your fiance well in advance of the wedding. Whether he passes it on to his buddies is another story.
Before the Wedding
During the Wedding
Like we said, there’s usually not that much that groomsmen are asked to do with regard to actually planning the wedding. But it’s not like that can’t change! As more brides and grooms pay for their own weddings, more grooms are getting involved in the wedding planning process. We hope that will mean that the list of groomsmen duties starts to look a little more like the list of bridesmaids duties sometime in the near future. If grooms are shopping for wedding invitations and choosing between caterers and assembling wedding favors, they’re going to need just as much help as the bride, no?
(Photo by Jayray24)
Here’s a recent letter TeamWED received from a bride who’s just about at the end of her rope.
Dear TeamWED: When I chose my bridesmaids, I thought I had it made. My sister is one crafty chick. My best friend is super organized. My other best friend loves to shop. And my cousin who I’ve known since we were little kids has a great eye for fashion. It should have been the ultimate wedding prep team, but it hasn’t turned out that way. My bridesmaids just aren’t that interested in helping me plan my wedding. They even seemed less than enthusiastic about helping me design and print invitations and assemble favors! Should I be mad? Can I be mad? Signed, Bad Bride or Bad Bridesmaids?
We can’t tell you whether or not you *should* be mad, BB. It’s pretty obvious that you had certain expectations of how bridesmaids ought to behave and those expectations are not being met. And your expectations are certainly not unreasonable. Look at any list of bridesmaids’ duties and you’ll see repeated mention of the fact that bridesmaids (and in particular the maid of honor) should offer to help the bride at every turn. That could mean helping the bride shop for wedding favors, her wedding gown, or the reception venue. It might also mean assisting her in hands-on tasks like making DIY bouquets or stuffing and addressing envelopes. And sometimes it even means helping plan the reception seating chart, a boring and potentially stressful task.
Bridesmaids, as you can see, get asked to do quite a lot by their brides… or at least those brides who read those lists of bridesmaids’ duties before choosing their bridal attendants. It sounds to us, BB, like you were that kind of bride, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Brides should feel free to assume that their maid of honor and bridesmaids will be their right-hand ladies as they plan their weddings. HOWEVER, brides must also remember that their bridesmaids are adult women with their own lives and responsibilities and that those bridesmaids should feel free not to participate in certain pre-wedding and wedding planning activities.
Bridesmaids come in many flavors, from the bridesmaids who will gladly make phone calls to find out if a certain florist is available on a certain date to the bridesmaids who can handle buying their dresses on time and little else. There are also plenty of bridesmaids who fall somewhere in between. BB, before you let yourself get angry at your bridesmaids, consider whether they may want to participate in your wedding planning but simply don’t have the time or resources (or the dexterity) to do so. Consider, too, that your bridesmaids may not understand how much help you want or need, and are consequently afraid of stepping on your toes by offering to do X, Y, and Z.
Have you voiced your expectations? Did your bridesmaids know how much you expected of them before saying yes to your invitation to be a part of your wedding? Are your bridesmaids both responsible and skilled at DIY? The answers to all of these questions are important. If you really feel like you’re getting the cold shoulder from your bridesmaids where wedding-related activities are concerned, then confront them… but do it gently and with tact, lest you inadvertently offend someone who wishes they could do more. If, on the other hand, you’re not sure you’ve been clear about what you expect or you suspect that one or more of your bridesmaids has personal conflicts preventing them from helping you out, address that instead.
Good luck!
We think that the best part about writing for TeamWed is answering reader mail! Brides and grooms and bridesmaids from just about everywhere write to us to have their wedding planning questions answered all the time nowadays, so you can imagine we have a bit of a blacklog of queries. We’re working on it, though, so expect to see regular features in which we get to the bottom of your questions. Here’s one that we get at least once a week:
I’m getting married next year, and my fiance and I have chosen to have a big wedding party. I mean BIG! It’ll be an uneven wedding party, too, with fourteen bridesmaids on my side and ten groomsmen on his. Don’t worry; our ceremony venue can handle it, thank God. My question is what are we supposed to pay for when it comes to our wedding attendants? Back when I got engaged, I dreamed about paying for my bridesmaids’ dresses, shoes, and jewelry, but it’s not looking like that will be possible. The same goes for the groomsmen and their tuxedos. Some of our bridesmaids and groomsmen are coming from out of town, and we wanted to put them up for at least one night (our reception venue is a hotel) but again, our budget is getting in the way. So what do we HAVE to pay for? — BeeSmart
Before we answer Bee’s question, can we just let out a collective whistle? Because that is a lot of wedding attendants! Not that there’s anything wrong with that, especially if the ceremony venue is big enough to hold them all without anyone having to stand on anyone else’s feet. Kudos to Bee and her groom for having the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen *they* want to have, even if it means having uneven sides and causing some people to do double-takes during the processional!
