Congratulations on your engagement! This is a really exciting time in your life. It’s also probably going to be a bit stressful.
During this next year, I want to walk through this process with you. I’ll give you a 12 Month Guide to planning your wedding and explain things along the way. You can start from the beginning here (click). Come back to this blog each week for the next installment.
Week Four – Wedding Party
Hope your week of looking at venues has gone well. This week may be fairly easy. We’ll look address the wedding party.
Selecting your wedding party can be simple:
1. Make a list of the people you want to stand up next to you at the wedding and rank them.
2. Talk with your fiance to figure out how many people he had on his list.
3. If the numbers are different, discuss whether to add or subtract from them.
Any extra people can be asked to be ushers or in the house party. For those who haven’t heard of house parties before, they are predominately found in the South. This group of women are very helpful. They help distribute programs, cut cake for guests, hand out bubbles/sparklers/etc for the going away, etc.
The most difficult part is selecting who is your maid-of-honor and best man. Sometimes a sibling or absolute best friend is your obvious choice. If this is not the case and you’re stuck between people, select the person who will be the best help. You need a person you can depend on, somebody who will support you and assist in planning (other than your fiance).
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Once you’ve selected the people to ask to be in your wedding party, figure out how to ask them. You can go very traditional by asking each one to something where you can spend time together and then ask them if they’d stand up with you. Or you can get creative (yeah, it’s pretty much a female thing).
I’ve seen lots of cute ideas. You can “pop the question” with a small bottle of wine, a ring pop and/or a cute little message. Personally, I used a different method with each bridesmaid. I asked my maid of honor with a ring pop. One bridesmaid I had to ask over the phone. For my roommate, I joked around by getting on one knee, taking her hand and asking her to be in my wedding party. It doesn’t matter how you ask as long as it’s personal.
Don’t forget to tell us how you asked your friends to be part of your wedding party!
Next week we’ll face the dreaded guest list.
Katelyn is a certified wedding planner. She is available for consultations.
She will even meet with you on Skype to help you work through part of your wedding planning.
Click here for more information.