Posts Tagged ‘bridesmaid’
Q. What is the best way to line up my bridesmaids? Is it best to do it by height or by the degree of closeness I feel for each bridesmaid?
A. Good question! I can see why you would want to do it by height so that things look symmetric in the pictures. If symmetry is important to you, by all means, organize those bitches from tallest to smallest. Organizing by closeness seems a bit harsh, as the girl furthest away will know that she sucks and her grimace will not improve your pictures (although making it a competition isn’t a bad idea at all, where maids compete for spots based on loyalty and BMI).
But the best way is to think of yourself as the sun, the bright star in the center of the sky around which everything else revolves. This is a great analogy because it not only reminds you of your role, but it is practical too. Next to you comes the fat bridesmaid(s), in order of obesity: Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus (also known as the gas giants, these are by far the most massive planets). They will make you appear smaller and more slight.
Next comes anyone who is medium-sized. And like our solar system, the tiny and inhospitable Pluto comes last, farthest away from the sun. Pluto is represented by your pretty friend who may have a lot of boyfriends but who will never get married because she is a slut. Putting you and she as bookends to the large and medium maids will draw comparisons in people’s minds between you and she as being equally little!
Skinny ankles means great wedding pics!
Q. I have a bridesmaid who has arthritis in her knees and if she stands for long periods of time, her joints bother her. She has asked if it would be okay to have a stool brought out for her during the ceremony. When I asked her to be in my wedding, I had no idea this would become an issue. But I am feeling very stressed over other details and feel as though this will look silly. I assume I should just go ahead and let her sit?
A. Well first of all, your first instinct is that this is not a good idea. Good for you! But you’ve got to listen to your heart and stop second-guessing yourself. This bridesmaid is being difficult. “Arthritis”? That seems vague and possibly made up. Does she not understand that you have real issues to worry about, seating charts to finalize, and mothers-in-law to pacify, without spending your time wondering about the joint health of your maids?
And how old are you that you have this maniac for a bridesmaid? If you are over 40, best not to have bridesmaids at all. And NO this does not mean you should have your teenage children stand next to you either.
But if you are a regular-age bride, remember: if Heather Mills can ballroom dance, this “friend” can swallow a few Tylenol and stand still for 30 minutes.
Let her approach you first though. Since you have ignored her requests up to this point, she may get the hint. If not, smile and agree to the allowance of a stool; then secretly saw 7/8 of an inch into each leg so that once weight is applied, the attention-whore will be on her ass. This should happen during the rehearsal though and not at the actual wedding. Best not to be teaching people a lesson on your big day… you will have other things on your mind!!
Don’ts
Don’t use the least common denominator approach: choosing the cheapest dress that your poorest friend can afford, or the sleeved monstrosity that your most self-conscious maid will feel comfortable in is a bad precedent to set. Be democratic and pick the gown that almost everyone will be happy in. (And if all of your maids are poor and/or fat, go ahead and pick the one that you wish they would look good in.)
Don’t let your bridesmaids choose their own gowns. If they ever get married, they’ll be in a position to start making decisions. Uniformity is best. You clearly know what looks good, that why you are the one getting married.
Uniformity is always best when it comes to bridesmaid dresses. At a glance, you should not be able to tell one from the other.
Don’t choose a color and then let the maids choose the style. This practice promotes individuality. And this is neither the time nor the place for the maids to be “expressing themselves.”
Don’t let pale bridesmaids get away with ruining your wedding photos or embarrassing you with their napkin-white legs in the cute, raspberry, tea-length frocks you so carefully selected. Remind maids that their appearance reflects on you and repeatedly praise the beautiful skin tone of tanner maids.
Dos
Do keep in mind that completely alienating all bridesmaids and having them leave your wedding party will make it look to your guests like you have no friends. This means retaining your power with a smile and letting maids think you care what they think (i.e. sending them two gorgeous dresses, either of which you’d be happy to choose, and soliciting opinions.) Also, having fewer bridesmaids because of such disputes will make the wedding party uneven. Uneven wedding parties are wholly unacceptable and will make you look like a frigid, friendless bitch. Avoid this.
Do encourage larger maids to hit the gym. As a kind gesture, offer to go with her to whip her fat ass into shape before your big day. Act as if you too would like to “tone up”… a euphemism for, “I’m already skinny, which is why I’m engaged, but I’ll come with you if it’ll make you more inclined to go.”
