Originally Posted By Liberty Belle ...bridesmaids!!! I'm currently in my third wedding party - I was bridesmaid for my two sisters. Being a bridesmaid for your sister is an honour, it's fun, and it's laidback. Being a bridesmaid for your friend, I am discovering, is none of these things!* *Disclaimer: I really am happy and excited that my friend chose me to be an important part in her special day. I am also aware that most of the things driving me crazy aren't, in fact, her fault. All ranting and venting is in good humour (except for the bit about the power point, which really is driving me mad). So that being said, here is your guide to The Big Day, from the Bitter Bridesmaid's point of view. Aside from being guilted into slimming down for The Big Day, being asked to accompany your friend on a one-day-only (ie not overnight) trip to a city an hour and a half's *flight* away to watch her try on numerous dresses and going on 42 shopping expeditions to find the right silver heels to hide under your dress, you get the Bridal Shower. The Bridal Shower, my friends, is the most horrifying day you can imagine. Firstly, the Maid of Honour plans it all without consulting you, schedules it on your nephew's birthday, tells the bride the date before telling you so there's no hope of changing it, and then rings you to inform you of all the duties you get to undertake "so I don't have to do it all". Further, the MOH arranges this Bridal Shower to take place approximately a 90-minute to 2-hour drive from where *anybody* lives, meaning you get to miss another 3-4 hours of your nephew's birthday whilst you travel to and fro the extravaganza, which not including travel time lasts for approximately 6 hours. One of the enjoyable activities the MOH wants you to arrange is for everyone to run around taking photos of visual representations of the Bride and Groom's love. Yeah, gosh, that sounds like... fun. After the visual representations are photographed, the MOH and Bridesmaid (that's me) then run into the expensive high tea they're attending and instead of sitting down and scoffing little sandwiches, go over to the laptop they've brought for the occasion and spend the next half hour downloading and creating a power point presentation of these photos to play. As the photos flash across the screen courtesy of a projector that nobody seems to own, the photographers stand up in their seats, mouths still full of cake, and explain exactly why the photo of a fire hydrant is a visual representation of the bride and groom's love. Did I mention there are FOUR bridesmaids in total and the other two (who are indeed, the bride's and groom's sisters - meaning one is the bride's sister and one is the groom's sister, the bride and groom aren't THAT weird) are getting off scot-free because MOH and I are the "top two" bridesmaids? I'm honoured, really... Oh, and a month after the bridal shower comes the Hen's Night. We haven't even started planning that one yet...
Originally Posted By iamsally LOL LibertyBelle. My daughter made a great group of friends in college. And they have stayed friends through the years. They have all been bridesmaids in each others weddings. Some of them sounded very much like what you wrote. And all those formal gowns everybody had to buy. And the couple who not only wanted every body to fly to Vegas for the wedding but to buy tickets to attend Cirque Du Soleil as their *gift*. Good luck!
Originally Posted By LuLu Oh my! LOL! You must have gotten MOH-zilla, which is new to me. You're doing a great job of keeping a sense of humor about it
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle LOL thanks, guys. Yeah, it's an interesting experience! The MOH is actually lovely - she's more of a friend of a friend, but we've always got along well. But... she's driving me a little nutty here. She's taken it on as her pet project and is dragging me along for the journey! MOH-zilla, I quite like that. And yeah, sally, weddings are expensive, even when you're not the one getting married! The dress alone is $250, then there's hair, makeup, shoes and presents. I don't mind that really, though - if I get married she'll probably be my bridesmaid, and then I'll be putting her through expense as well! Vegas and Cirque Du Soleil is a little over the top, though...
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle Oh, and BTW, I tactfully suggested to MOH that attempting to place all those photos on a slide *during* the shower would be stressful, and suggested we get people to take photos ahead of time and email them on. She liked that idea, although I did end up scoring the job of creating the presentation!
Originally Posted By danyoung Don't forget about groomsmen, or other members of a relative's wedding party. My youngest brother got married a few years ago, and in his wisdom he decided to use 3 of his best friends as groomsmen. My duty, and the duty of my other younger brother during the wedding? Ushers and candle lighters. Yep. A completely humiliating day, where people were walking up to me and asking "Are you and your brother fighting?" I HATE WEDDINGS!!!
Originally Posted By amazedncal2 Oh, Liberty Belle, I am so sorry you are going through this but PLEASE take us with you on this journey Your post had me laughing. Our DIL chose her best friends from high school as MOH and bridesmaids as well as our youngest DD. All the girls lived out of the area so our oldest DD (not in the wedding) youngest DD and my sisters put on the shower. 2 days before the wedding the other girls swooped in for a surprise bachelorette party, taking the bride out all night to all sorts of places (because they'd never been there) when the bride had planned for the girls to help with last minute wedding prep and a laid back couple of days. It was horrible, one bridesmaid brought a "friend" and she fought with the other girls and all except the bride were hung over at the rehearsal. DD (not in the wedding) youngest DD (not invited to the "party"), myself and DH pulled the last minute things together at the request of our son because the bride was so upset. Gosh I hadn't thought of that in a few years. Memories............. LOL! danyoung.... but seriously sorry for your discomfort. Our oldest DD didn't have her younger brother in her wedding. He was a bit younger (early high school) and would have made the wedding party "unbalanced" although she did have her 12 year old sister. I didn't realize that DS was hurt until he got married and one of the first things he said was "I don't have to have sister#1 in the wedding because she didn't have me in hers" revenge
Originally Posted By LPFan22 That's why we eloped, lol. The money and headaches aren't worth it to me personally.
