Being asked to be a bridesmaid used to mean one thing: your friend loved you enough to want you standing beside her on the biggest day of her life. Now, according to Independent readers, it can just as easily mean a bill.
Responding to Katie Rosseinsky’s piece on why women are turning down bridesmaid requests, readers described a wedding culture that has drifted a long way from the low-key affairs many of them remember.
Dresses, hair, makeup, hen dos – the costs pile up, and several readers said it’s fair enough to decline if you can’t stretch to it.
Others questioned why being a bridesmaid, once a childhood rite of passage, has become an expected adult duty at all.
It’s not just the wedding party feeling the strain. Some in our community said the pressure and expectations extend to guests and even vendors, with several wondering whether the fuss over having an extravagant wedding has started to eclipse the marriage itself.
Here’s what you had to say:
Scale it back
I remember being the bridesmaid for a friend from university. We made our own dresses – I chose the style and fabric myself, just agreeing the colour scheme and general feel with the bride – and I did her hair; her family hired the hall and catered.
The extravagance of modern weddings astounds me – all that for one day, when many complain they can’t afford a house.
If the bride wants to dictate the exact dress – probably something that will never be worn again – then she should pay for it. If it’s just a colour scheme and self-pick, then maybe the bridesmaid could.
But it comes down to the same thing as the rest of the wedding: if you cannot afford to pay for twelve bridesmaids in identical OTT dresses, then satisfy yourself with a cheaper solution.
Even the wedding photographer isn’t safe
Another side of the stress. Not a bridesmaid (I’m a guy), but as a photography teacher I was asked for photo duties instead.
An old friend phoned me out of the blue to tell me she was getting married and would be sending an invite to her nuptials. Having accepted, she then asked me to be the wedding photographer, which I politely declined.
I never received the invitation.
I think it’s strange to require anyone to be a servant
I must have been mistaken – all my life I thought being a bridesmaid was about putting on a pretty dress and feeling honoured to be one of the bride’s treasured people. I didn’t have bridesmaids at either of my own weddings, both of which were low-key; what mattered to us was saying the vows in front of family and friends. I have been a bridesmaid once, to my sister, and found it a rather weird experience – though we still love each other 36 years on. I think it’s strange to require anyone to be hopping about providing some sort of servant role.
An import from the States
It shouldn’t cost anything to attend a wedding if you’re one of the bridal party. I’m sure this is an import from the States – elaborate weddings and all the hype that comes with it.
The best weddings I’ve ever been to have been low-key events where the couple and/or their parents have covered everything. If you can’t afford to invite people to what is essentially a party, then don’t have one.
Priorities shifted
It’s interesting that as well as many people choosing not to get married at all, of those that do, too many seem to spend more thought and feeling on the wedding than the actual marriage, which soon ends in divorce. Is this yet another result of the superficial narcissism encouraged by social media? What’s happened to our priorities?
The row over who pays for the dress
“It became clear, too, that the bride-to-be wasn’t going to pay for the bridesmaids’ dresses or their hair and makeup on the day.”
From personal experience, there seems to be a significant and insurmountable divide – akin to the jam-or-cream-first debate – as to whether it’s standard etiquette for the bride to pay for the bridesmaids’ outfits, or whether that’s the bridesmaids’ own responsibility. I’ve seen rooms go very cold and quiet when a believer in one approach is confronted with the other. Makes me bloody glad to be a bloke, tbh.
Fine as a child, not as an adult
It’s probably OK to be a bridesmaid when you’re a child, but not as an adult – I’ve refused this ‘honour’ several times.
Soon you’ll be dressing in black instead
Don’t worry too much. All this dies down eventually, and before you know it you’ll be getting invites to gender reveals and baby showers. After that there’s a bit of a hiatus, but eventually there will be a special place in your wardrobe for black things.
Weddings cost more, marriages last less
Hen dos and stag dos, not to mention weddings, have got ridiculously expensive, whilst marriages have got shorter and divorces have also become more expensive – make of that what you will.
Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.
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