We are at the age now where our best friend, our older sister or our high school friends are getting married. It’s only a matter of time before someone you love and trust asks you to be a part of their special day and play a role in making sure that their ascent into married life is one that goes smoothly. Being asked to be a bridesmaid or a maid of honor for the wedding of your close friend or relative is an honor and a privilege and an experience that you will take with you for the rest of your life. At times, it may seem intimidating or daunting, filled with unspoken responsibilities and expectations to make everything seem perfect. Despite the pressure of pleasing the bride or living up to the status of being a “good” maid of honor, there are many rewarding aspects to ensuring someone’s happiness as they begin their journey of starting their live together with their partner. If you have the opportunity, being a maid of honor is a chance to gain insight and experience and don’t yet feel overwhelmed because I have some tips that will be sure to help you as your start your process of party-planning, invitation modeling and gift-tracking.
1. Plan Ahead
This one may sound quite self-explanatory, however, due to the amount of responsibilities you will have, you can’t allow everything to pile up right before the wedding. Spreading out parties, notices and trips with the bride will help you to decompress and have everything move along with ease and finesse.
2. Split Up Responsibilities
Just because you are the maid of honor doesn’t mean you can’t delegate. Having everything isn’t necessarily fair when there are other bridesmaids who are just as willing (hopefully) to put in the time and effort to make things go smoothly. Assigning responsibilities to certain people pertaining to parties, events, the rehearsal dinner and the wedding can help take the stress off of one person and help in getting everyone to work together and get to know one another even better.
3. Bachelorette Party… Is A MUST!
Every bride needs her last night of freedom and fun. Making sure the bride gets to go where she wants and do what she wants on the designated time allotted for the bachelorette party will make for a happier bride (and a happier groom in turn). There are so many places to go on a bachelorette weekend, whether it be Vegas, California or New Orleans. Informing the other bridesmaids on the itinerary, communicating with the bride on plans for the expected days, and coming up with ideas of your own for interesting things to do, can make the bachelorette party one for the books and one that you all will remember to forget.
4. Staying in Contact with the Bride
This point may be the most important one yet. Remembering that this whole process is all about the beautiful bride can ensure that she is happy and her needs are met. It is important to double check with her on plans, money spent and gifts given out. If you’re not sure if she would enjoy something, then ask. Sometimes it’s better to know than to assume when it comes to making arrangements. The most important thing is to have an open mind and open communicating with the lovely lady!
5. Being Her Confidante and Shoulder to Cry On
The bride may be relying on you to be her voice of reason and her rock. Listening to her worries, reassuring her that everything will be fine and supporting her no matter what are key elements to being a positive and inspirational maid of honor. Remember that before you took this responsibility you were her relative or best friend or maybe even both and think that you wouldn’t want anyone else being by her side and helping her have the best wedding she could ever want.
These all may seem like high expectations to live up to, but you do it everyday by being a good friend and supporter of the bride. Putting in the effort to help and trying your best to be accommodating will only make it that much easier for the bride to have a good time as she marries the person she is meant to spend the rest of her life with!