Bridesmaids and their Traditional Role

We appear to have the largest wedding party on the planet spread over two continents. I can’t put my finger on when it got so massive but I am walking down that aisle with an entourage baby!

While BF and I kept on thinking of people to Usher us (he stands now at five in his party along with a Master of Ceremonies - my brother), I went on the slightly more careful route of picking my maids.

Firstly my niece, five years old and precocious, made it very clear that was going to be a bridesmaid by asking me six months into my relationship with BF if she had the job. Fait accompli - touché Holly. BF’s eighteen year old niece Jaz was also a must and thank god said yes. So far - one niece apiece.

My two best friends from school, J and C were definites – I have known them since we were thirteen and since I did a speech at both of their weddings in place of the Father of the Bride they were going to do a bloody speech at mine like it or not. J is the mum of two little lads, both under four, up in N Yorkshire. As her eldest has grown up calling me Auntie, it seemed natural to have him as Page Boy 1. C currently lives in San Francisco. BF and I met at her wedding, so both of us wanted her in the bridal party without question. So we’re already at four bridesmaids and one Page Boy.

BF and I have two little nephews around the age two/three mark and wanted to include them both. Four Bridesmaids, Four Ushers, three page boys and one Best Man.

My cousin R and I have six weeks in age difference between us and, along with her sister E, the three of us have grown up very close. Not to mention both E and I were bridesmaids for R’s wedding a few years ago. I wouldn't have done it without them behind me. 

Add the dads and we have 17 people involved in the Official Bridal Party not including ourselves. I always swore I would only have three bridesmaids but now am very happy with six. And I don’t quite know how that happened - I think it always snowballs.

This got me thinking about the role of the Bridesmaid and what she is supposed to represent nowadays to both the bride and groom and also the wedding guests. So I had a little look to see what I could find…

Where did she come from and why is she there?

Traditionally the bridesmaid is thought to have come from Roman Law (c. 449BC) which necessitated 10 witnesses at a wedding to outsmart those pesky nasty spirits which the Romans (usually pretty ‘with it’ on the practicalities like sanitation, personal cleanliness and legal practises but apparently ignorant when it came to common sense) thought loved hanging around weddings.

Apparently ill-wishers STILL hung around weddings in Victorian times to curse the bride or groom. The Bride’s veil is worn to ward off and confuse evil spirits. The Groomsmen are there to fight off rivals for the groom (and let’s face it, possibly more evil spirits too). 

This makes sense when you think of all the brides who must have been abducted by dastardly  rivals to steal fortunes and force alliances in the misty past. ‘Bridenapping’ continues to happen nowadays in areas such as the Caucasus Region, Central Asia, Mexico and Romani, is considered to be a form of sex crime and although illegal in most of these areas, punishment is poorly enforced. Have a look at the controversial documentary, ‘Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan’ by Petr Lom -1995, where real kidnappings were filmed by the crew.

Sherlock Holmes witnesses a form a Bridenapping in ‘The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist’ (Arthur Conan Doyle). In ‘Camilla’ (Frances Burney) poor Eugenia is carried off by the nasty Alphonso Bellamy. “You’re my wife now, Dave” – yes, even Papa Lazarou in ‘The League of Gentlemen’ is guilty of the crime. God help me if anyone decides to make off with me…  Anyway, the bridesmaids would dress like the bride in white to confuse their abductors. 

Princess Diana's Wedding

And apparently the Devil. Look at Princess Diana – the cold-hearted woman used 5 little look-alikes at her wedding to confuse Satan. Who would have thought it of her….

Thinking about it, Brides often go hand in hand with curses.

Giselle (or ‘Dead Girl Dancing’ as I dubbed her 
after watching it as an usher at ROH for the 95^th time) is a scorned bride and turns into a Wili (a spirit of young women jilted before their wedding day) where she haunts the woods making men dance to death when she and her sisters find them.

