How to include a bride's male friend

Perhaps he can be an Usher that brings your mom in and maybe have a reading for him?

ETA: I think it's important to access if your friend even wants to be up there. Yes you two are close but has he even mentioned he wants to be up there by you ? He may prefer just being at the wedding in the crowd

My FH new from day 1 if we ever got married my best friend who is a guy would be standing up with me on my side. I could have serious issues if I got a "hard no" from him on something like that. There is obviously some sort of underlying issue there that needs to be discussed.

I have a bridesman and he has a groomsmaid and we couldn't be happier with our choices. However if you FH keeps telling you no over this issue I would suggest asking him to do a reading or to escort a family member to their seat during the procession.

Um, your future husband is homophobic

If he's Catholic he should be OK with it, I mean studies have shown that up to half of priests are gay. Good for the priests good for the congregation and visitors.

For what it's worth I'm as Conservative as hell and Catholic, and have no problem with the above statistic. Your FH needs to get over himself.

What is a personal attendant? Sounds like something no one would want to do. Your FH shouldn't have a say in who is in your party. Have your BFF be a bridesman.

He should be included in your bridal party, your FH is being ridiculous. You can also seat him wherever you want regardless of his "title".

My best friend (who is male) will be our officiant. He was originally going to stand on my side but I thought who better to marry us than one of our greatest friends. Plus, FH doesn't have as many people he'd want on his side as I did. It's all about compromise and who you want to be by you

There's no room for compromise when your position is "I love this person and they are one of my best friends" and the counter argument is "well he is gay and that makes me uncomfy"

I'm with PWG on this^^

So much no. This is such a HUGE red flag. The first sign of abuse is isolation. This isn't that, but it's close. Him giving you a "hard no," means he doesn't respect what you want, he doesn't respect your friendship with your friend, and if his opposition is that your friend is a gay male and he's "worried about what people think," I'd have a long hard look at whether or not your morals are compatible.

This entire situation sounds far too controlling for anything I'd ever be comfortable with. If he can't listen to the things that are really, truly important to you now, odds aren't in your favor that you've found somebody that you can find compromise with through the rest of your lives and all of the differences of opinion that are guaranteed to come up.

There's is no way I would roll over on this. ESPECIALLY without any semblance of a good reason. Not only does he not respect what's important to you, but he doesn't even respect you enough to sit down and talk about it?!

So much no.

I'm having my male best friend as a groomsman. My FH agreed. By the same token his best friend will be my bridesmaid. Hope this helps.

Why does your FH object to him being in the bridal party?

Personally, my best friend is male, and FH is fine with that. He will be my "Man of Honor" rather than having the traditional maid of honor at our wedding.

Have you tried talking to FH about how important this friend is to you?

I'm with PWG on this, I would not tolerate homophobia from my FH. This is not right.

I agree with PPs on more than one account.

All I know is if my FH "hard vetoed" (which is a phrase we use for wedding planning) my bridesman, we would be having a serious a conversation about our relationship.

Why not just have him as one of the groomsmen? I've know a lot of wedding where the bride has her guy friend as a groomsman

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You include him in your head table, add a seat.

View Quoted Comment Well, that may be weird. I'm in the same predicament. I have a male friend that i'd like to include but I wouldn't want him as a groomsman being that my guy has so many already. Thinking about having him walk down the aisle with another one of my friends who I want to include but is not a maid.

Take advice from someone who has been married a loooong time. If you don't teach FH about compromise now, you are setting yourself up for trouble in the future. If you don't include your friend, you risk really hurting his feelings and you years from now you will look back on this and be really disappointed in yourself. Your wedding is something that you will remember for the rest of your life and you really, really don't want to start off like this. Is your FH homophobic? Maybe. Doesn't mean you can't work it out or that he's not worth loving, but if he's marrying you, he's marrying all parts of you and not just what he can fit into his life. It may be hard for him. If he loves you, he will get over it. If he simply refuses, honestly, it's a precursor to your life with him. You have to ask yourself if you're willing to potentially sacrifice your relationship with your friend for this man because if your FH can't compromise, then this means your friend makes him uncomfortable and you have to ask yourself why and if that's going to affect your longterm relationship with your friend. Marriage is hard anyway, why would you want to start with him laying down conditions? And trust me when I say the majority of the people at your wedding young and old won't care. There will always be a handful, but those people can suck an egg.

View Quoted Comment Great idea. How would them include them on your invitation? What should we call them escorting ?