Do encourage maids to order their dresses one full size smaller than they actually are as motivation to get into wedding-ready shape. Remind forgetful or lazy maids that the dresses are not returnable and non-alterable in case someone starts to think that they look good the way they are. Girdles and Spanks are acceptable, even for maids who did what they were supposed to.
Do encourage maids with less-than-stellar smiles to seek professional whitening solutions. Do this gently by saying that you are going to have your own teeth bleached. If they do not take the hint, start telling her that she looks gorgeous when she smiles with her mouth closed. Enough compliments about her toothless grin will condition your Pavlovian maid into using her closed-mouth smile exclusively and thus, saving your photos from certain disaster.
Q. I’m a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding but I have always been a bit of a tomboy. Would it be okay for me to change into a nice suit for the reception as long as I wear the bridesmaid dress for the ceremony, so that I’m comfortable?
A. A “nice” suit? The fact that you’re using the word “nice” when referring to this suit tells me that chances are we’re not talking about an Armani. However, even if it was a nice suit, the answer would be the same: NO.
And since we’re talking about things that are nice, let’s talk about your family and how they are going to feel in front of the bride’s family when their big, outlandish, butch daughter hops into a navy blue pantsuit and chunky flats, from the bridesmaid dress that was so thoughtfully selected. This is not your BIG REVEAL. Standing out is entirely inappropriate. Today is dress up day; today is fit-in day, and we’re pretending to be straight.
This means:
- no spiky blonde tips
- no more than one earring per ear
- shaving (and crossing) our legs
- no drinking things out of a bottle
You are obviously overweight, which may explain your aversion to showing the legs and arms… this is understandable. However, this insecurity should be dealt with head on, not covered up with shiny synthetics.
Cynthia Nixon and her 16-year-old brother/girlfriend in a "nice" suit
Q. My fiancé and I have had a long engagement during which one of my bridesmaids became pregnant. Believe it or not, her due date is my wedding date! Even if she doesn’t have the baby that day, she’s probably not going to feel up to it. Should I ask her to step down?
A: Wow, I’m not certain what’s worse: this selfish cow trying to steal your thunder, or your complete incompetence at maintaining control over your bridal party. Forget about her feeling up to it…do you feel up to sharing the spotlight on your big day with this stretch-marked beast?
It is painfully obvious that you neglected to make their duties clear to your bridesmaids. Getting pregnant while a bridesmaid is completely unacceptable and offensive. Having your other maids wear empire waist dresses just to accommodate this egomaniac would really be unfair to the other girls. Do you really want to be worrying about this hag’s water breaking as you say your “I Do’s”? And what if she has the baby a week or two early? Are you supposed to stand there with uneven bridal parties? You do realize that this make it look like you didn’t have enough friends to include in your big day. Pathetic.
Plus, everyone will be ooohing and aaaahing over her little bundle of joy. The only joy that should be being had on this day is YOURS!
Your maids are supposed to be people who support you as your closest friends. A sisterhood. This girl is clearly not who you thought she was. Wish her the best in all her future endeavors and replace her with the skinniest girl from the alternate list.
I doubt this is an oversight by the bride. Your friend is a kind soul who is trying not to tell you outright that you’re in danger of ruining the pictures. She chose a dress that she knew would subtly nudge you in the direction of the elliptical machine.
You have two options. You can either remove yourself from the wedding party and save your friend the hassle of having to notify the photographer not to take any profile or body shots of bridesmaid #3, or you can hit the gym. Hard. You should have started dieting months ago when it became clear that your friend’s love was blossoming into a beautiful lifelong commitment with the man of her (and probably your) dreams, instead of crying into the bottom of a Ben & Jerry’s carton like a selfish cow. Pull yourself together and fit in with the other bridesmaids, who should not have to wear sleeves just to cover up your sausage arms.
1) Taking time for YOU- Of course there is the traditional spa-day-with-the-girls routine. This is a great idea. The smartest way to go about your day of pampering and beauty is to somehow attach it to the bachelorette party so that your maids are obligated to pay for you. Those 90-minute, hot river stone massages sure can get expensive!! But you deserve it after all the stress of planning.
Let your Maid-of-honor know that you’d like to do something like this on your “bachelorette weekend.” Refer to it as a “weekend” whenever possible. That way, you still get the fun night out on the town, and can detox and relax the next day too on someone else’s dime!