 The Welsh myth of the ‘Marriage at Nant Gwrtheryn’ (Welsh Legends and Folk-tales, Dyfed Lloyd-Evans) tells of the ill-fated love of cousins Rhys and Meinir. When poor Meinir goes to do the traditional ‘bride hide’ up in the hills and disappears, her body is found weeks later by Rhys hidden in the old oak tree where they used to tryst as children. Legend has it they still wander around the hills and a bird will never land on the oak tree. Those evil spirits to blame again I wager…

Chinese weddings were known as ‘Red Affairs’ in comparison to ‘White Affairs’ of death, with red symbolising the burgeoning sexuality of the bride and the joyfulness of what is to come. But she spends 3 days before her wedding lamenting keenly as though she will soon leave for hell and demons are plaguing her*.

Even Tim Burton got into the act with his animated film ‘The Corpse Bride (2005) about a woman scorned by her loved before her wedding day and forced to hunt for a suitable groom in death to release her from her curse.

Anyway, curses aside, bridesmaids would wear ‘girlish’ colours, if not white, and traditionally their best dress (only the rich would have had specially made bridesmaid dresses for their maids) and, being unmarried, would have worn fresh flowers or pearls. 

Don’t forget, brides only started wearing white after Queen Victoria married Albert in 1840 – before that they wore their nicest dress or something made with silver thread.

A bit of literature

I had a think about the way bridesmaids are represented in three of my favourite classic novels as to whether they might help me see if bridesmaid’s roles have significantly changed over the past 300 years here in Blighty.

Jane Bennet comments in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (Jane Austen) that “Kitty will be disappointed not to be a bridesmaid”, which suggests to me that, like today, your sister was a likely candidate in the 1800’s for your bridesmaid, even for such an improvident marriage as Lydia’s.

In ‘Brideshead Revisited’ (Evelyn Waugh) when Julia marries Rex her sister Cordelia refuses to be a bridesmaid because the Protestant wedding ceremony offends her Catholic sensibilities; a notable snub from the bride’s sister and one which contributes to the “hole in the wall” marriage Julia enters into.

Margaret Hale considers her cousin Edith’s lengthy and lavish preparations for her wedding day (complete with many bridesmaids) in ‘North and South’ (Elizabeth Gaskell) and asks “are all these quite necessary troubles”. 

Victorian Bridesmaids

Her opinions on the wedding are expressed when she recalls “rather sadly, remembering the never-ending commotion about trifles that had been going on for more than a month past”. These are un-fashionable (and I think Gaskell wished them to seem unusual) considerations for a single, young woman of her age. Margaret Hale might even (on superficial consideration) be thought to be unusual by today’s ‘typical’ modern bride. Edith’s wedding was the norm for the period for the well off middle and upper classes– not unlike the weddings of today with lashings of bridesmaids and celebration and plenty of debt to follow. Margaret on the other hand would rather get up one morning and walk to her local church to be married with no fuss.

Nothing has really changed then. Even in the 1800’s women still had lots of bridesmaids and spent a fortune on their wedding day.

Traditions

Here are a few ridiculous traditions I found about Bridesmaids:

1) Traditionally only bridesmaids were 

allowed to try and catch the bouquet. She’d be the next one to get married. A bit of a fix if you only have one bridesmaid and she’s single….

     2) Woe betide the bridesmaid who stumbled on her way up to the alter or be made an attendant three times. She would never marry or find true love. Apparently bridesmaids were so concerned by this in ye olden days (probably pre 1960 then) that they would practise the walk before the big day and turn down that third request….just in case.

     3)  In Brittany if a young girl obtained all of the pins from the Bride’s dress (I am not sure why the bride is walking around with pins still in her dress) she would have a good marriage, many children and a kind husband. If a bride was pricked by a pin, it was a bad omen. And most likely annoying for the bride.

4)    However if she finds a spider in her dress it’s good times ahead!

    

     5)    Traditionally a bridesmaid would wear light blue, yellow or pink. I am making the gross assumption after too many Georgette Heyer novels that these would be traditional debutante colours (pastels or white) as your bridesmaids would always be unmarried women.

