Help Me Understand Where this Idea of no Bridesmaids' Role is Coming From?

Their role as a FRIEND is to be supportive, but that is the bride's role as well, and to understand they have more gong on than her wedding. I don't understand how people think once they become a "bride" they can stop being a friend and treat people like slaves, or employees. Why should I assume my best friend wants to come over and lick envelopes when I don't even want to? Being in a wedding should be an honor, not a chore.

And I say this as someone who was a bridesmaid and had a horrible experience.

I agree with you. My bridesmaids are my best friends and they want to support me and I want their support.

To show support and give advice is something a friend should do and wouldn't really be considered a role. What some ladies feel like their girls should throw them parties and do over the top things and that's what they should not do. If they feel like they would like to take it upon themselves to do that then that's on them but shouldn't be expected from the bride.

View Quoted Comment All caps is yelling anywhere on the internet, not just on this site. I am surprised that anyone wouldn't know this. It is Internet 101 Etiquette.

I don't get what extra support is needed from a wedding party. I planned and executed my wedding, of course with the help of my husband, mostly on my own. I hired an event coordinating company who handled everything, so I don't get asking friends to do things-I think it's rude to do so because it's not their wedding, they didnt decide to get married.

A poster above mentioned needing/getting extra attention. For what? It's a wedding, and the goal is a happy healthy marriage, not a pretty pretty princess day.

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I used to hear this a lot on another website. If you need support to plan a wedding, you're doing it wrong. Leave the support for things other than planning a party.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for this comment. I agree 1,000 percent!!! The minute someone says a friend/bm/moh etc isn't being supportive, they just assume your talking about them spending money and working for you. Not the case at all, boucing ideas and getting feedback and opinions isn't that bad if you ask me, or just to see if something you put together seems right, shouldn't be a problem either. 1 or 2 times outta a few months. Tsss

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I’m surprised at out of all these comments, mine stood out the most to you. Carry on. Like I said I wasn’t yelling. Sheesh

GoodMOB - I agree with you. I bet we are around the same age and we can both look at weddings today and reflect back on weddings in the 70's and 80's and think "Wow getting married today seems like A LOT of work!! Bridesmaid proposals, favors, Save the Dates, photo booths, etc. Yikes!" LOL! To me a Bridesmaid is to put on a dress and be supportive in any way, just like a any good friend would do. It is when a bride believes that a bridesmaid is there to throw showers, bachelorette parties, shop four time for the perfect dress and many more demands on time and money....well that is where it has gotten out of hand.

My two sons were my attendants and all I expected from them was to be dressed and on time.

That's what I always thought! In fact my mother always taught us that there is a financial and time obligation to being part of someone's wedding and to never accept if we felt we couldn't meet these obligations. I think this is a new generation thing. I don't really get the "no roles" thing either.

I can't edit my post but I want to add I was first married in 1994, had four attendants, my sis was MOH plus three friends. I had zero expectations of them, preferred no showers but I was taught if someone offers, you go and smile and say thank you. They rented their dresses, wore their own black dress shoes. I simply asked them to be in my wedding. I did not care if they wore their own jewelry or how they did their hair. We all lived to tell and had a great time.

I get what you are saying completely and I do agree, to some extent.... I was apart of a wedding where I was involved heavily - both emotionally and financially. I hope that I NEVER make anyone feel the way she made me feel (along with how she made the rest of the bp feel). Do bridesmaids need to get the dress, show up, not be drunk, etc? YES. However I think this thing gets sort of misinterpreted on here because people have run into awful experiences like the one I was in! I don’t think when people on here say that bm’s don’t have any specific duties besides the dress and being there, is that many brides become awful bridezillas who think that everyone is supposed to drop what they are doing and cater to them 100% not just on the wedding day, but leading up. Yes you are absoultuly right, bm’s should be there to support you and help you get ready, but it seems like most brides get it in their head that the bridesmaids are supposed to be slaves to the bride.

