Ring the bells! Shout the joyful news from the highest mountaintop! Tell the world—you are engaged! Now it is time to spread the news and choose those who are the closest to you to be members of your wedding party.
Choosing your wedding party can be stressful, overwhelming, and even political. Should your future sister-in-law be a bridesmaid? Can a close male friend be in your wedding party? Do you have to include people in your wedding party who have included you in theirs, even if you are not very close to them anymore?
Think of selecting the members of your wedding party the way you would choose players for an all-star team. These are the people who mean the most to you and who can help you get through this exciting time with as few complications and stresses as possible. Here are some ideas for you.
Some couples choose to print their own announcements to mail to family and friends. This is fine, but be sure to still call those closest to you, tell them the news in person, or send those outside your immediate family and circle of friends an e-mail or a fax. Choose the method that you are comfortable with. There are no hard-and-fast rules.
Be sure to personally contact all family members and close friends who would be offended to hear about your news from the paper or through mutual friends. No one wants to be the last to know.
Divide up your list, and have your fiancé contact his friends and those on his side of the family.
Ask your parents to contact their close friends to save you time. Just be sure that the people they contact are among those you plan to have on your guest list.
Contact local papers, church-affiliated bulletins, college alumni magazines or newsletters, and even your fraternity/sorority organization magazine to share your happy news. Often they publish weekly or monthly announcements of engagements and weddings.
Some magazines or papers will print only wedding announcements, not engagement news. Keep a list of these so you can send them a wedding photo and news after the fact.
Check to see if your newspaper will print a picture of you and your fiancé. This will be a super souvenir for your scrapbook.
Tell your boss and coworkers as soon as you are engaged so they can prepare, well in advance of your wedding date, for any emotional or work-related issues that may arise.
Request wedding and honeymoon time off as soon as you choose your date.
Don’t let your boss catch you surfing wedding-related Web sites during your workday. This might cause concern about the impact of your wedding planning or the quality of your work.
Ask each person to be in your wedding party in a special way. Try to ask in person or, if geography limits you, call or hand-write a card or letter. When you ask, be sure to tell the person your reasons for asking—the important role he or she has played in your life—to convey what a true honor it is for you to have included them as an attendant.
Other honors you can bestow on friends who are not selected to be in your wedding party include having them do readings during or after your ceremony, be in charge of the wedding guest sign-in book, hand out programs at the wedding, sign your ketubah (Jewish marriage contract), or be extra ushers who escort guests to their seats.
When choosing your wedding attendants, think about who you would like to see in your wedding album twenty years from now.
Well in advance of your wedding date, send out a mailing to members of your wedding party detailing their duties and what they can prepare before the wedding.
Make the mailing fun and upbeat. For example, prepare a “Top 10 Things to Do Before Sara and Joe’s Wedding” list, itemizing such things as where and how to go about tux or bridesmaid dress fittings, any necessary travel-related information to assist those coming from far away, your e-mail address and other contact information, and important dates of pre-wedding events, including showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, and other gatherings.
Set up a wedding Web site where you can post information, such as where you’re registered, fun photos of you and your fiancé, important dates, hotel information, locations of events, and more. You can keep updating the site as you have more information. Just remember that not all of your guests will have Internet access, so be sure that they get postal mailings containing all pertinent information.
If you have two sisters, think about making them your co-maids of honor so you don’t have to show a preference. Even if you are significantly closer to one than the other, remember that getting married is a huge milestone in your life, and it is important for family to be a significant part of it.
If one of your sisters is married, she could be your matron of honor and your other sister could be your maid of honor.
Even if someone included you in their wedding party, there is no rule that you must include them in yours. You are not required to use your wedding as the occasion for returning a favor to someone—unless you truly feel that he or she is extremely important or close to you.
To get some perspective on how many people to have in your wedding party or just on whom to ask, consult with your parents or any of their friends who were married a generation ago. Ask them how many people from their wedding party they still keep in touch with, and you may realize that your party is too big.
Wedding party attendants tend to behave differently before and at your wedding depending on whether they are themselves married or single. You may be able to rely more heavily on attendants who have the benefit of personal experience with weddings. Married attendants may have an edge on the singles and often can more easily anticipate your needs and emotional issues since they have been in your situation before.
Consider the attendants’ marital status when assigning duties. Don’t assume they can understand all of your concerns. In other words, know your participants.
Delegate to your wedding party whatever duties you can, such as assistance in addressing and stamping invitations, tying ribbons around party favors, being your driver the day of the wedding, or assisting you in errands in the days leading up to your wedding.