    

    6)   If you’re unmarried and you stick a piece of wedding cake under your pillow the night of your friend’s wedding you’ll dream of your future husband. Hint  - wrap it in cling film first. I did it at Jo’s and dreamed of Ben Barnes so that proves that doesn’t work.

   

    7)  Chimney Sweeps are good luck and it used to be the Bridemaid’s role to find one! Ok, I made that last bit up but they were considered good luck at a wedding. George III was allegedly saved by one when his horse was bitten by a dog on the way to his wedding. So you never know what disasters could be avoided by having one around on your big day…

How the other half does it

Ok, so that's how we did it in the UK. How about the rest of the world?

An Indian Wedding

In India the fashion is currently to have a lot of bridesmaids, although this is a newish idea and historically bridesmaids were not a part of Indian weddings. However there are a lot of ceremonies involved with the Bride, her sisters and close friends and her female relatives before the wedding and this has naturally led to a melding of East and Western traditions. 

An Indian Wedding in the UK

When I was a bridesmaid with C for J’s second wedding (she had two, but to the same man-the first was a white wedding and the second a traditional Sikh wedding so both families were happy), we took part in the Choora ceremony, washing the Choorae (her 21 red bangles to you and me) in milk before we put them on her, as if we were her sisters. 

A Muslim Wedding

We also got to barter with J’s hubby for her during the ribbon cutting when he came to ‘take her away’. We made £200 and a limbo dance. Not bad going and a tradition I rather liked. Apparently we could also have hidden his shoes and then charged him for them. Drat….

Muslim weddings also do not involve clearly delineated roles for Bridesmaids. However, like Hindu, Sikh and traditional Chinese ceremonies (see below) they are not just made up of one day like a Christian or Secular ceremony in the UK or USA and bridesmaids (and groomsmen) have gradually been introduced to give roles to family and friends who support the bride or groom through their many duties.

Papercutting of a Traditional Chinese Wedding

 In China due to the single child law with families opting for a boy over a girl, now women can pick and choose a wealthy and successful man and thus enjoy a more expensive wedding (Radio 4 did an amazing programme on Crossing Continents about this – see here).

Bridesmaids are not a new part of traditional Chinese weddings and, like Indian weddings, are made up of many small ceremonies over several days. 

Attendants are therefore there to help out and to keep the bride and groom going (literally) until the wedding is over. When the groom arrives to the bride’s house, the bridesmaids can ask him to fulfil some tasks which prove his worth as a groom. These range from chopping wood to eating chilli peppers.

More and more brides however are now opting for a western white wedding with bridesmaids in western style dresses.

The Roles

In the UK we have a Chief Bridesmaid, Maid or Matron of Honour who is usually there because nothing ever got decided by committee quickly and let’s face it, someone has to be in charge.

In America, this is apparently a great honour and means you get to organise the hen do or ‘Bachelorette Shower’. I don’t know why this is a good thing as organising Hen Do’s is up there with organising a wedding for raising your stress levels, but it apparently is a status thing. You also have to do a speech. I have two Best Women and they also have to do a speech. Mwa ha ha.

Underneath her come the Bridesmaid/s who are traditionally meant to look after the bride on her wedding day, make sure her hair is ok (or something), carry her lipstick (or something) and make sure her train looks nice in photos then get pissed and get off with an usher at the party (way hay BF! That was us!). 

Bridesmaids should be there until after the meal when you might need a hand to wee in the dress at one point, but after the first dance you are basically your husband’s problem now. 

They give up their time, wear a dress they would never usually wear in a million years and will never wear again (trust me), spend a lot of money on things like willy head bangers for the hen do and extra drinks money for people they barely know and take holiday from work, all for their friend getting married and are often treated like a servant by some brides.

So really, these girls who are sometimes dismissed as just ‘the bridesmaids’ are amazing. One of my friends told me how she was actually called ‘servant’ by one bride all day when she was a bridesmaid and kept smiling. That’s dedication.

Apparently in the States they are expected to pay for everything and sometimes even the dress (say, what?!) but frankly, you ask ‘em, you bloody well pay for them you tight wad! Don’t have 7 bridesmaids if you can’t pay for them. 

