The Ranking Of Which Bridesmaids Will Get The Most Drunk At Your Wedding

First comes love, then comes planning a wedding, then comes hoping none of your bridesmaids throw up in the middle of the dance floor before you cut the cake. Granted, there are a few other checklist items in between there, but when it comes to selecting your bridal party, figuring out which of your bridesmaids is going to get the most shitfaced is fun at best and essential at worst. I don’t know about you, but last I checked, getting sophomore spring break level of drunk wasn’t exactly part of the bridal party job description.

Still, that hasn’t stopped many (myself included) from getting super schwasty while wearing a matching gown. And depending on the type of wedding you have, there’s a good chance your day will be full of booze from morning to grand exit (or at least, it should be). Typically, wedding days begin with everyone waking up before the crack of dawn to get their makeup done, complaining about the fact that they’re going to look like shit by the time the actual ceremony starts (“It doesn’t fucking matter, Becky! It’s not your day!!!”). And if you plan to have a chill celebration that doesn’t involve murdering your childhood best friend for asking the hairdresser to redo her curls three times, mimosas are probably in order.

From there it’s just a parade of drinking, and with all that unlimited alcohol, odds are more than one of your bridesmaids is going to end up with their heads in the toilet before the night is up. But knowing who’s going to get plastered before the cake cutting and who’s going to hold it together long enough to help you bustle your dress is essential. From most likely to stay sober to most likely to vom, here’s how your bridal party members will likely stack up against the open bar. 

Your Pregnant Friend

Shay Mitchell, with a visible bump, wearing a nude dress behind a sparkly background, looks at a pregnancy test and exclaims "I'm pregnant!"

This one is a no-brainer because rumor has it alchy and pregnancy doesn’t mix (and by “rumor” I mean science). Depending on how long it’s been since you asked your bridal party to be a part of the big day, this pal probably got knocked up after they agreed to be a bridesmaid. Typically, they’d fall into one of the below categories, but thanks to the party-ruiner growing inside of them, they’re gonna be stuck nursing soda water with their feet up while you dance. At least you can count on her to tell you all what dumb shit you did at the afterparty.

Your ~Perfect~ Friend

Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids giving a speech

Everyone’s got that one friend who’s just… better than everyone else. Group trip? The Airbnb’s on her card. Going to dinner? She made the reservation. And ordered the Uber. And sent everyone a Splitwise link for the itemized bill before the waiter could even run her card. As soon as you got engaged she ordered planning books and created a shared Excel sheet to help you track your budget. Whether she’s an event planner, a data analyst, or just a Google doc-obsessed Type A, this girl isn’t gonna let it slip on your big day. 

Even though she’s probably the one who poured the morning mimosas and made sure the to-be-popped champagne was on ice, she was too busy making sure everyone else was taken care of to really pound ’em back. It wasn’t until after the dinner that she had her first real drink, and even then, it was Pinot Grigio so it basically doesn’t count. Whether you love her or you just keep her around because she reminds you that you need to get routine dental checkups, you can count on her to keep her shit on lock until your marriage license is mailed off and your shitty friends are no longer dry heaving. 

Your Just Engaged Friend

Monica Geller screams "I'm engaged" from her balcony

With hearts in her eyes and a sparkly ring that hasn’t yet been insured on her finger, your just engaged friend doesn’t yet know the stress of wedding planning. She’s still in that whimsical “I can’t believe I have a fiancé(e)” stage, which means she’s actually happy for you and isn’t drunkenly nitpicking every little thing about your wedding. She’s just happily sipping your signature cocktail and whispering “this is gonna be us” to her S.O. 

Without any weird competitiveness, this blissed-out bridesmaid will be too busy telling everyone she’s engaged and making out with her plus-one to get too wasted. While she’ll for sure be tipsy by the time you head up to your hotel rooms, her endless wedding chatter and mental note-taking will stop her from aggressively taking shots. Awww, to be in love!

Your Teacher Friend

teacher pouring liquid from beaker into wine glass

In addition to crafting, curating snacks, and shaping the minds of the future generation, teacher friends (or at least, all of mine) are secretly certified pros when it comes to downing liquor. Maybe it’s because they get out of work in time for happy hour, or it could be that they’ve perfected the art of powering through an early morning hangover. Whatever it is, teach knows how to party, and she’s absolutely going to be hitting the bar hard on your big day. 

Even though she’s going to have a wine glass surgically attached to her hand all night, the good news is your teacher pal probably knows how to hold it together until she at least makes it to her hotel room… especially because she’s got a stash of granola bars in her purse she can munch on before she starts getting too messy. 10/10 she’ll be rocking some oversized sunnies and a hat at your farewell brunch the next morning, but at this point, rallying is pretty much a part of her morning routine. 

Your Work Friend

Dwight and Michael from The Office raising the roof

This is likely the friend you’ve known the least amount of time, but since you see her every GD day at work, it felt sort of weird to not include her in your party. Now that she’s surrounded by your childhood, high school, and college besties, the fact that your relationship is based around memes sent in Slack might be starting to sink in. For her, at least. 