Originally Posted By danyoung >I didn't realize that DS was hurt until he got married and one of the first things he said was "I don't have to have sister#1 in the wedding because she didn't have me in hers"< Yeah, it's really strange how my youngest brother still doesn't admit any wrongdoing, and thinks that me and my other brother are being big babies because we were upset about things. It'll be interesting if (I mean WHEN) I get married, if I'll go the family route and include the little poop or if I'll do the revenge thing and make him into an usher (with both of my other brothers in the wedding party!!!).
Originally Posted By FerretAfros My older brother is getting married over the summer, and I'm the best man for the wedding. Now, this seems like a nice gesture, but I really have no idea what the heck I'm doing. The last time I went to a wedding, I think I was about six years old. There's all sorts of secret responsibilities that I'm supposed to have, but I really have no idea what to do. Factor in that I also live on the other side of the country from him (in DC) and the wedding (Cape Cod), and that makes everything even more complicated. I also don't really know any of his friends to invite to the bachelor's party, since he wants to have a big one as most of his friends won't be able to make it up to the wedding, so that's another level of confusion. And if that wasn't enough, I'm leaving the country for 3 and a half weeks right before the wedding. I have a week after I get back, so we'll probably do the party sometime then, but the other groomsman that's trying to plan it with me is busy then. And in the mean time, I still have to figure out when I start work out here in California, find a place to live, and move in. While spending my summer all over heck's half-acre.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb My advice is to tell your brother and his fiancé that you are honored to stand up for him at the wedding but that you are way over your head on this one. Tell them you want their pre-wedding events to be as special as possible, but given your current situation you won't be able to do it all justice and maybe a co-best man Tone who is local and knows the other friends) may be a better option.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros That seems to be an underlying problem here. Nobody is really local. Her grandma lives on Cape Cod, and their family visits every year, but that's it for the wedding. For the bachelor's party in DC, he has a bunch of friends from college who are in the are, but none of them are in the wedding. All the groomsmen are friends from high school and other random places, so everybody is all spread out. He seems to be willing to help plan things, since none of us are around, but it's just another bump in an already bumpy road. I still vote that they elope! : )
Originally Posted By danyoung I agree with the above - there's no way you can provide the services that he may be expecting from you as a best man. I had the same problem years ago when my older brother got married. I was on the road as a musician, and came into SoCal just for a couple of days for the wedding. I told him I'd be happy to be best man and be in the ceremony, but beyond that he was on his own. It all worked out well, cuz he knew I wasn't going to do any of those "secret" best man things!
Originally Posted By iamsally >>>That's why we eloped, lol. The money and headaches aren't worth it to me personally. <<<< This is totally my own opinion and anyone who really wants a big fancy wedding should have one. That said, we went to Tahoe with my sister and BIL as well. I did want a small garden wedding but because of my future MIL that did not happen. (Long resentful story that.) But mortgaging the house and what some people do is not my style at all. I made it clear to my daughters that if the big party was for them so was the financial responsibility. They accepted that and I do not think they resent us for it. (hope not) All that said to point out that, for my dress, Rod's tux, airfare (he flew), gasoline (I drove), missed work, gifts, a modest cash donation to the wedding fund, we were down nearly $2K for DD2's wedding. Side note: My parents held my sister to a $500 budget for her wedding, in 1969. And I WAS a bridesmaid.
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle >>Oh, Liberty Belle, I am so sorry you are going through this but PLEASE take us with you on this journey Your post had me laughing.<< In that case, will do, amazed There's still 4 months til the wedding, I'm sure there'll be plenty more to vent about in that time!! Especially as we start planning the hen's night. Dan, sorry to hear about your experience! I have 3 cousins who are brothers and they're extremely close, so we were all very surprised when the middle brother had 2 friends as groomsmen instead of his 2 brothers. His brothers were pretty upset about it and over 10 years on I still don't understand why he did it!
Originally Posted By danyoung Thanks, LB, for your understanding. I'll never understand why Tim didn't let us be a closer part of his wedding, and why he thought that ushers and candle lighters was in some way the same thing as groomsmen. But then he'll never understand why we're upset about it, and I guess that's just family.
Originally Posted By smedley Wow and wow, I am sending you a great big hug, and being immensely grateful that the only adult wedding I have been part of was my sister's which was indeed a lot of fun to organise and laid back Side note it was expensive though, although I didn't mind, we all flew to Banff Canada and stayed in the fairmont banff springs for 2 weeks (others did stay in cheaper accomodation it was our choice to stay in the hotel with the bride and groom lol) plus the dress etc, but it was worth every penny for the trip experience and the wedding
Originally Posted By Labuda Holy moly, Kez! I am SOOOOO glad I was in the wedding I was in, and didn't have MOH-zilla to deal with last summer! My bridesmaid duties were easy - I was the DD for the bachelorette party, the shower was easy cheesy peasy, and the bride paid $50 of the $100 fee for our makeup. My hair is super easy, so I did that myself. The dress, though, yeah that was bad - $200 and then about $100 on the alterations to bring in the waist and bring up the hem. The wedding itself was great except for the fact that we got there at 10 am and the thing wasn't until 6 pm - and I was 3rd up for makeup, so had to sit around and not sweat from 2 to 6 - kind of hard in June in Texas when you're in a room that has a window unit - you'd think a place here would get central air but noooooooo. Oy! Anyhow, kudos to you on being a good bridesmaid and keeping your chin up!