Lastly you have the Flower Girl who looks cute and inevitably runs around on the dance floor tripping drunk people over, and the page boys who look sweet at first and then turn sulky, hopefully pose for one picture and then run off somewhere and wind up in the photos half-dressed crying because they can’t have more cake.

I think I have that down right?

But who really cares what the bridesmaid does (frankly even if they are sitting at a table with an usher’s hand up their skirt or vomiting into a bush with their pants showing at 11pm) except the Bride and maybe her mum? The depressing fact is that the only thing a guest, and more importantly the photographer, takes away from the wedding is what they look like.

I am not going to even attempt to tell you how to dress your bridesmaids. Firstly I am not a fashionable person, I dress like a cross between a preppy East Coaster and a mumsy blind woman. Secondly, I have quite unusual taste and thirdly I am very opinionated about things which were fashionable 30 years ago and which now are horrific to most people with an ounce of fashion knowledge. But I have had a go at trying to put some ideas into some kind of order according to what the media and the internet are saying you can do.

So here are a few things you can do with your bridesmaids if you really love them (or hate them) to help create a lasting impression.

The Short Dress

First things first they usually don’t come out much cheaper than a long one. 
Dessy for example, will only charge about £20 extra for their long dresses than their short ones. However, they can be better if you don’t want to have the formal look of a long dress and you can pick them up on the high street (think Coast, Reiss, Asos and Modcloth) far more easily than you can longer styles, if you’re savvy in the sales. Lots of women prefer them to long gowns and they do differentiate between the bride and her maids.

The photography here is perfect and i think this is a lovely overall way to do things with short dresses. My problem them manifold however and mainly due to practicality.

•  Those dresses look like something a small child might wear –do I really want to be dressing them in something they wore when they were 3?
• Their feet look in pain. So much pain. All day in those shoes. Owwwwww…..
• As a 6 footer, when faced with a short dress the overriding question has always been, wear the heels and look massive or don’t wear the heels and face having chunky legs with your dress 6 inches shorter than everyone else as your legs are longer? Let’s face it, that dress is going to look better on a woman of 5 foot 4 than me.
• What if you’re not a skinny minny? Yes, weight is all subjective etc, but what suits Column A may not suit Column B and why should it? My legs are dreadful (in my opinion) so an above the knee dress is my idea of hell, while other people’s hell is a strapless gown. 
• Is it me or do they look freezing?
• Is that child on the left being eaten by frills and is that why she is cowering in fear??I

OK, so maybe the matching short dresses aren’t for me. What about going for all Long Dresses?

Long Dresses

Yeah ok, so it might be boring but it’s a fail safe? See the picture here. Unless you go for one very dark colour with a lot of people. 

And I thought I had too many bridesmaids....

Also you run the risk of making your wedding look like a mix between a beauty pageant and a revue. 

Saying that, all of these girls look pretty confident so something is right here…

Different styled AND/OR coloured dresses

So you have loads of shapes and sizes? Blondes and brunettes? Don’t have time to shop around to find a dress that suits EVERYONE? So mix and match

I don’t know what is going on here colour wise, I am so confused.  The bridesmaid on the right of the bride isn’t happy, the one next to her is about to cry and the bride looks like she’s pulled off the best revenge stunt on her best friends on the planet.

It does however mean that everyone wears something that they like and something that they feel comfortable in. If you want to go bra-less, you can! If you have cracking legs and aren’t 8 foot tall you can feel confident in getting them out!  

This look is really pretty, especially for a youthful bridal party. I guess if you go different colours, do it subtly.

My friend Alex did a similar thing with her maids at her wedding and it looked lovely. She is a stylist so she had the edge, but it can be attempted by us mortals too. 

In fact, if you want to look at a stunning wedding (her own) check out her amazing blog The Frugality – you can also get some excellent fashion advice. She also runs her own company with her husband Chris called Lucky No. 13 doing amazing music videos for weddings and events as well by the way….

Anyway.