Whether she stacks up to the rest of your crew or not, your work wife is bound to toss back the extra drink or two to feel a little looser when chatting with your sorority big. And then a few more drinks when talking with your “we’ve known each other since diapers” friend. And another when your maid of honor calls her Lauren instead of Laura.

Sure, you’ve had your fair share of girl’s nights where you gossiped about Dana from accounting, but this is a whole different beast. While she might not spend the night sleeping on the bathroom floor, there’s a 0% chance she won’t wake up in the morning with a visceral need for some coffee, ibuprofen, and an Egg McMuffin. Don’t tell HR, but you can expect some sloppy dancing and multiple ass slaps from this one throughout the evening. 

Your “Why Aren’t I Engaged Yet” Friend

Jennifer Anniston as Rachel Green sitting on a lounge chair saying "being alone sucks"

Whether she’s just out of a relationship or has been single since grade school, there’s always that one friend in your group who low-key feels like it’s a personal affront that anyone is allowed to get married before her. Throughout your wedding planning process, she made it clear what type of dress she would wear (strapless), what type of venue she’d choose (castle, obvi), and what color dresses her bridesmaids would wear (the same color as yours, of course). And the fact that you expect her to show up to your wedding while she’s still sans ring means one thing and one thing only: She’s about to get druuuunk. 

From extra mimosas in the morning to sips from a flask during pictures, her goal is to get fucked up and make out with someone off-limits, preferably while you’re having your first dance. There’s no way she’ll make it to the end of the night without crying or going home with a groomsman, so you might as well just sit back and watch the drama unfold. At least you can take it as a free pass to black out if she ever actually makes it down the aisle.

Your Just-Had-A-Baby Friend

Kristen Bell saying "I gotta pump and dump" into a microphone

This friend has been downing ginger ale, waddling to the bathroom, and icing her ankles for the duration of your engagement. Now that the baby’s out and a sitter’s in place, you know your new mom friend is gonna get lit. Between her now low tolerance and the fact that she hasn’t worn real clothes in over a year, this bridesmaid is going to be topping the charts in terms of drunkenness. After one morning mimosa, she’ll already be grooving, and by the time cocktail hour rolls around, she’s gonna ditch her baby monitor app for the front-facing camera so she can snap a shitton of drunk selfies. 

Assuming baby’s got overnight care in place, your recently popped pal will be trying to flash everyone with her milk-filled boobs before the last dance… and will feel like she’s back in her first trimester morning sickness phase by morning. What can I say? Momma’s been without her juice for nine months. She’s pumping and dumping tonight. 

Your Just Married Friend

Kim Kardashian saying to Kris Humphries "how crazy is it that we're married now?"

If you’re getting married in your 20s or early 30s, you’ll probably have a friend or two who’s saying “I do” around the same time. And when it’s finally your turn to walk down the aisle, no one’s going to feel quite as many emotions as your just married friend. Not only is she comparing every single detail of your wedding to hers, but she’s doing it with a very strong drink in her hand.

Whether she’s exhausted and elated that she survived her day or she’s feeling envious and sad as the wedding blues hit, the other Mrs. is going to be hitting the bar extra hard at your celebration. The attention is officially off of her and now that her time is up, she’s sort of at a loss about what’s next. Which means, of course, she’ll drink. And drink. And drink and drink and drink. Now that she’s no longer the bride, she’ll be looking for a distraction, hence the double shots, the drunk tears on the dance floor, and ghosting in fury before the lights come up because you used the same entrance song as her. Rude, btw.  

Your MOH

No two maids of honor are the same, but whether she was super hands-on or kinda slacked, there’s a good chance this bestie is delighted your big day is here if only to be freed from her duties. From the events to the “hey ladies” emails to putting up with your endless requests for validation, she’s been ready to block your number for the last few weeks. And now that the end is finally here, she feels the need to celebrate and celebrate hard. It’s like she just got her life back. What do you expect? Her to stay sober?

The only saving grace here is that she’ll at least keep it semi-dignified until after her speech because even the sh*ttiest MOH doesn’t want to embarrass herself in front of a room of well-dressed strangers. But once her toast is up, all bets are off. Good luck getting her attention because she’ll be mainlining vodka and avoiding eye contact so you don’t make her dance with your creepy uncle. If anyone’s ending the night face first in the bathroom covered in saltine cracker crumbs, it’s this bitch. Just try not to make any sudden movements at brunch—she’s probably still seeing double.

Here’s to hoping you picked your VIPs wisely because if not, you might be demoting a few besties by morning. In their defense, after everything you put them through this past year, a whole bunch of sh*tfaced bridesmaids seems like a pretty fair trade for a happily ever after.

Images:  Gift Habeshaw  / Unsplash; Giphy

How To Tell Your Wedding Guests You’re Changing The Date Due To COVID-19

As it becomes clearer that summer wedding plans are off the table, and fall weddings are next on the chopping block, couples are figuring out new ways to make their special day special. We’re seeing Zoom weddings, drive-by parades, and elopements. For anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) get on board with the microwedding vibe, plans of a postponement need to be communicated to guests—even if the details are still TBD. So, we chatted with experts on both coasts to see how changing the date can be done, and as much as it sucks, it’s not impossible. There are multiple ways to convey the 411 of your new day, and rockstar wedding vendors are making the postponing protocol as smooth as possible.

