More a headache than an honor
Don’t get me wrong: I love my friends and enjoy celebrating them. In fact, when assigned a bridesmaid task, I’ve often spent time and money beyond what was expected.
Yet how does honoring a couple’s decision to wed translate into responsibility for organizing, patronizing, attending several parties, buying multiple gifts, and purchasing expensive dresses worn only once?
In fact, bridesmaid101.com lists no fewer than 21 responsibilities to be shouldered by a bridesmaid. The daunting workload includes such activities as scouting locations, addressing invitations, and registering for gifts because “many times the groom does not want to go register with his bride-to-be.
Of course, bridesmaid dresses are notorious, and griping about them is par for the course. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, they're compelled clothing, suited to someone else’s taste, not your own. Besides, the dress may be extremely pricey, and rarely will it see repeat wear.
It might even be hysterically hideous, like the corseted, lace-up-sided purple gown that Rochelle Thomas, a 33-year-old New York City real estate manager, wore for a childhood friend. “I felt like a vampire Barney,” Thomas said.
Not to mention that pleasing the bride is often no easy task. Rachel Sklar, 39, founder of Change The Ratio and TheLi.st, recalls a friend asking her wedding party to choose any dress in wine color. Although Sklar sent a sample via e-mail prior to making her purchase, the bride took to her choice poorly when Sklar presented the fabric in person.“It was not wine enough,” explains Sklar, who was compelled to go back for “a darker red.” It turned out the remaining members of the wedding party had independently gotten the exact same shade of burgundy. “The bride was not pleased,” said Sklar. “It is still touchy.”I have recently noticed a growing epidemic on the Tribe. I have seen this disease before and it aims to infect every bride at some point in the wedding planning. It's known as the dreaded Dress Lust (also called, Dress Envy, Dress Regret, etc). The symptoms start when you've bought your dress and you find yourself browsing designers websites for "better" dresses, asking for second, third, or fifteenth opinions, going through every single piece of wedding porn thinking "I wish I looked like her" or "Oh wow, that's THE dress I should have picked." [Editors Note: When to stop looking at wedding porn.) While these are extreme examples, symptoms can be as mild as thinking about "the dress that could have been."
As brides we are thrown into a cruel world of "your wedding has to be perfect" and "you chose THAT?! What were you thinking???" The worst part is we tend to pander to one another. It can be as simple as replying to a post where the bride decides she "hates" her dress. She posts her dress against another. 90% of the time replies will consist of "get the new one. Get your dress. Buy. Buy. Buy." While seemingly innocent, and made with good intent, we're discouraging our sisters-in-planning from listening to the instincts that possessed them to get theur dress to begin with. It's a fine line where we stop helping and start hindering the planning process.
Constantly told to second guess ourselves, it's not a surprise when the dress becomes our security blanket.I, myself, am guilty of indulging my "you'll regret that" mindset. I had a dream dress, within my budget, that I LOVED. This dress was the only one I could see myself walking down the aisle in and my safety blanket of bridedom. You see, as long as I have this particular dress, I was a bride. I would marry my perfect match. All my dreams would come true. Then I bought a different dress. *gasp* I tried it on and felt beautiful and confident. Then, doubt reared it's ugly head. "It's not the one you wanted," "it was so cheap you can get the other one and not feel bad," "you can always resell it to another bride," "get your dream dress," "get your dream dress," "get your dream dress!!"
Finally I couldn't take it anymore! I went to my mom's and tried on my dress. Not in comparison to the other, but with an unbiased and open mind. How did it make me feel? Beautiful.
Something clicked at that moment. My fiance wasn't going to know the difference. He wasn't going to say "You would have looked good, but I would have preferred you in that Joli I saw in your Pictures folder on the computer or that Maggie you saw when we walked by that dress shop." I realized that he would think I am the most beautiful woman in the world simply because I am walking down the aisle to him, my perfect match. No dress would change that.
Besides, I'll just have my "dream" dress made in a different color when we have a Christmas party to go to, or a Gala to attend. It may not be ivory, but it will still be the same dress. Which makes me realize, it's just a dress… and now I get to add two more days to my honeymoon by NOT buying a second one. A dress I'll wear once or time alone with my then husband? Which is really more important?
Now, stop second guessing your choices, put down the dress as a security blanket, and go have your future spouce wrap their arms around you. I guarantee it's a lot more comforting!
Beyond the dreaded dress, there are many additional costs and burdens. WeddingChannel.com estimates that being a bridesmaid can cost upwards of $1,000, much of which isn’t even for the main event — $700 goes toward a bachelorette party and shower expenses alone.