Brides, take the best man aside sometime before the wedding, or call him in advance, to be sure he understands the schedule of the day and will herd together the male members of the wedding party in time to walk down the aisle.
Be certain that your best man has the rings in a safe place that will be easily accessible during the ceremony, such as a coat or pants pocket. You may want the groom to hold onto them until just before the ceremony, though, for safekeeping.
Have the best man be responsible for getting nutritional food and nonalcoholic beverages into the groom (and the rest of the wedding party, for that matter!) throughout the wedding day or evening. Grooms often will not openly admit their nervousness or hunger, and they have been known to faint during the ceremony.
You know the old adage that a woman will only wear a bridesmaid dress once? That doesn’t have to be the case. Rather than trying to choose a single dress that will flatter all of your attendants, consider choosing a specific fabric or color scheme and sending samples of it to your wedding party, so each attendant can buy or make a dress that suits her body type and style.
If you have specific preferences—dress length, on or off the shoulder, strapless or not—be sure to specify them to your attendants, so there will be enough uniformity among the party.
Your maid of honor could be distinguished from the rest of the group by wearing a dress of a slightly lighter or darker shade or a different length, or by wearing a shawl or carrying a different bouquet.
For groomsmen, slacks and a sport jacket or suits are alternatives to the traditional tuxedo. The groom then could give a tie as his groomsmen gift and coordinate the tie with the bridesmaids’ dresses or floral color scheme.
Some great gift ideas for the bridal party include engraved picture frames, personalized stationery, monogrammed travel kits, silver monogrammed key chains with your wedding date on them, perfume, spa gift certificates, or earrings or other jewelry that you want the bridesmaids to wear for the ceremony.
A new trend is to give wedding party gifts that grow, such as perennial flowers that will bloom each year to remind attendants of your special day.
Groomsmen always like the typical engraved flasks, key chains, or business card holders, but how about giving monogrammed golf balls, putters, or Swiss Army knives as an alternative? Tickets to a sports event that the groom and his groomsmen can attend as a group over the wedding weekend may be a fun, unique gift idea.
Think about presenting gifts to your wedding party as a group—with the groomsmen and the bridesmaids together—perhaps at the wedding ceremony rehearsal or just before the rehearsal dinner. That way the members of the wedding party can be introduced to each other and learn a bit more about how each person is connected to you and your fiancé.
One bride and groom decided to give individual personalized gifts to each of their attendants depending on their interests. The wedding party was flattered that the bride- and groom-to-be put so much thought into selecting each gift.
It is okay to have a different number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. In the procession, you can pair up men and women or single out your maid of honor while doubling up the other bridesmaids. Feel free to be creative.
If you are particularly close to a male friend and your groom does not include him as one of his groomsmen, rest assured that it’s okay for women today to have members of the opposite sex as their attendants. Talk your plans over with your fiancé to be sure he is comfortable with this option. Also ask him whether he has a female friend whom he would like to be in the party.
If you have a younger cousin or niece who is too old to be a flower girl but too young to be a bridesmaid, consider bestowing on her the honor of being a junior bridesmaid. She can walk in the procession in a dress that has the same color scheme as the apparel of the wedding party.
Believe it or not, one bride had her dog be the ring bearer. She dressed him in a little tuxedo and tied the pillow to his back. A friend walked the dog down the aisle.
Your groom should plan a guys’ day of golf, touch football, sports bar outing, or some other activity to do together with his groomsmen before the wedding, so they can have a chance to bond and hang out apart from the actual ceremony.
Have a “girls’ day” the day of the wedding (or the day before if you have an early morning wedding), during which you do things like getting your hair and makeup done together and indulging in other types of pampering such as massages, manicures, and pedicures.
Get dressed together as a wedding party. It is fun to prepare for your big day with your closest girlfriends there to share it.
Assign a bridesmaid to carry your lipstick and to be in charge of other essential items for you on the day of the wedding.
Prepare a wedding day Bride’s Survival Kit for yourself that includes items such as lipstick, bobby pins, hair spray, a compact mirror, a comb or brush, stockings, clear nail polish for pantyhose runs, a travel sewing kit for emergency repairs, a piece of white chalk or white medical tape for any accidents that may happen to your wedding dress (makeup smudges, food spillage, loose fabric that needs to be held down, and so on), deodorant, extra copies of any passages or speeches that people will be reading at the wedding, eye drops, aspirin, bandages, a nail file, breath mints, tampons, tissues, and any other essentials that you may need.
You may want to stash the kit under the sink in the bathroom you will be using or with your maid of honor’s items so she can be in charge of it.