I Have Something to Say
It’s only going to suck if your friend sucks.
AliLooney/iStock/Getty Images Plus.
I was the maid of honor at my best friend’s wedding recently, and I have a controversial confession to make: It was an absolute pleasure.
Based on what you see on message boards and in advice columns, it would be easy to deduce that being a bridesmaid is akin to jury duty: a responsibility that everyone understands is necessary, but nobody actually wants to undertake. The dresses are ugly, the bachelorette trips expensive, the bride’s demands unreasonable. If your friendship survives your time in bridesmaid servitude, it can survive anything—but that’s a big “if.”
It’s true that “my special day” culture has gotten out of hand. Some couples treat their wedding as an excuse to make their loved ones jump through as many absurd hoops as they can think of, from paying hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars to stay at expensive resorts to learning a made-up language from a TV show. But let’s not let these outliers ruin it for the rest of us.
If your engaged friend isn’t the kind of awful, selfish person who will tell you to lose weight for the sake of their “perfect” vision or leave your husband at home because he’s too short to be in her wedding photos, being a bridesmaid is great. Because really, how pleasant could these people possibly have been before their weddings if they think these requests (let’s be honest, demands) are reasonable? If your friend doesn’t suck, being her bridesmaid won’t suck either.
The real issue many people have with bridesmaids duties, when they’re not in that outlier category of truly outrageous, is that they require active participation and investment (of both time and money) in something that’s not about you—which, in our ever-more-individualistic society, can feel like a big ask.
We’ve all gotten so used to touting our right to put ourselves first, and to “prioritize our needs” (in the creeping vernacular of therapy-speak), that even something small like being asked to wear something specific that we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves can feel like a huge imposition. I will admit that I bristled when my friend Carly said that she wanted me to wear a long-sleeved red dress, mid-calf or longer, for her wedding. A long-sleeved minidress I could work with, or floor-length with spaghetti straps. But long and long-sleeved? And red. The results of my initial search all screamed conservative Christmas. Just so very much fabric. Not to mention that she was getting married in Texas, in an outdoor ceremony, and it was going to be hot. Conservative Christmas with pit stains.
So I grumbled a little bit. But then I remembered how sweet and generous and accommodating Carly is, and how rare it must be for her to get things exactly her way. And how hard the last few years had been for her; she has been dealing with a major loss and not only surviving but finding love and choosing to remain open to happiness. The truth is that I would have worn a Big Bird costume or Lady Gaga’s meat dress if it would have made her happy. So I scrolled through pages and pages of velvet Christmas dresses until I found an off-the-shoulder (long-sleeved) fishtail Norma Kamali gown. It was ultimately more satisfying to find a dress that Carly would love than it would have been to choose whatever I wanted.
It was also satisfying to pick a beautiful spa, and spend more money than I could really afford (on top of the dress, and the shoes to go with the dress, and the flights and Airbnb) to pamper her, and spend a little pre-wedding time bonding with her new sisters-in-law.
But most of all, it felt so very special, and right, to stand next to her, holding her heavy bouquet, while she said her vows. Because that’s what really gets lost in all the horror stories of bridezillas and power struggles over hairstyles—it’s why friends are involved in the wedding ceremony to begin with. Friends are the ones that get us through adolescence and early adulthood, help us figure out what kind of person we want to be and how to exist in intimate relationships. Friends teach us how to show up for the people we love, and what we need to feel loved. They see us through shitty relationships and breakups, and help us decide to take the plunge when we finally meet the right person. So it’s only right that they be included in the ceremony that marks that turning point.
Carly and I met in college, in an intro to journalism class that ended up being pivotal for us both. We joined the student newspaper together, and spent the next three years taking it over. We celebrated our graduation together, both of our families in a local restaurant’s back room—there’s a photo of her grandmother holding my mother’s hand sweetly in both of hers. We’ve seen each other through life-changing griefs and through every career pivot and bad date. Since she moved back to Texas, we’ve both flown back and forth to be present for big life events (and for just-because visits when it’s been too long), and we regularly talk on the phone and send each other random little gifts in the mail. When I got married, she was there with me (yes, in a dress that I picked). So hell yeah, I wanted to be part of this celebration of the beginning of the rest of her life. And not just in the audience, but there by her side, where I had always been and where I always plan to be.
And you know what? My floor-length, long-sleeved red dress looked great with her white sheath. Even if it didn’t, I would have worn it with a smile.
Marriage
Relationships
Friendship
Weddings
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