Tips for the Bride on Choosing Her Attendants
On the joyous occasion of an upcoming wedding, the wedding attendants are often instrumental towards the success of the wedding. Indeed, brides will always aim to select those whom they want to honor as their bridesmaids on their wedding.
While it is the norm for brides to select best friends and relatives as their attendants, this trend is fast changing. Brides may select a guy to become their attendants, while encore brides may get their daughters from a previous marriage to be their bridesmaid. The boundaries are indeed blurred as we become more accepting especially within multi-cultural societies.
Nevertheless, choosing the right attendants is essential towards the success of your wedding. After all, when it comes to attendants, there is an entire list of responsibilities that come with it. Merge that with the possibilities of grumbling bridesmaids, or those who back out at the last minute and you realize that making the right choices of attendant will help save you lots of headaches later on!
1. The number of attendants for a wedding
While the number of bridesmaid you may select is entirely up to you, there are instances where too many bridesmaids spoil the wedding. After all, the more people you have, the more preparations you need to make, and the more you people management tasks you would have to be responsible for.
Thus, it is always good to use the guest size as the gauge for the number of attendants you will be getting. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to get one attendant for every 50 guests you have. This means that if you are going to have 100 people coming for your wedding, then you would have 2 bridesmaids. For larger weddings say for 500 people, you could probably have 4 bridesmaids and one personal bridal attendant.
2. Be mindful of emotions and feelings!
Although your choice of attendants is entirely yours, but you should also be aware that many of your friends may think themselves worthy of being your bridesmaid, even though you may think otherwise. In this sense, it’s always best to handle this strategically, such as asking your friend or relative one-on-one on being your maid of honor. This way, she can be your ally in extending out the invitations to others on being your bridesmaid, and therefore avoid any misunderstandings or hurt feelings later on. Also, remember to inform people whom you think would want to be your bridesmaid but whom you can’t include. It’s always for them to hear it from you, rather than from your other wedding attendants!
3. Give respect to the schedule of others
While everyone is happy and honored to be your wedding attendant, it is your prerogative to know that they have their own schedules to work around with as well. With this, it is ever so important for you to provide enough time for others to consider you request before giving you with an answer. In fact, be sure that you ask them early enough so that they can work out their schedule around your wedding, and even take time off work to perform any attendant duties.
4. It’s ok not to return the honor
It’s never an obligation to ask someone to be your attendant just because you were hers at her wedding. If you do this, you may end up with someone whom you didn’t really want to honor, or even an attendant who you believe may not be suited for the job. This way, you would end up with more in your hands than you can actually handle.
5. Don’t pick people based assumptions
If you think that your friend won’t be able to afford that bridesmaid dress that you want and write her name off you list, think again. It’s best to ask first and let her decide for herself if she truly can afford it or not. Otherwise, you can always offer her other roles that will still allow her to be part of your wedding. If this won’t work, you may consider chipping in and paying for the bridesmaid dress yourself. Remember to consider the feelings of the other bridesmaids if you do this, as some of them be offended that you are only paying for one of the bridesmaids and not for each one of them!
6. Always consider your siblings first
While you may have a list of friends you want to get as your attendants, leaving out your siblings is a big no-no. Even if you aren’t close to your sister or your sister-in-law, you may want to think twice about leaving them out as you will be stuck with them even after your wedding. You won’t want to relationships to turn sour because you left them out of your attendant list.
Finally, it truly pays to be mindful of everyone’s emotions when making a choice. Also, once you have your list of attendants, it’s best to work within reasonable expectations when designating tasks to each person. Ultimately, a wonderful wedding does not necessarily need to stress everyone out and ruin valuable relationships in the long run.
