Choosing My Wedding Party… What The Honor Means To Me
Everything for our wedding was falling into place nicely, the location of the ceremony was selected, the minister booked, the invitations were out, the dress was ordered… now it was time for … choosing the wedding party.
Bearing in mind the fact that we were having a small intimate family service, I knew that if we asked everyone who was important to be part of the wedding party… that there would not be anyone sitting in the guest chairs. So our original thought was that we would each pick one person to stand up with us… but the problem with that is I am a typical girl… if you tell me I can only have one, I naturally must have two.
But in all honesty, there was no human way that I could choose between my two obvious candidates. The first was my younger sister, Cassie. She is one of my closest friends and though she may be younger than me in years she is much wiser than I in life experience. She has a cut to the chase outlook on life that cuts well through my creative, meandering mind. She is the yin to my yang… we compliment each other well, even if it took us until we were in our twenties to realize that is actualy not a bad thing.
The other choice was my best friend, Julie. As my best friend… she had endured every painful detail of my first marriage, every second thought that passed through my mind, every insecurity that hid in my heart, and she was always supportive and never passed judgement.
I knew that I needed both of these pillars in my life to stand up for me in my wedding as a testimony to their love, friendship and support. That is one of the great honors of choosing your wedding party, it is a statement to those who you chose that you are grateful for them and the way that they have enriched both your life and the relationship that you are entering into. So often, many brides select their best friends at that moment in their lives… only to find out that years later they no longer are even in contact with those individuals.
I speak from personal experience here… I can tell you that out of the six bridesmaids in my first wedding… I only remained in contact with four of them, and that was because those three were related to me and the other remains a lifelong friend. The other two were college friends and as our lives took us in different directions their mark on my life only lives in those wedding photographs that are now packed up in boxes.
The decision of choosing a wedding party should be carefully considered and bestowed as an honor upon those people who you for see being a part of your life for many, many years to come. I knew that I could not have made it through the last few hard years without these two amazing women… which is why, there was no other decision for me than to ask them both to share my special day with me.
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August 6th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Sounds like you put the right amount of thought into your decision. While I agree that a bridesmaid should be someone with whom you should have an established past (and hopefully a long future together) as friends, don’t beat yourself up for having bridesmaids that you may lose contact with. I think everyone comes into our lives for a reason; we were destined to meet them and having someone as a bridesmaid is a wonderful way to honor the impact they had on our life.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Thanks Shannon for the comment, and you are right. Each person that comes into our lives does so for a reason. I know that making these choices about the wedding can be very emotional and sometimes people’s feelings get hurt. That happened to me before when I asked newer friends over some older ones… but like I said, if I asked everyone who was important to me, there would be no one in the seats as guests. It is a wonderful honor and sometimes it is hard to choose who should recieve it. Thanks again!