Let me give you an example. In horrible wedding I mentioned above, the bride and I were more than just good friends. Her parents were always too busy to care for their children which resulted in them dumping them off on family or friends - when we were young they would allow her to stay at my house and wouldn’t call to check on her for weeks. Moving on in hs we drifted apart as friends and then after we graduated she reached out to me and we started hanging out a lot like we used to - then she got engaged. I honestly feel like she sought me out and used me because she knew I would help her in more ways than anyone else did. I planned the entire wedding with her - she would text me and it was only ever wedding related - she wanted to me pick things out because she couldn’t decide. Then it turned in to me paying for things that she insisted because her parents would not help with the wedding at all. Forgot to mention that she has crippling social anxiety and would have been better suited for a court house of justice of the peace wedding - but groomy doesn’t know her like I do and talked her into this big wedding that she was really nervous. It slowly turned into me buying decor and flowers (on top bm dress and expensive boots she wanted us to wear) she was going to pay me back after I bought the things UNTIL he found out and thought it was weird and thats when things shifted. I never ordered things without her approval and her ASKING me to - and I actually diy stuff that didn’t cost much money (programs for example - $20 total for design on etsy and then paper) but she lied to him (he’s abusive) and told him I was just doing stuff on my own, which was NOT true. I should have ran but she manipulated me and made me feel like nobody else was helping her - which was 100% true! But we had a totally different relationship because my parents helped raise her and so we more than just close friends. On the day before (rehearsal) nobody was there to decorate the venue - her family were nowhere to be found - just me and her. She left me (it was in a barn and was 110+ degrees middle of summer) after about one hour of decorating so she could go take a shower - I honestly thought she was joking. I was out in the middle of nowhere by myself decorating a barn that needed a huge amount of decor to make it look nice for a wedding. The rehearsal was at 5 (takes people at least 30 min to get to the venue) and so most people were rushing for her stupid time she chose because everyone had work - her and groom just had this mentality that everyone needed to drop EVERYTHING and help them. After she showed up from taking a shower at 6:30 (note, she asked everyone to be there at 5) she showed up with wet hair, no makeup, and workout clothes - all the guest were dressed up (well minus me - I was a sweaty mess busting my a$$ to decorate) and then her mom rolled in at 7 (she was supposedly “cooking” the rehearsal dinner because grooms mom did wedding food) and she showed up with cold pizza (not even enough for the amount of rehearsal guest), no plates, no napkins, and NO DRINKS - it was so awful, there wasn’t even places to sit. The whole thing was a joke. On the day of - she told me not to speak to her - THERE WAS A MILLION THINGS THAT NEEDED TO BE DONE AND APPROVED BY HER!!!! But she decided to be a hateful to all 7 of her bm’s (yes, 7 - 7 girls who she barely knew because groom decided he needed that many groomsmen so she had to scramble and find that many girls - it was awkward because they kept commenting that they didn’t really wanna be in the wedding because they didn’t know her very well) anyways she told all of us to go to this place for hair (we would pay) but heres the kicker - there were no appointments for us just her, mom, and sister - so this girl that was just there at the salon did four girls hair (mine included) and we just paid her. It was so freaking awkward. Then when we got the venue she treated everyone so bad. Not once was anyone given a thank you and she just kept barking orders around. We didn’t speak hardly at all and if I could go back and rewind, I would have never showed up. After the wedding, I cleaned the venue at midnight (with my mother, fiance, and a close mutual friend) the only thing we didn’t clean was the lights hanging from the ceiling - we got everything else. She and groom called me and my fiance repeatedly (didn’t answer) the next morning because they were furious that we didn’t take her lights down!!!! It was awful - she sent me awful text telling me how awful I was and we haven’t spoken since. I actually made her a wedding keepsake and left a note apologizing for whatever I did and have never heard from her since. It was awful. So THIS is exactly why people just say to have your bm’s show up and look pretty! Because some people don’t know how to treat people!!!

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Oh, Lisa. That is so awful. I didn't really know people treated people that badly! Ugh.

So, I think I understand a lot of this better now, because of everyone's responses.

I totally agree with you on that. I thought that they should have roles too

My bridesmaids all lived in different states. None of them live in the state I live in, and none of us live in the state I got married in (although we were all from that state!). So I think the "they must be at events to help" doesn't really apply to modern times where people don't live close to each other anymore. Even a simple "they should want to do a casual night out with you for a bachelorette"- well how that going to work when you live in different states? Even the "they should show up to the rehearsal dinner the night before"- I had a bridesmaid who is a teacher and literally can't take time off during my wedding without docking her pay and finding a substitute to pay herself, so she couldn't come into town for the rehearsal- no big deal. People have been walking down aisles and not getting lost for a long time- why is a rehearsal a requirement for anyone but the bride and groom if they want to?

