A Guide to Being the Perfect Maid-of-Honor (Guest Post)

Summer wedding season is fast approaching and if you’ve been asked to be the Maid-of-Honor and you’re absolutely clueless about what to do, read on…

Emily Jones is a Seattle-based lifestyle writer and she will be sharing tips on how to be the perfect Maid-of-Honor. Enjoy!

By: Emily Jones

Congratulations on being asked to be the maid-of-honor! If your friend or relative has decided to make you her maid-of-honor, she’s giving you an opportunity to really show her how important she is to you and how grateful you are that she considers you such an important part of her life.

You’ve just found out you’re going to be the maid-of-honor, so now it’s time to start figuring out exactly how you can prove to the bride that she made the right decision. You’ll have a lot of responsibilities to attend to, so get planning now to make things really special!

Outline Everything You Need to Do

There are some roles in wedding planning that by tradition always fall to the maid-of-honor. So before all of the wedding festivities begin, take stock of everything that absolutely needs to happen. This will probably include:

• Planning the bachelorette party
• Planning the bridal shower
• Shopping for bridesmaids dresses and helping the bride shop for her wedding dress
• Helping the bride with any miscellaneous things she asks you for like help picking out decorations for the wedding or accessories
• Shopping for unique wedding gifts. Since you’re handling many of the wedding planning tasks, you’re not expected to spend a lot on a wedding gift, but you no doubt want to give something sweet and thoughtful. Think about a less-expensive gift you could give that would make the bride feel loved. For example, the gift from the maid-of-honor in Bridesmaids was a box of sentimental items that had been important to her friendship with the bride like their favorite cassette tape from middle school.

As soon as she’s ready to start thinking about planning, start talking with the bride about dates and locations for all of her festivities. She may need some time to figure all of this out, but by offering her gentle reminders that you need to start planning for these events, you can make sure that she doesn’t wait too long on making up her mind on these details. For example, you can remind her by helping her find awesome bouquet ideas online to get her excited. She will be so overwhelmed with other things, she will definitely appreciate your gentle reminders!

Go Above and Beyond

Once you know when and where the bride would like to do her bachelorette party and bridal shower, it’s time to start planning. At this juncture, you should definitely ask for help from the other bridesmaids, as the job is too big for one woman alone!

At this stage, you should definitely make sure that the bride is getting to express her opinions and preferences, but make sure she doesn’t feel like she’s actually doing all of the planning herself. She should definitely get a say in what all of the activities are, but make sure you are the one worrying about coordinating. Here are a few helpful tips to stay organized and to keep from getting overwhelmed:

• First, come up with guest lists for both events. Typically, a bridal shower will include all of the women who are invited to the wedding but are not invited to the bachelorette party. It may also include some ladies who will not be able to make it to the actual wedding or who will not be invited so that the wedding guest list doesn’t get too big.
• Plan activities for both events that will be suitable to the party size. Games are usually a good idea for bridal showers. Try to think of games that are both fun and silly but are also sweet and will keep everyone focused on the bride. For example, for one fun idea, get help from the families of the bride and groom in coming up with trivia about each person. Then ask the guests which person the trivia applies to. For example, “Is it the bride or the groom who still has their ‘Best Hall Monitor’ award from the second grade?” This game will keep the party focused on the couple, but will also be a lot of fun as silly bits of trivia come out.
• Don’t forget to think about food, music, decorations, and party favors for the bridal shower. Ask for help from friends and the other bridesmaids in attending to all of these details. Get everyone to brainstorm to come up with ideas that will be fun for the party. With lots of people thinking about making the party special, you’re more likely to come up with lots of good ideas.
• When planning the bachelorette party, start by figuring out how long the event will last. Is it a weekend-long event or will it just be a night out? Next, consider everything the bride would like to do and figure out how you can do your best to accommodate everything into one schedule. If the bride isn’t certain, ask the other bridesmaids for ideas for fun things to do for that weekend. Be sure to call ahead at restaurants and other venues to be sure you will have reservations.
• Try to think of fun, silly activities to suggest for the bachelorette party. You can buy a bachelorette party kit online to make it a bit easier. Other fun ideas might include silly games, taking a class (pole dancing classes cater primarily to bachelorette parties!), doing something nostalgic like going to her favorite childhood amusement park, doing something new and exciting like skydiving, etc.

Just Be There For Her!

Your most important job as maid-of-honor is to help the bride stay organized and happy during the entire wedding planning process. Throughout the planning process and the wedding, make sure the bride feels attended to. If she seems stressed, don’t be afraid to find out what’s up! Let her know how everyone in the wedding party is feeling, but first and foremost, help her stay stress-free! Many brides worry about money when they’re wedding planning, so make sure you are helping her find budget-friendly wedding ideas to ease her stress. Also, make sure she eats on the wedding day and help her get her space when she needs it. You will probably have some spats and squabbles with all of the stress, but make sure that you don’t let the drama get to you. The bride needs to rely on you to be kind and understanding!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this guest post!

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