How to Pick your Wedding Party

3 Written by natasha on June 9, 2010 – 5:00 am

Selecting your wedding party can be both challenging and delicate. Picking some people might be easy, but others might be more “borderline.” Do you pick someone who you’ve known since you were kids but who you’ve grown apart from? Or do you pick someone who you see a lot now, but only met recently? Well, it depends on what you want them for….

What’s the Point of a Wedding Party?

The point of the wedding party is show your guests these great people who you love and to get these great people to help you through your wedding.

If you’ll recall, I recently wrote a post on why we have bridesmaids and groomsmen. The history also shows that there have always been close friends of the bride and the groom who are intimately involved in the wedding.

Who Should Be in the Wedding Party?

Siblings, friends, cousins, aunts, uncles… You name it! It really depends on who you want involved and who you really consider to be a close friend. (And here I use the term “friend” loosely. Your sister or brother may be your closest friend when it comes right down to it.)

Some things to consider:

1. the length of time you’ve known someone
2. the trust and love you have for someone
3. the closeness you feel to someone
4. how helpful you think someone might be in your times of stress

What do Bridesmaids and Groomsmen DO?

They can be as involved or as uninvolved as you want. I was a MOH in one wedding where I had to BEG the bride to let me do things. In another wedding, I was NOT in the wedding party, but I was asked to proofread the wedding invitations, and give feedback on design. (Here’s How to Be a Best Man and How to be a Maid of Honor)

If you saw Jenny’s post, you know that having someone to plan her bachelorette party is really important to her. If that’s the case for you, pick someone who will plan something you will enjoy too.

How Many Do I Need?

You should have as many or as few as you want…. 3? 5? 8? 2? (Remember, this may impact YOUR costs as you’ll get gifts for these people and you’ll host a rehearsal dinner. That said, recent trends in rehearsal dinners actually include your out of town guests in the rehearsal dinner….so the number in the wedding party may not matter for that.)

• NO, you do not need to have the same number of bridesmaids as groomsmen. If you think it looks weird (and that bothers you), then you might be someone who should have the same number on both sides.
• NO, you do not need to have all your bridesmaids be women and your groomsmen be men. (Gasp, I know.) One of my guy friends was recently the Maid of Honor for a female friend’s wedding. They’re really close friends and she wanted him on her side. And why not?

What if There are Too Many People?

If you want to have 15 people be bridesmaids, you might want to reconsider having people be involved in other ways. What about having some of those people be involved in other ways? (Blog post on ways to include friends/family who are not in the wedding party is forthcoming!)

A Word of Warning….

One thing to remember when selecting a wedding party is that you cannot expect everyone in your wedding party to be able to do and afford everything you would ideally want to do.

In the wedding where I was one of the MOHs, I lived far away and it would have been very difficult and expensive for me to fly out for the bridal shower. The bride was awesome and never once made me feel bad about my limitations. Similarly, I have a friend who was invited to a bachelor party where the cost of airfare, hotel, food and alcohol was going to be so extreme, he couldn’t really afford to go. The groom made them feel obligated, which made him feel annoyed and sad that he couldn’t really do so much.

Point being, be considerate of your wedding party. In most cases, they’re trying to help you and celebrate with you, but you need to remember that they have their own plans and lives and obligations too.

Who will be in your wedding party?

~ Natasha