Bridal Party

Ive been very lucky and have been able to be completely honest with my group and telling them exactly what i think and being transparent has been great feelings get a little hurt but being respectful of one another and our decisions and positions has been really helpful and made very little strain on friendships close friends usually always understand or at lease respect how you feel enough to support you in your decisions in my experience

Thanks for all of your insights! I appreciate them and it made me feel better about my choice and it worked out that I can keep all of my same party plus add the other 2! My fiance has 2 others he was thinking of asking and they're game too!


Now, I did a whole asking gesture in the first place.. do you think I should do another one or just see if they still want to be in our wedding? I was thinking of just asking them but doing a gesture for the other 2.

Your bridal party is important to know who will be there for you and not. Years of friendship can make or break on how you see others and their behaviour. Its one thing to feel distant from them given the time of hanging out or even chatting is hard since the times of work has made it busy or their schedule. We made our choices during the planning stages and my MOH to be was moving and did let me know ahead of time being considerate. I made another choice knowing it would make her happy. We were close then and for a few good years. Recently, she had a relationship with a controlling man who didn't allow her to have any males talking or to hangout, including us. That changed the whole situation and now she left him for good, she doesn't keep in touch with me, though at times with my husband as well as others who do the same. I feel the connection changes when one has their time to talk and not the other as to when I see them in person.

Ultimately it's your choice but I feel like dropping them has the potential to create unnecessary drama when you can simply add two more to the bridal party without axing the two you mentioned. And to drop your Man of Honour is pretty significant for those who put stock into these kinds of things. The fact that you think he will be mad indicates that he values the relationship.

As for how much they are engaging with your wedding plans, I think people put way too much stock into a bridal party's investment into your wedding. A wedding will never be as important to anyone than the couple (except maybe some crazy parents). And four years is a longer than typical engagement. Maybe they simply don't know what's going on so they're waiting for your cue. That's how I would feel after 24 months with no inkling of when a wedding will be. When's the last time you reached out and solidified your plans with them? Even then, sometimes people don't want to intrude since weddings can be such a touchy subject due to people being so personally invested in them.

View quoted message Great points to think about and that's one of the reasons I'm thinking of cutting them! A couple of them I have probably only talked a few times in the 4 years and no they haven't asked or offered ideas. We have hung out maybe once a year because we realize lives are busy and still want to be friends, but I do feel like we're drifting apart. I would be asking my cousin and one of my other friends who has been in contact before during and after.. I'm not if she why I didn't ask her in the first place but I asked my high school friends because at the time we still hung out. So I technically wouldn't be downsizing, except for the 2 friends that we do not talk to anymore. Likely would go back to speaking once a year after the wedding for some of them.. which is a little bit hard to swallow. Thanks for your response 🙂

Since you have been engaged for 4 years, has any of the people you want to cut from your wedding party reached out to you during this time to show interest on what is going on or even shoot ideas on what to wear? An other question, have you talked with any of them during the last year and a half during Covid?

I, like you, asked the two people I wanted in my wedding party almost immediately, the only delay was getting my proposal boxes with all the gifts in it. And that was in the spring for me and I still talk with them almost on a daily basis and see them a lot. One is my sister so I see her at least once a week and the other is my best friend for 15 years, she lives 3 hours away but in the time I got engaged (March 27) to now I have seen her already 5 times going on 6 this weekend. Not too mention that I was in contact with them both especially during Covid.

We have a group chat where the girls will constantly ask me questions about the wedding and shoot me ideas they think would be well suited for my wedding, voiced their opinions on wedding colors because my fiancé and I were having a hard time deciding as well as showing me bridesmaid dresses that would look fabulous for a beach wedding and of course they were both there when I said yes to the dress.

It's the little things that matter but the biggest thing to me is staying in contact, yes, people get busy and work takes over and by the time you realize you should catch up its been a month or two, and that's totally okay, sometimes I went like that during the pandemic with my sister and best friend, but we always made effort to keep in contact and not go too long without speaking to one an other.

Ultimately, it is your wedding and if you feel like the effort is missing on their end, I would tell them we are downsizing the wedding party and that they are still invited to the wedding. You don't want to look at your wedding photos 6 months after your wedding and half of the people in the wedding party you haven't even spoken too since the wedding.