My lil sister is getting married next year. We've just celebrated her engagement.
She has 3 sisters , me being the oldest (she is no. 4, i am no. 1). Last night she rang me almost in tears. She is having such a hard time deciding on who will be the matron of honour. She explained how she didnt want to pick one sister, 'why should i have too?' she asked. Besides signing the marriage cert., what else does the matron of honour do??
My matron of honour flew into Australia 2 days b4 my wedding.....the only real differing role i saw her undertake was the sigining of the papers. My other bridesmaids did the rest....
Im just curious, do you think, if you were chosen as bridesmaid #3, you would feel like your '3rd favourite'???? or if you were bridesmaid #1, you were 'favourite'?????
I told her not to have a matron of honour, just choose someone to sign her papers, all 3 sisters will pitch in and do the rest, but i couldnt help but feel there is a 'hierarchy' attached to ones selection of bridesmaids........do you agree????
My besty that I've known for 22 years was my Maid of Honour. & all she did was sign the papers. To tell you the truth the other 2 went by height. My MOH was the tallest out of the 3 so I just went from tallest to shortest.
It's a toughie, I had both my best friends (one girl, one boy) and sister, and the girl bestie signed, just cos she was next in line and she was paired with dh's friend who signed.
But at my best friend's wedding, there was definite heirarchy, there were four of us, me, other girl, husband's sister, bride's sister (still with me?). Bride wasn't fussed about heirarchy, I assumed I'd be Maid of Honour (being the closest to bestie), but it was confusing and other people wanted to be this and that. So bride's sister cracks it, tells everyone I'm Maid of Honour and that's that, and can we please get organised so she can go out with friends. :P The husband's sister insisted on being the one who signed (which I was a bit annoyed at, I'd been looking forward to that, but hey, not my wedding, so I let it slide).
Anyway, the point of that long winded tale is: if it's obvious what the hierarchy should be, then she'd best honour that (often a best friend is MOH and all the sisters are bridesmaids), but if her relationships are equal with people (like all sisters, or is equally close to her friends), then I don't think there needs to be an official MOH, just someone to witness and sign, and really, that doesn't even need to be a bridal party member does it? She could even have Godparents or some other close people to sign. Congrats to her anyway.
*sigh* Matron of Honour is a married bridesmaid, a bridesmaid is an unmarried bridesmaid. And no bridesmaid signed my register, both our fathers did.
My chief bridesmaid was my sister, but that means nothing. Aside from hold my bouquet and lift my veil, both bridesmaids did exactly the same. The girl who organised my hen night was actually the girl who did the reading at the wedding, not even a bridesmaid! (In fact, I sorted out my sister's car accident claim the morning of my wedding while she had her hair done, so I probably did more for her than she did for me in all, some great chiefy she was!)
TBH, I wouldn't care where I was in the hierarchy, if someone loves you enough to ask you to be a bridesmaid/Matron of Honour I wouldn't mind if someone else were chiefy or signing the register - I mean, who knows who signs, really? Does it matter? No. It's something that very few people ever see or think about, who signed what for whom.
Don't you *sigh* at me, Mrs. Ryn. :P
For the purposes of this discussion, 'Maid/Matron of Honour' is Chief Bridesmaid.
And while I agree it's can be a trivial thing, you don't want to scowl at your wedding photos whenever you remember the politics and stupid stuff that was exacerbated just because a wedding can make big deals out of small details, by some kind of matrimonial magic.
Honestly i have my bestie as my cheif bridesmaid, i am thinking of having my Mum witness, aswell as one of DF's aunts..... That way all my BM's can be equal except my CBM who is organising my hens and all the little things.... like dress shopping for me!!
Do you think there is a 'bridesmaid hieracrchy'?
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