“Sorry I can’t do anything this weekend, I’m a bridesmaid in my cousin’s wedding.” I have said this sentence countless times since my cousin asked me to be her bridesmaid way back in June – whether it was because we were planning the bachelorette party, doing a wedding party meet and greet, budgeting the engagement party, or of course, finally walking down the aisle for her wedding. No matter what my wedding-related reasoning was, it seemed like the only word every collegiette in the room heard was bridesmaid. “Oh my god, that is so awesome, how fun and exciting!” They asked me questions about my dress and my hair, as if I was the one getting married. And sometime, probably after about the tenth time of being oohed and ahhed at over my status as a bridesmaid, I began to feel the need to spill a little-known secret: being a bridesmaid is a lot more than throwing on a dress and getting glammed up for one day. So I present to you my bridesmaid tell-all.
The first thing that I absolutely have to mention is the price tag that comes with being a bridesmaid. Don’t get me wrong, I love my cousin very much, and I wanted nothing more than for her wedding to be everything she wanted. But at the same time, I was really blindsided by all the bills that the wedding party would be footing. First, and most obvious, the outfit: my dress was on the less expensive side, but it still ran me just under $100, my shoes cost me around $40, and getting my hair and make-up on the day of the wedding cost me $150 plus tip. But then there were also costs like planning and paying for the engagement party, which cost over $100 per person, and attending a spa weekend bachelorette party, which cost over $300 per person. The cost is not necessarily something that should deter you from being a bridesmaid for someone that you care about and are very close to, like I feel about my cousin, but it should make you hesitate to be a bridesmaid for someone that you don’t consider yourself to be very close to.
The other thing that every bridesmaid needs to consider is the time commitment. All of us are busy college students as it is, and being a bridesmaid is like taking away four or five of our much-needed weekends. While that may not seem like much over the course of eight months, I found a lot of times that adding one more thing to plan my life around was just a little too much. Don’t get me wrong, these weekends were really fun, mostly because I loved spending time with the bride-to-be and the other bridesmaids, but it’s still something to consider if you’re an exceptionally busy collegiette.
Now, I know this has been a bit of a negative rant against being a bridesmaid, and to be totally honest, if you had asked me before the actual wedding day, I would have told you to avoid being a bridesmaid at all costs. But after getting to be with the bride-to-be all day on her wedding day, and in so many ways getting to share in her nervous excitement, all of the time and costs became totally worth it. On top of that, it was nice to have such a test-run for my own wedding and to see all the planning that goes into pulling everything together. So here is my advice in a nutshell: don’t feel obligated to do it if you hate the bride; get used to the fact that you will probably hate your hair, your dress, or your shoes (or maybe even all three); bring tissues up to the alter; and lastly, remember that someday you’ll be getting married too, and you don’t want to mess with your own bridesmaid karma by being a diva.
Photo Source:
http://www.bridesmaidsandweddings.com/2011/12/bridesmaids-the-movie/