How to Select Your Wedding Party

Choosing your wedding party can be one of the most difficult tasks of planning a wedding. Deciding who to include without making anybody feel left out can sometimes feel impossible. Here are a few tips for navigating these treacherous waters.

How Many Attendants?

Experts recommend one set of attendants (bridesmaid and groomsman) for about every fifty guests. That number will give you a good balance for the size of your wedding.

However, it is also important to consider what you really want. If your dream wedding includes only a maid of honor and best man as attendants, feel free to make that choice, even if you will have 500 guests at your wedding. Just remember, your attendants can help with planning, so it might be helpful to have more attendants for a larger wedding.

Conversely, if you really want a very large wedding party, you can still do that, even if you are only planning on 50 guests. The size of the wedding party might feel out of scale with the number of guests, but that might not matter to you. Don’t forget, a larger wedding party does translate to more expenses.

Wedding Politics

You might already know exactly who you want to be in your wedding party, but you’re being pressured by other family members to include people you would prefer not to. There’s no clear right or wrong answer here. If you feel very strongly about it, hold your ground. After all, it is your wedding. But if going along with someone else’s request will make things easier for you in the long run, that might be the wiser choice.

It isn’t always necessary to follow the traditional formula for choosing a wedding party. The number of bridesmaids and groomsmen doesn’t necessarily need to be even. You can have male attendants on the bride’s side and female attendants on the groom’s side. Can’t decide between two possible maids of honor? Choose both.

Other Options

Asking someone to be in your wedding party isn’t the only way to include them in your wedding. Ask them to sing a song, do a reading, or deliver a toast. Have a friend who is a terrific photographer? Ask them to take your wedding photos and include a special thank you in your wedding program.

If you need help navigating the ins and outs of wedding traditions and creative ways to work with or around them, contact Stonebrook Manor in Denver. We have years of experience planning perfect weddings and might just have the solution you need for maintaining peace between your friends and family.