Hey Brides!
I wanted to get your input and advice on our Bridal party situation. It's not a traditional approach, so it's been tough to navigate.
My fiance and I made the decision early in our planning process that we did not want to have a traditional bridal party for our wedding (no bridesmaids, no maid of honor/best man). This is because we are having a destination wedding in Puerto Rico, and we did not want our closest friends to have to pay for expensive stuffy wedding attire on top of travel expenses. I have been a bridesmaid many times, and have had a couple traumatic experiences, including paying over $3,000 as a maid of honor in the last wedding I was in, so we are trying to avoid that at all costs.
We did however feel that it was crucial to honor the people closest to us in our lives. I wanted to get input from you guys to see if you feel like we could make improvements to our ideas below in order to make people feel appreciated or included better without a financial or stressful burden.
Here were our ideas:
1) For our closest friends, we are having an informal "Bride Tribe" and "Groom Tribe" that consist of our closest friends. They will not be walking in the ceremony, but will be there to support us the morning of the wedding by getting ready with us and taking a few photos together early on in the day.
For attire, my fiance could gift the guys matching ties, but allow them to wear whatever color or type of suit they want to the wedding. For the Bride Tribe, we could ask them to wear any dress they'd like to the wedding in any shade of peach (patterns are fine too). This is so that when we take photos together, the photos look somewhat cohesive, and these people are honored by all wearing similar colors. I could even surprise them and compensate them for the dress they decide to get.
2) For our family, we could ask them to be the only ones walking and participating in our wedding ceremony to honor them. They could walk in the processional and recessional. Our dads could each do a reading in the ceremony.
As a family member (brothers and sisters), would you feel left out if you weren't invited to get ready with the bride or groom before the wedding? If so, should we ask our family members to wear similar colors as the bride tribe, or have them wear another coordinating color?
We plan to give family members and bride and groom tribe gifts the morning of the wedding, and I plan to pay for hair and make-up for any girls who would like the service.
Thank you guys so much for the advice!
