Okay so your best friend’s man finally popped the question! The announcement is made and you are over the moon happy for her. The engagement party was a blast and you officially were asked to be a bridesmaid! You are beyond excited and can’t wait to begin planning all of the festivities leading up to the big day. Naturally bridesmaids have this glamorous facade about them. However if you’ve never been a bridesmaid before, you most likely have this vision in your head of magical moments bonding with your girlfriends over dress shopping and picking centerpieces, floral arrangements mixed with an epic girl’s weekend in Cabo. We are sorry to tell you that we have some bad news to break to you. Being a bridesmaid sucks and here are The Insider List’s Top 10 Reasons Why.
#10 Tough Crowd to Please
Selecting a group of girls to get together to plan multiple events for a bride, all on different budgets and time schedules, is pure torture. If your lucky, most of the bridal party will be your special chosen and not just people who made the cut based on bloodline or a technicality. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, so your stuck mingling and planning with a bunch of strangers. Being a bridesmaid, everyone kinda falls into a role. For instance, the “ringleader”, who wants to take charge of everything and doesn’t care about anyone else’s opinion. You will have the next girl trying to fight for the position of ringleader. There’s also the girl that can never make it to anything because she’s “too busy”, the girl who is always complaining about money, the girl that just always complains about everything and the girl that pretty much doesn’t want to do anything or doesn’t come through with what she was suppose to. It’s very frustrating! Getting everyone on the same page can be extremely tough. Prepare yourself to be a hostage in group texts for the next year until the shenanigans are over.
#9 The Dress
First off, you are being dragged from store to store trying on one hideous dress after the next. If your bride is picky, you will cover every bridal shop statewide looking for the perfect dress which despite society’s attempt at justifying- you could never wear again! Next up, imagine trying to find one dress that looks fabulous on 7 different girls with 7 different body types. Not really realistic. There’s always going to be 1 out of that group that hates the way the dress looks on her (just pray that 1 person isn’t you). Dresses can cost anywhere from $100-$400 and that’s just for the dress. The little seamstress comes out to take your measurements, orders you a dress 3 times your size and then charges $100-$200 in alterations. The reality is you can’t and you won’t wear it again, no matter what the bride says. Most of these bridesmaid dresses feel too much like a prom dress to wear to another event.
#8 The Shower
If you don’t consider yourself super trendy or crafty, you better log on to Pinterest as fast as you can! I just can’t imagine how people planned showers or weddings pre-Pinterest era. You need everything to look dainty and beautiful. You need games planned, prizes to be won, and poems made just so you could read along as cleaning products and underwear hang from a clothesline. Bridal showers are no joke. Your load of duties will vary depending on the bride’s family situation. Some bridesmaids are required to plan and pay for the entire shower, while others are required to help the family out with party favors, centerpieces, invites and the cake. There is no such thing as relaxing at a bridal shower when you are a bridesmaid. While others enjoy sipping on mimosas and munching on delicious food, you are making lists of every person’s gift, making the shower bonnet out of bows and ribbons, picking wrapping paper off the floors, and/or taking pictures plus video while organizing all of the gifts. The only people you are socializing with are your fellow peasants: @k@ the other bridesmaids!
#7 The Bachelorette Party
“Girls just want to have fun” is the motto to all bachelor-ette parties. This typically is probably the funnest part of being a bridesmaid, but there’s still a lot of money and planning that goes into this day. There will always be disagreements, or the bridesmaid that just doesn’t have the money to do what the rest of the group wants (revert back to #10.) There’s the limo, hotel, strippers, dinner, bottle service at clubs, penis straws and cake… and well…penis everything! The feather boas and matching t-shirts as if your on a class trip can be extremely tacky, especially when you have a bunch of “whooo hooo” girls running around wasted. This night all depends on the girls you go with and how much fun they are willing to have.
#6 Cheesy Photo-Ops
Be prepared to take a lot of pictures! The day will go by so fast that the bride will blink and it will all be over. Therefore pictures is all she will have left of this day and it’s your job to come correct in all of them! If the photographer tells you to “Vogue”, you do it! If he says, “Gimme some booty!” You give it to him! The photographer is going to have you in a million different positions to get different shots. Truth be told, 90% of them are going to be obnoxiously cheesy or make you feel like some dramatic soap opera star.
#5 The Ceremony
While everyone is sitting nice and comfortable during the ceremony, you are standing on the sidelines of your girl the entire time in uncomfortable heels making sure your “resting bitch face” stays hidden as people snap away with their cameras.
#4 The Speech
After taking Public Speaking 101 in college, I vowed to never have to stand in a public forum and speak in front of a group of people ever again- until I was forced into it as a bridesmaid. It can be extremely nerve wrecking having all eyes on you as you emotionally breakdown life’s journey together, or if you take the funny/witty route trying to make people laugh. Everyone loves a good speech at a wedding, so the pressure is definetely on and there’s no time for stage fright!
#3 The Reception
You would think that once it’s time for the reception that it’s all fun and games and your job is done. There is a lot of pressure as a bridesmaid starting from the moment the bridal party is introduced on the dance floor. So many bridal party partners have some cute, cool dance they do as they come out to build up the energy in the room. -But what if your a terrible dancer or your shy? You can’t be the lame one just walking out all bland and boring. It’s rough, believe me. All eyes are on you and judgement day is upon us. Being part of the bridal party, you have an obligation to stay on the dance floor most of the night doing every “Cha-Cha slide and Cupid Shuffle”. You have to ensure your bestie, the bride, that she had the best wedding with the best DJ and it was the most amazing night of your life.
#2 It’s a TON of Responsibility
As a bridesmaid you assume the responsibility of being the bride’s backbone. You are her biggest cheerleader for everything she chooses. You like all of her wedding posts on social media and you are her emotional support system through this monumental life event. It is your job to think for her when she has forgotten things, be her sidekick when she needs someone to go to appointments with and remind her to have fun when things get too stressful. This is a stressful job for oneself. If you work full time prepare to consider this a second job.
#1 It’s A LOT of money
Hopefully, you have a little time to save for this because being a bridesmaid is definitely not cheap. Most people should expect to spend between $1,000-$1,200. It can be super stressful trying to figure out how your going to buy those rhinestone satin pumps you will never wear again, while also trying to figure out how you’re going to pay rent and put food on your table. Between the bridal shower, bachelorette party, dress, accessories, hair, makeup, nails, hotel and giving a gift on the big day, you will wonder why you didn’t just use all that money to tour Europe instead.