I luckily was able to have bridesmaids either visit me, or me visit them during my engagement. But this was all their decision to do, not mine, and was on their schedule, not mine. We didn't do any fancy going out bachelorette, just nice normal visit things- I paid for their dinner and outing activities. We went shopping. It was nice. It may have seemed "destination" but really it was their decision to visit (or let me visit them) and there way no way to do local in our case. It wasn't a resort we had to pay for or hotels or anything like that.

My mom and I did a lot of DIYs. But that's only because my mom wanted to and she was local to the wedding. Bridesmaids doing DIYs in different states doesn't really make sense. I didn't even DIY as much on my own because transporting it across states to my wedding would have been hard.

My bridesmaids did pay for their own dresses- but I am all for the "if you require a certain dress, you should pay for it movement." Mine chose whatever black dress they wanted, so I didn't feel as much of a need to pay for it, although I would have if needed or they had accepted my offer. I did pay for their hair and makeup (if they wanted to get their done)- that was my way of pampering them as special people on the day of.

Some were emotional support, sure, but hopefully not to the point of draining them. And really I just wanted to have fun with them the day of. For maids who aren't married, it's hard sometimes to be much of an emotional support when they aren't in relationships or having gotten married, so I really didn't want to burden them with marriage freakouts or planning stress that they can't relate to, just fun stuff.

Bottom line: should you choose friends who are supportive? Absolutely. Should your friends shell out money for your bachelorette/shower/expensive BM dress? NO. Should your friends spend hours and hours with your on wedding related things? NO. Should your friends be your fetching servants day of (get me my shoes, water, makeup?)? NO. Hire a DOC for that. They should enjoy the day as honored guests.

View Quoted Comment Yes it was awful! I (along with a few others) tried talking her out of the wedding just because they were so young and he’s not a good guy. Anyways it was a sad situation and I feel so embarrassed still to this day, for helping her - she made me feel so stupid for everything I did. The only good thing that came from her wedding was how she showed me to never treat people with such disregard. The sad part of it is, I feel sorry for her, in that she is trapped in miserable marriage with a man who won’t let her do what she wants because he’s angry she ran off all their friends. Never met a more immature couple in my life.

I will have one bridesmaid and I expect her to find her dress and be there to support me. I definitely think she should be involved to some extent but I don’t expect anything from her (like making things, throwing showers, etc.) I do expect her to help calm me down and hold my veil for a picture maybe, other than that I just wanna eat, dance, drink, laugh, and get married!

I picked my bridal party because I love them and they love me!! It's not even about "roles" for us, but they're all there for dress shopping appointments, etc. when they can make it because it's just a fun excuse for all of us to hang out. I'd be really upset though if someone thought they could just show up and not have to care about it at all. They don't need to work for it or have exact roles, but that's why I only asked people who care about me and are a big part of my life. They genuinely care about anything going on in my life, and that just happens to be a wedding right now. I can't wait to do the same thing for them some day!

I am a strong advocate that their only "role" is to buy and outfit and stand with you.

I just can't wrap my mind around using your friends for free labor or required party planners

I was grateful and unbelievably overwhelmed with gratitude that I was thrown a shower and two bachelorettes. I would be so confused if a bride to me she required these parties. My bridesmaids had so much going on in their lives and being seven hours from me, I wasn't going to give them "jobs."

My BFF is the kind of person who will drop what she's doing on her day off to drive 15 miles out of her way and bring me a home-cooked lunch at work when I'm having a bad day. She will plan wonderful camping trips and make sure pet-sitting is handled if needed. She's not a dress-shopping, party-throwing, centerpiece-building, flower arranging sort of person.

I'm SO thankful to have her in my life, especially since her brother is my ex-husband and I know she has to walk a bit of a tightrope to stay close to both of us. I am truly honored that she will stand with me on my wedding day. If I were expecting her to throw me a shower or whatever that would be a TOTALLY unfair expectation on my part and would absolutely NOT play to her strengths. It would be unfair to both of us and would lead to bad feelings on both sides....and who wants that?

My sister is BUSY. She's filling her life to the brim right now and as far as I can tell she is enjoying the ride immensely, but she is hands-down the busiest person I know. I wouldn't ask her for anything that would add to her load right now though, because she is maxed out. That doesn't mean I don't want to honor her or have her at my side though!

I feel incredibly lucky to have these two women so close to me. If I'm invited to participate in either of their weddings (should they choose to marry) I will throw myself in wholeheartedly....but I LOVE to plan events, do crafty things, an right now I'm lucky enough to be working part-time so these things would fit into my schedule easily.

People in this forum made that dumbness up. Bridesmaids DEFINITELY HAVE ROLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!