Now on to her query. The short answer is that the bridesmaids and groomsmen (and maid of honor and best man) traditionally shoulder all their own expenses, from the bridesmaids’ dresses to the best man’s tuxedo to the services of the stylist to the hotel where everyone will be staying. On top of that, the attendants are usually on the hook for the bridal shower and the bachelor party, and sometimes even for a bachelorette party or multiple showers. What can we say? It’s not easy being a wedding attendant, and woe unto those who have so many friends that they’re being asked to stand at the altar six or more times each year.
This means Bee doesn’t really HAVE to pay for any of her bridesmaids’ expenses if she doesn’t want to or can’t afford it. However, if she can afford to pay for a little something, like earring and necklace sets for her bridesmaids or the services of the hair stylist and makeup artist for the whole wedding party, she should definitely do that. As for the hotel accommodations, if Bee or Bee’s family can’t afford to put the out-of-town bridesmaids up for the night, perhaps they can at least work out a deal for a discounted block of rooms with the hotel… or even offer to put the out-of-town bridesmaids up for the night so they don’t have to worry about accommodations at all!
The ring bearer (known sometimes by the tiny gentlemen themselves as “ring bears”) is the member of the wedding party we here at TeamWed tend to see the least at the many weddings we attend each year. Why’s that? It’s hard to say, but we’d wager it has something to do with the fact that flower girl dresses are just *that* much cuter than ring bearer suits and that little girls usually like dressing up whereas many little boys most definitely do not. Not that ring bearers aren’t totally adorable in their own right, however…
Having a ring bearer in the wedding is a way of including young male relatives in the wedding, and the role is related to that of the page sometimes seen at weddings in Britain. But while the traditional job of the page is to carry the bride’s train, the ring bearer is tasked with carrying the wedding rings — or more often, a set of lookalike plastic rings — to the altar. You read that right, faux wedding rings. These bands are sewn into the ring pillow carried by the ring bearer so that the bride and groom don’t have to worry about the real wedding rings being lost or flushed down a toilet or eaten by a curious tot. When real rings are used, they are usually secured to the ring pillow with loosely tied threads.
Which makes sense considering that ring bearers are typically anywhere from five to ten years old, though many couples opt for littler ring bearers to up that cuteness factor. We’re using the masculine pronoun here, but the truth is that a bride’s ring bearer can be a wee lass if she prefers not to be a flower girl and in that case, the ring bearer would be dressed in a tiny gown rather than a tiny tux. That said, most ring bearers are boys, often young brothers or nephews of the bride or groom. If a couple already has young children, they may ask a son to serve as the ring bearer.
Choosing a ring bearer isn’t always easy. If you have a lad in mind, ask yourself whether he’s old enough or mature enough to handle walking down the aisle on his own with scads of grownups watching him closely and a photographer clicking away. Can he carry the pillow while doing all this? Note: If not, he can simply accompany the flower girl if you’re having one. Will your prospective ring bearer tolerate wearing formal dress? Will his parents wish to or be able to pay for his formalwear (as it is their responsibility)? Speaking of formalwear, most menswear shops that rent suits and tuxedos also carry small suits and tuxedos for infants, toddlers, and children. Make sure the groom asks about this!
A word about ages: Some children under five can handle being a ring bearer, while some older children are for whatever reason unsuited to the job. Older children, even if they fall into the ring bearer age range, may not want to be ring bearers because it seems too babyish. These kids can perform a reading or participate in some other way if you wish.
When it comes to the wedding ceremony, don’t assume that your ring bearer (or flower girl) will stand for the duration. That can take a lot of stamina and patience that children just don’t have, and it’s rather mean to force them to stand quietly while you say your wedding vows. Instead, ask that a relative of the ring bearer be seated in the front row with an empty seat or lap so that adult can be sort of a target the ring bearer can make a beeline toward. This can make walking down the aisle a lot less scary. Also, your ring bearer should not be expected to take part in the receiving line. But do introduce him along with your other wedding attendants at the reception and be sure to tell him what a wonderful job he did carrying the ring pillow.
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