Back when I first posted about this topic, one of my dear readers, Laura, asked:

“What do you think is worth having the final say over, and what should you just let someone else decide for you? (In terms of flowers, food, decoration, stuff like that)”

Great question. It’s one that’s good to be thinking about ahead of time, but the answer is something you may not be sure of until you are in the middle of things.

Quick answer: It’s different for everyone. Not all brides put the same value or importance on different aspects for their wedding. You have to decide what is important to you. I covered this a little before, but I’m going to talk about some details here to help you get a better idea.

What is probably worth having the final say about

• The dress
• The venue
• The officiant
• The attendants
• The vows

I think we can all agree on The Dress. If it is as important to you as it is to most brides, this is something you’ll be heavily involved in choosing and make the final decisions on. Personally, I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. However, I know that women exist in this world who care very little about clothing, their wedding gown included, and can toss this responsibility over to someone who does. And not bat an eye. I know they are out there. I’ve just never met one. 

Then there’s the whole “posse” method of choosing a dress. I had one with me, but they were trusted individuals who knew my taste, style, and helped me to look at the dress with the whole wedding in mind. (My mom, my dad’s mom, and Heather) A lot of wedding planners and stylists advise against bringing people along with you, but I can’t agree with that. A huge posse is a very, very bad idea. But close people that you trust and who won’t forget this is your dress? Not a problem.

When decisions are made for you

A few years back a friend of mine was getting married and I was in the wedding party. I showed up at her house one day to help her with preparations and she hurriedly rushed me back into one of the bedrooms and shut the door. I started to ask her what was going on, but before the words made it out of my mouth she opened the closet.

And there it was.

Lace, frills, puffy sleeves, a tall neck, and appliqued rose buds. I’m sure it was gorgeous in 1990, but now?

“Uh…ohhh. Is that your dress?”

“Are you kidding me?! I’d never wear that!”

Well, I had hoped not…

“My mom went shopping yesterday and came home with…this.”

She eventually told her mom that she wouldn’t wear the dress and I admired her for standing up like that. I know her mom was trying to be helpful, it was just something I couldn’t relate to.

Unless you want to count that Christmas season when I finally told my mom to stop buying me clothes that I didn’t specifically ask for.

Rude? Ungrateful, you say? Leave your address and I’ll ship you all my appliqued cat sweaters from the mid- to late-90s.

Prioritize and communicate

All that to say every situation is different. You never know what’s going to be thrown at you or what, in the middle of wedding planning, you suddenly care about. Or stop caring about completely. Think about the things that matter to you. The list above includes things that are pretty reasonable to want one way or another.

• The venue was important to me (I wanted to get married where the majority of my family would be able to attend; the groom is from out-of-state anyway so his family had to travel wherever we got married in Oklahoma).
• The officiants were important to both of us (He wanted his college mentor/pastor/friend to do the vows and I wanted to include the minister that married my parents and dedicated me, as well as the minister at the church my parents attend — where the ceremony was held).
• The attendants were important to both of us (He went ahead and had the larger number of attendants after some of my bridesmaids dropped out; I didn’t buckle under pressure to include family members who are not and have never been close).
• The vows were important to both of us (We both share a disgust for personal vows that are a little TMI/gushy/mushy/save-it-for-the-honeymoon, and wanted something that fit our personalities and presented our commitment toward each other in a joyous way that also conveyed the solemnity of the moment).

Don’t be afraid to let go of things that don’t really matter. At the end of the day — you will be married! That’s the important thing.

If you have any particular questions you’d like answered, feel free to leave them in the comments or email me at liz @ misswisabus.com

(There needs to be a small disclaimer placed at the beginning of this one because I don’t want anyone to come away with the wrong impression or hurt feelings. I had GREAT bridesmaids who were helpful and kind. The generalities in this post are just that. The specifics are in my situation and in others that I was witness to.)

Know who is standing beside you before you choose them. (This means bridesmaids!)

Remember how I told you that last point was the most important? Scratch that. This may be.

Choosing bridesmaids is probably one of the touchiest things, ever. It can be touchy for the bride, who may be having to make some serious decisions about who to include (while considering a budget, a limit on number of attendants, etc.) and somewhat stressful for those waiting to be chosen (cost, responsibilities, “will she or won’t she choose me?”).

I want to stress to you how important it is that you pick the right people to be in your wedding. I cannot say enough about what a challenge it can be whenever you have uncooperative attendants or people who really have no desire to be in your wedding, nor your best interests at heart. Please exercise your best judgment in this area.

