Bridesmaids - why, who and how

Picking who to have as your bridesmaids can be tricky. Do you pick your friends, the ones you'd trust with your life, wedding and secrets? Or do you listen to your mum and pick your sister, cousins or other family members? It can be difficult picking which of your friends to ask..you may have some really great friends but they're not what you would class as reliable or trustworthy......

The simple way of doing it is to simply take a step back and think who would I trust? Who can I rely on? Who will help me get into my dress on the day and help keep me calm?

For me the decision was simple, my oldest school friend, and a very wonderful friend, who combined make the best bridesmaid team. One with super organisational skills and the other with a warped sense of humour and logic, thus so far we've had nothing but giggles, fun and no tantrums or bridezilla moments!

Once you've picked your bridesmaids, you then start to think about dresses (granted some people do it the other way round). What sort of colours are you thinking? Something to match your theme? Something in contrast? What style of dress? Where is the dress from? Something from a bridal shop? Something from the high street? There are so many things to consider, but as usual the easy thing to do is to jot down in your notebook/wedding file what your ideas are......all of your ideas and then see what the girls think. There's no use in you deciding that you want them wearing green tea length dresses when they would prefer long blue dresses.

One thing you must remember is that these girls are there to help, they are your friends and because they know how stressful weddings are they will fully be expecting a call to say "can you help me write the invites? or will you help me make up favours?"

Just remember to have "non-wedding time" with your bridesmaids too, the last thing you want to do is spend all your time talking about weddings and not relaxing with them, chatting over a glass of wine or having a girly catch up.

The main role of a bridesmaid is to assist the bride, to help her prepare for the wedding, to help her on the day and to support her. Another 'perk' of the job is arranging the hen night. Many bridesmaids relish this task, this is their chance to show off their organisational skills and to plan your last night of freedom in style. Word of warning to any bridesmaids out there though, don't plan anything that you know the bride won't like....this is not meant to humiliate the bride or make her uncomfortable, remember her mother and mother in law may well be there too so sometimes keeping it tame is a good idea (at least till the oldies head home)!!