Balancing the Bridal Party

We thought choosing our bridal party would be easy — you put your closest friends and family members in there, and it’s done in a snap… Right? Wrong.

Originally, Jeremiah and I had decided to compile a list of the people we would want on our own sides. Several questions came up when I was trying to create mine: Do I want friends or only my sisters up there? Which friends should I have up there — my oldest and truest, or the closer and newest? Can I have my guy friends up there? What about all those girls that have offered to help throughout the wedding… Should they be included? Is it necessary to have the girls who included me in their bridal party in my own? Do I need to take into consideration the pressure and financial burden that comes with being a bridesmaid? The list goes on and on.

The way I figured, if I had every single girl or guy up there that I wanted, there would have been 11 bridesmaids/men. ELEVEN. Yikes! To me, that number seemed absolutely appalling — our ceremony site isn’t even wide enough for eleven people TOTAL, nonetheless eleven on each side. That number included my sister, sister-in-law, Jeremiah’s two step-sisters, three close friends from grade school, two friends from Denver, and two college roommates. But how could I possibly cut them and/or rank them?!

Jeremiah came up with a great solution: we would have only our best man/maid of honor beside us, but invite those other friends to the bachelor/ette party and include them in some other way to honor and show appreciation for our relationships. My choice for a MOH was simple — my oldest and dearest friend from Kindergarten, the mother of my Goddaughter, and a friend whose life I can guarantee will be forever entwined with my own. The only problem was that Jeremiah was considering having two best men. I had another friend that would easily make a co-MOH, so we decided on two attendants for each side.

After some consideration, though, Jeremiah and I realized we couldn’t possibly get married without at least some of our family beside us. He added my brother, and I added my sister and sister-in-law, who has become like a blood sister to me. In total, that makes four for each side — a modest number when compared to our original eleven!

I’m still really struggling with Jeremiah’s two stepsisters not being up there, as well, because I love them dearly and really like the symbolism of having each other’s families on our own sides. I also feel badly that I won’t be able to have my college roommates or other close friends on my side, but we had to be logical with the number of people we could have in the ceremony space and the coordination of so many people. We fully intend to include our other friends and family as ushers, musicians, readers, and party-goers, and hope that they will understand the dilemma we’ve been faced with. And who knows — it may evolve as we get further through the process!