Something a bit unusual

I wouldn’t go for this exact thing but this is awesome! Someone has a sense of fun here.

If you want to create something really fun and stylish then go for a 1950’s look or just go mad on your maids. No, it’s not fashionable (apparently pastels are in at the moment) but it’s unforgettable and those girls might just wear that dress again.

I’m ordering my dress for our Sunday do from Honeypie Boutique. If you were after some 1950’s dresses from £50 - £150 try them. They are very pretty.

EVERY COLOUR IN THE RAINBOW!

Just, no. Don’t do it. 

Go Kate – all white bridesmaids

See, Kate Middleton has the right idea! Look, the evil spirits will be confused AND she managed an undeniably faultless colour scheme. 

Although I maintain that having a bridesmaid whose bottom in a bridal looking white dress caused more of a wow factor than the bride was a mistake. She should have put Pippa in a colour. 

But what do I know.

What I love

Speaking to the girls, most of them didn’t have many stipulations about their dresses. Three of them have been married and know what it’s like, two of them are very laid back and Holly just wants to look like a princess. I have been asked to provide a long gown by M, a dress with straps by one cousin, nothing too low cut by Jaz and something she can wear a bra with by J.

Dessy

Personally I love loads of bridesmaid styles around at the moment. Dessy have these which I loved until I saw them on the girls (they looked a bit cheap truth to tell):

Mark Lesley

 

Similarly I adored these Mark Lesley bridesmaid dresses but coming in at a cool £300+ per dress, you need to have your budget pretty high. Still, look at that lace…

Lastly, if you are really stuck for cash and need lots of decent dresses cheap go to Light in the Box. Loads of accessories in all the colours you could wish for and they even do a bespoke service of a sorts.

Go Made!

I found this vintage pattern in the end which I fell in love with, especially the cute lace jacket over the dress which Mrs McW is making using Indian lace we picked up in Shepherd's Bush.

As I work in a building where craft is a normal part of everyday life, I was advised by none other than May Martin herself of Sewing Bee fame to speak to June Allnutt of Recycle and Sew. June is lovely and is also a talented pattern cutter, so can make literally anything from scratch to her own design. First fittings are in May so we’ll see what they look like.

Make sure you have a reputable, reliable dress-maker however or your dresses WILL look homemade. Holly will be wearing an amazing dress which M made. And no, it doesn’t look homemade either!

You still haven’t told me anything helpful…

In conclusion to all of this speculation as to what to put your bridesmaids in, what they are there for, how many to have and what to give them to do, the answer is that basically I don’t know. Everyone does it differently. Every country does it differently. Should you have just your sister or ten of your best friends?

Have whatever you want. Do whatever you want. But keep the big picture in mind and don’t put them in anything you wouldn’t wear or that makes them uncomfortable - it’s not fair to the woman taking up her free time for you. Which is what she is doing. Whatever you may think, it isn’t wholly an honour or a privilege for her to be your bridesmaid. You should be honoured she said yes!

Plus it’ll make the pictures look crap if they are all spending their time yanking their dresses down, wobbling on high heels, trying to hide their legs and pulling up straps.

I guess they ARE there to buttress you emotionally through the wedding. They are there to support you if you get kidnapped or Satan tries to carry you off (or something); they are also there so that they are a key part of your big day. It wouldn’t be the same without them. They are also there as a memory of what once was. You’ll love looking over all those photos, even if your best friend spent her whole time looking like a nervous rabbit.

Or you could always do what Margaret Hale wanted to do and keep it simple with just you and no bridesmaids;

“I should like it to be a very fine summer morning; and I should like to walk to church through the shade of trees; and not to have so many bridesmaids, and to have no wedding-breakfast.”

But when you think about it, it wouldn’t be half as fun as having all your closest mates getting pissed with you in fancy dresses.

I will leave you with the couple who set the record for the most bridesmaids. 

126 of them.

Huffington Post

* Death and Abuse in Marriage Laments: The Curse of Chinese Brides. Author(s): C. Fred BlakeSource: Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1 (1978)