Example #1: You have a dear friend that you met later on in life, perhaps in college. You think it would be appropriate to ask said friend to be in your wedding, but you do know a few things about her and you are on the fence about it. 1) She is never on time. 2) She regularly forgets appointments, plans you have made, to feed her pet iguana, etc. 3) She is jovial and just busting at the seams because you, her dear pal, are getting married.

I am tellin’ ya right now, that is a “sitchy-ashun.” You love this friend and would love for her to be in your wedding. There are a few factors that come into play here. You know that the friend is not going to be one to devote most of the necessary time and energy to helping you put together showers and other tasks associated with the wedding. You know this. But the friend loves you and wants to be there with you, to support you on this very important day. It comes down to your choice. If you can deal with the fact that tasks that may be assigned to her in all likelihood will not be done, then you can go ahead with it. However, you must remember this later on. Things are going to get hectic and you have to keep in mind that you knew from the beginning that this friend was not going to be a very reliable participant.

I think it is important to weigh the following factors:

1. Length of time that you have been friends
2. Reliability
3. How important it is to you that this person is in your wedding
4. Availability
5. The Close Family Conundrum

Not necessarily in that order. For some people, #1 is a really good way to cut your list down. Sometimes #1 and #5 play in to one another and you have choices to make there. What if you have 5 sisters? Do you have all 5 sisters as bridesmaids? This does something really awful to my brain. As someone who does not have a sister I cannot begin to work that one out, so you’re on your own.

Let me just give you a few bad examples from each of those points.

1. Length of time that you have been friends — A young woman includes a couple of girls who were her first best friends — in kindergarten. Nevermind the fact that they weren’t friends once they got to junior high, or high school. And completely forgetting that bit about how they haven’t spoken in years. For some reason, these two agree to be in the wedding. They spend every moment the bride is out of the room criticizing decisions she has made about her wedding, her appearance…you name it.

I understand honoring the friendship that you had, but I think if you haven’t had any major contact with the person in the past 5-10 years, you need to really consider if it is the best idea. Yes, you may love them no matter what, but I’m serious, this can get really ugly, really fast. People can change a lot in that amount of time and if you haven’t remained in some kind of contact then you may be in for a nasty surprise.

2. Reliability – If the person forgets to feed their iguana, chances are they will forget to bring the sorbet for your punch, the date of their dress fitting, and when/if they are supposed to be present at your rehearsal dinner. We’re talking about a dead iguana here, people. If you love them so much that you can deal with them being in your wedding and really taking on no responsibilities…GOOD FOR YOU. Like I said earlier, you have to remember this later in the game when things get crazy and you NEED every spare pair of arms that are available. And then you can’t hold a grudge against the person because you knew from the beginning they weren’t going to be any help. Just keep it in mind

Or maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe they live far away and just won’t be able to participate the way a person who lives in the next town over would. You can’t fault them for that. Just know what they are capable of and be okay with that before asking.

3. How important it is to you that this person is in your wedding — This is one of the few things that I will pull the “It’s your day” line on (because it’s NOT just your day; this is a family and community celebration of a commitment you are entering into with another human being…it’s not just a big party that’s about you in a fluffy white dress so get over it). I had a few different family members and friends suggest that I include certain individuals in my wedding party. On the surface they may just be helpful suggestions, but the ones I received were so so SO far off the mark I cannot begin to describe them to you.

Please do not let anyone bully you into including herself/someone else in your wedding. You will be unhappy and will likely be resentful of their heavy-handedness.

A big regret I have is not including two very dear people to me in my group of bridesmaids. One is a friend who lives thousands of miles away, the other is my closest first-cousin. Leaving the first off the list was my decision because I thought it would be asking too much of a person who lives so far away. Leaving the cousin out was based on some of the suggestions I was receiving (that if I included that particular cousin it would be wrong for me to not include another; another who does not like me and who I do not have a relationship with and who I would never dream of including because I wouldn’t want to impose on her life). I really wish I had asked both of them.

What I did do was ask a handful people who have meant very much to me over the years to be in my wedding. Most of them said yes. One of them didn’t call, write, email, or reach out to me in anyway for over a year. I have no idea what that was about. Another agreed and then canceled when she found out that I did not vote for Obama. Then after that she acted like nothing. One told me, “I don’t know if I’ll be in town that weekend.”

In the end I think a lot of those things worked out for the best. Now I can see that if some of those people had been present and beside me the entire day of my wedding, I might have been miserable.