2) Laugh away the tension!- Everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine. A great way to use humor therapy is to set up a “bridesmaid roast” to giggle those worry lines away! Let your maids know what you’re doing and have them prepare a hysterical roast for one another, pointing out one another’s flaws (both in appearance and personality). It’s best not to have only one bridesmaid get roasted, as this will only make her feel as though she is being attacked and could prompt her to peace-out of your wedding party. (YIKES!)
Instead, let the girls know that they are all fair game and remind them that the reason you love them so much is for their senses of humor and not to take themselves too seriously. It would be best to keep this a girls-only affair, where they can really feel free to be themselves—having your fiancé or other groomsman there will only make them more self conscious when the jokes turn to such topics as: weight and self esteem, tally of sexual partners and/or sexually transmitted diseases, or jokes about the dysfunctionality of the maids’ families. Other suggested topics include how much your maids’ boyfriends suck, and how they had such high hopes for their careers in college and now they are administrative assistants. Be creative!!
In the end, declare a winner and a loser—the person whose jokes were the funniest and most biting, and the one who can’t take a joke, respectively.
3) Get Rid of the Stressor- Rather than trying to DEstress, why not eliminate what is causing the stress in the first place. You guessed it ladies—hit the goddamn gym!! If your arms are more toned (and yes, they can always get more toned) and your ass is up where it should be, the lingering anxiety caused by worrying about what you’ll look like on your wedding day will vanish.
All eyes will be on you the entire day, and keep in mind that as soon as all your guests leave, your appearance will be their first topic of discussion. Even kind and older folks will pass judgment on a bride, politely saying how “nice” she looked. Eliminate this worry so you can concentrate on your man!
4) Money Worries- Worrying about money is an enormous stressor for brides. As the cost of weddings continues to climb, brides find themselves scrambling to pay for their dream weddings with less and less help from increasingly stingy parents and in-laws. The best way to handle this is to head it off in the beginning. Have your fiancé tell his parents that your folks refuse to help out. He should act despondent and say things like, “we may have to elope” and “it looks like you won’t be able to invite most of your friends.”
Likewise, tell your parents the same thing about the in-laws and how miserly and spiteful they are. Your parents are sure to cough up something. Remind them that their names don’t just go on the invitations as a formality; they have to earn it.
When you have money in hand from both families with agreements that the money comes with no strings (we don’t need the mother of the groom telling us what kind of corsage she would like, do we?), go ahead and start planning your dream day. 
Q. My fiancé asked me to have a female friend of his be one of my bridesmaids. I don’t know her very well but it doesn’t bother me because she seems nice. Who should ask her? I would feel weird calling her out of the blue since we’ve only met a handful of times.
A. There are so many things wrong with this question!
1) If you are too uncomfortable to even speak to this girl on the phone, then she has no business being one of your ‘maids.
2) Bridesmaids are friends of the bride: emphasis on of the bride.* Not only shouldn’t the groom even have close female friends at this point, but he definitely shouldn’t be asking for them to be part of the wedding; these are YOUR attendants! If he is this close to another woman, you haven’t done a good job as a girlfriend. Let’s hope you do better as a wife.
3) While nixing the little arrangement your darling has dreamed up may make you look like a controlling and psychotic bitch, the alternative is to pretend to be “the cool girlfriend.” This behavior puts women back about fifty years. Pretending to approve of the female friends of your fiancé makes a girl look weak and silly, and you aren’t fooling anyone. Everyone knows you’re seething inside and that’s lame.
4) If she is attractive, you may want to disinvite her altogether, as they most likely “had a thing” going on before you met him. If she’s ugly or large, continue to hate her secretly, but don’t allow yourself to seem jealous. If she’s fat and you’re jealous, it makes you seem insecure!
5) Whose idea was this—your husband-to-be or the ballsy cow? Either way it’s an outrage and shouldn’t be tolerated. My advice is to make it clear to your fiancé that he must chose between his friendship with this meaningless piece of trash and you, his beloved. When you pose this to him, make sure you look your very best. Sex strikes work well too.
(*Similarly, if the groom has a spinster sister, it is up to the discretion of the bride whether she is included or not. If there is more than one obese or unattached soon-to-be sister-in-law, the bride is off the hook as far as having them be bridesmaids: one unappealing sister is a kind gesture of the coming together of families, two or more is ruining the wedding photos and having the guests think you only have fat friends.)
I’m sure this little setback is no indication of how your marriage will turn out (fingers crossed)!