An American Express survey reveals that in 2012, the average cost for being in a wedding party was $377 dollars. And if you were in the wedding party of an affluent couple, defined as those with a minimum of $100,000 in household income, the price rose to $583. Either is a hefty sum, and let’s not forget that the “affluent” category applies to the newlyweds, not to the wedding party.
And don’t underestimate just how important these parties can be to the bride. Ester Brooke Friedman, a 30-year-old copy editor in Manhattan, had an aunt who passed away two weeks before her friend’s bachelorette party in Las Vegas. She made the trip, but was understandably not in the best frame of mind for Sin City revelry.
“This did not please the bride,” Friedman recalled. “Our friendship ended when she said, ‘I know your aunt just died, but this is a happy time for me.’”
Even wedding strategy is considered a bridesmaid duty. It sounds rough, but a bride's trusted friends have always had a lot on their plate: In early Roman history, bridesmaids formed a human shield around the bride to protect her from potential kidnappers while proceeding to the groom’s town. So perhaps you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re similarly called upon to jump through a few hoops.
The frustrated blogger behind Full Credit For Being Alive says she and her fellow bridesmaids were subjected to numerous, arduous rehearsals to choreograph a dance in unison. “[The bride] wanted to be entertained at her reception,” she explained. "The dance was to ['I Say a Little Prayer (For You)'], that song at the beginning of 'My Best Friend’s Wedding.' To this day, I feel queasy whenever I hear it."
And yes, participation is key, or you you might just lose your precious position. “I was demoted from maid of honor to bridesmaid without my knowledge,” said Shuni Zerykier, 30, from Teaneck, N.J. "I found out when I saw the wedding program and read a different name under 'maid of honor.'"When engaged couple John and Frances Canning sent a wedding invitation to the Queen, they never thought she would actually come.
When they found out that the Queen would be at the Manchester town hall the same day of their wedding, they sent an invitation but received a nice letter from a lady-in-waiting saying that the Queen would be unable to attend. Little did they know that the Palace made behind the scenes arrangements for Her Majesty to make a personal visit to congratulate the newlyweds.
“When we had our ceremony, the staff asked us to wait for a moment in the corridor and just a few minutes later the Queen arrived. She knew both our names and apparently we had been especially added to her rota,” the groom told the Manchester Evening News.
The Queen and Prince Philip spent a few minutes wishing the couple well and taking photographs. “It was a lovely present from them to us, one of the best presents you could wish for,” John told the BBC.
More than any individual, I blame the system: Brides are simply conforming to normative wedding behavior. Or perhaps they were bridesmaids once, and are just getting payback?Abigail told her mother several weeks ago, but her new husband, who still has yet to read the “Twilight” saga, was a little reluctant to tell his family that he had changed his name.
“My mother wasn’t surprised at all but Andy’s sister wasn’t very happy when she found out last week,” Abigail said. “I made him call his parents last night to finally tell them, and although they were surprised, his dad was pretty OK about it.”Other details about the couple’s “Breaking Dawn” wedding were chosen with great care. Abigail collaborated with her florist to design bouquets as similar as possible to the flowers featured in the movie. The tables at the real-life wedding reception were named after vampire covens in the series, with the head table called “The Cullens.” Even the Cullen crest was printed on the menu.
Abigail was most excited about the music for the wedding, which featured many songs from the “Breaking Dawn” soundtrack. But she initially gave up trying to wear a dress similar to Bella’s when she found out that designer Alfred Angelo’s replica wasn’t shipping until after her wedding.
So what to do if you can’t manage either the time or money involved? Harriette Cole, a wedding expert and author of the book “Jumping the Broom,” advocates the “honest and early” approach. Cole says to make it clear to the bride that even though you want to support her, you just can’t “afford to do all this.”Kristin Koch, senior editor at WeddingChannel.com, agrees with the tactic. “Where you get into trouble,” Koch says, is when “you wait too long to say anything.”
Both Cole and Koch described the bridesmaids’ role as a support system, available for anything from calming the bride down to stuffing envelopes — whatever might arise.
Thomas, who gamely wore the “vampire Barney” gown to her friend’s wedding, chose not to have bridesmaids when her own time came. She explained: “I think that even asking people to take time out of their very busy lives to come to your wedding is a big deal.” She felt it was important to end the trend described by Cole of brides being “so consumed by what they are about to do … that they are oblivious to the strain” that their demands may have on others.
As it turns out, however, selfish brides, burdensome expenses and hideous dresses may be the least of a bridesmaid’s worries. The phrase “thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride” was coined because bridesmaids were thought to help protect the bride from evil spirits by absorbing said spirits themselves.
I’ve been a bridesmaid six times. Maybe I could have gotten out of the last four by citing serious health risks.
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