I really think this whole thing may call for me finally writing about how, at times, I am the worst person at picking friends and how I end up in these really awful relationships with females. Sad, I know.

Make sure their presence is important to you and that you aren’t making your decisions to please other people.

4. Availability – There is really nothing bad to say about this one, it’s simply a fact of life. Keep in mind where your potential bridesmaids are in their place in life. Do they have a job or schedule that might prevent them from being present for important things leading up to the wedding (fittings, showers, parties, etc.)? Is it possible their schedule might even prevent them from being there on the actual day-of? Are they newly married themselves? New parents?

A lot of cost comes along with accepting the responsibility of being a bridesmaid. Not everyone will be able to afford it and you need to remember that when you are asking and planning various things (dresses, accessories, shoes). If you are not planning on paying for their dress and other expenses yourself, you may need to rethink things a little. There is no need to put any undue stress on a person.

It is a tough spot though, because if you make a judgment call here and decide not to ask someone based on where you think they are, you risk hurting them. One thing I did was ask each person individually, and with those that I knew this might be an issue with I tried to be very understanding and work with them. As it happened, these were the people who didn’t end up in my wedding.

5. The Close Family Conundrum – I was at a wedding this summer where I witnessed a sister-of-the-bride muttering (not so under her breath, I could hear it easily from where I stood) about how her sister was being so “ridiculous” about taking pictures after the wedding because she was “stupid and traditional” and didn’t want to see the groom before the wedding. Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine.

Sometimes I’m thankful I was the only girl.

Again, if you have sisters, I don’t know what you do. I think in most cases, unless you have a huge age difference, you have to have them as bridesmaids. Then if you have a ton of friends you want in the wedding, you have a huge wedding party or put your friends somewhere else. All I know is family is family and sometimes #5 trumps #3. And pray that your sister isn’t pulling this kind of stuff behind your back and badmouthing everything you’ve done for your wedding.

. . .

One last piece of advice. Be okay if they say “no.” You never know what is going on in someone’s life. They may have a reason for declining that you will never find out about. Personally, I would rather someone tell me that they can’t be a part of my wedding than be there grudgingly and half-heartedly. Either you’re in or your out on this one, bridesmaids.

I hope that helped someone! After this one, I plan on addressing the bridesmaids as well in their role. It is such an important privilege, to stand up with someone on this special day. Once again, let me know if there is anything you’d like me to talk about in this series. I don’t know everything, but I did learn a lot in planning my own wedding. (I’ll be handling the question from last week’s comments soon!)

I’m starting a new series that I think might be beneficial to my readers. I know there are a number of you out there who are getting married soon or plan to at some point in the future. There are so many things that I picked up while planning a wedding and I wish I had known them before. It would have saved me a lot of heartache.

Determine who you want to have the ultimate control/decision-making ability during the entire process.

This may be the most important thing you do while planning your wedding. It was a lesson I learned early on and fast, and one that never really got ironed out in the whole process of planning.

There are usually 2 to 3 options here (maybe more depending on your family dynamic; divorced parents can play a big role here as I have seen in the weddings of friends): you, your parents, or a wedding planner. There are situations where those involved can be on equal footing, but that takes impeccable communication skills. The chances of that being the case are very slim and there needs to be someone who knows that they can act in the interests of the bride and groom, without having to consult them on every tiny decision (unless you have decided that every thing does need to be approved by you, the bride).

Without this decision being made and letting all parties involved know who can act and who has the power to write the checks, you need to be prepared for a lot of phone tag, back-and-forth, “are you sure you’re okay with this?” dealings that take up more time in the end than if you intrust these decisions to someone you know has your best interests at heart.

My advice if you are the picky type like myself and are planning a large wedding (I have no idea what the scale is. We sent out 450ish invitations, 2 blanket church invites at different churches, and ended up with around 350 or so in the church) is to be prepared before. Know what you want, have photos ready, and be prepared to hire someone to do the dirty work. Unless you have an extensive group of devoted friends and family who are willing to give up a month’s worth of weekends to help you make this thing happen, you are going to have to turn it over to someone else. This will spare you a lot of unnecessary stress.

For a smaller wedding (100 or less) I think you could manage it yourself. (Looking back, I wish I could have done that, though I would never want to exclude someone who wanted to attend our weddng from doing so.) And again, if you are very particular this may be the way to go. If your engagement is long enough and the guest list short enough you can do this. It will be less expensive, but there will be work.

There will be more! I learned a lot while planning our wedding. If you have any particular questions you’d like answered, feel free to leave them in the comments or email me at liz @ misswisabus.com