For Krystel Stacey, Founder, Creative Director, and Lead Stylist at So Cal’s Couture Events and wedding planner to Bachelor in Paradise’s Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour, it’s about being supportive and honoring her clients’ wishes.

“We’re hopeful that later-2020 weddings will go on as planned, but just in case our brides and grooms are worried, we’re working around the clock on contingency plans,” Stacey says. At the end of the day, she wants her clients to stay true to themselves, adding “What is best for your mom, best friend, cousin, or sweet Aunt Sally should be considered secondary to what is best for you both as a couple.”

Timing Wise, Most Pre-Fall Weddings Should Postpone

We’ve been polling our 2020 brides on Insta @betchesbrides for weeks now, asking whether they’ll be keeping or postponing their wedding dates plans—and truthfully, no one has a definitive answer or a magical cut-off date. While it’d be amazing to see into the future and find out more about this virus’s end date, unfortunately we can’t exactly speak to the manager of coronavirus. That’s why New Jersey-based stationer, Becca Goldberg of Suite Paperie, feels that clients who have chosen to postpone their weddings before October 2020 are making the best calls (and tbh, that’s what it seems like most of you are doing, based on all the recent Insta feedback on @betchesbrides).

“We’ve had a few couples who were supposed to get married in late March/early April postpone to later in 2020, but a couple who is planning a summer wedding isn’t going to be thrilled about swapping to a winter date,” she offers. “Their entire vision from invitations to dress to food to flowers will have to shift to an entirely new season—and that’s a whole other dimension of change that a bride dealing with COVID-19 rescheduling shouldn’t have to face.”

She explains, “Most of my October-December brides are hanging tight right now and moving forward as planned. Since we’re NY/NJ based and in the epicenter of the crisis, there’s a chance that, by law, the weddings will not be able to take place. However, we do have plenty of couples around the country who are having their weddings in lesser COVID-affected areas and proceeding with considerably less caution—for example, we have gorgeous acrylic invitations going out this week for an August wedding in Colorado Springs.”

Once You Have A Date Secured, Get Moving With Regards To Your Guests

Both Stacey and Goldberg have seen the majority of their couples postponing to 2021, and they’re behind it, too, especially if couples can either get their original wedding date just a year later (something that a lot of venues are advocating with their clients so that their event calendars are balanced). After all, a wedding planned for June 12th this year will probably look similar, if not identical, to a June 12th wedding next year. If the exact date isn’t available, then another date in the month should work just fine. Stacey let us know that even though she’s had some couples push till later this year, most are looking into 2021 for their new dates.

Of course, once you’ve gotten your date penciled in at your venue, with your vendors on book as well, you’ll want to notify your nearest and dearest so that arrangements can be made. Fortunately, since the social event scene at large has been totally eclipsed by the pandemic, most guests can expect that you’ll be making course changes, but you’ll still need to tell everyone sooner rather than later. A few ways you can notify guests are:

Your wedding website: You can seriously make one for FREE like anywhere, so if you don’t have one, make one (if only just to keep people from nightmaring you about your wedding status). As soon as you have your date, update your homepage with something along the lines of “Due to current COVID-19 circumstances, we’re going to celebrate on another date!” And then share said date, timing, and change of venue, if you have one.

Your inner circle:  If you’re going crazy dealing with this postponement and can’t send out a personalized email yourself, then this is the perfect time to enlist your wedding planner, your bridesmaids, your MOH, and all your ride-or-dies. Have them text, call, or email all of your wedding guests and share your new date, along with a link to your website for real-time updates.

Your social channels: Not every couple will feel comfortable sharing all the I Do deets on their social feeds, but Stacey notes that with any “official” correspondence (i.e. change-the-date announcements), an identical social version should go up as well. “For ALL posts we suggest sending out the same change-the-date,” she says, adding, “if you are sending a physical save the date card, just send the digital version of that via email and then also post that digital version on your social media (the order in which you do so is totally up to you).”

Stationery Going Out Should Follow A Cadence, Somewhat…

Most vendors will tell you that code of conduct is nowhere near normal now, because WTAF is happening these days? Stacey and her team at Couture Events say, “You cannot please everyone and they will have to understand that COVID was not your choice and is out of your control. What you can control is what you want to do next.” We’re 100p aligned with their outlook, especially since changing the date costs money—creativity, on the other hand, doesn’t have to cost a thing…

Stacey even suggests that couples take advantage of the time spent at home during quarantine to experiment with sending a cute video in lieu of a traditional change-the-date card. Just try to avoid making something that might land you on our cringiest TikToks list.

PSA for brides: there’s no such thing as wedding etiquette anymore you officially get to do whatever the f*ck you want.

— betchesbrides (@betchesbrides) May 8, 2020

If all of the above sounds a little too informal, or if you want something tangible, e-commerce stationer sites like Minted and Basic Invite are offering a completely curated selection of change-the-date cards. Basic Invite will even handle your mail so that you can avoid going to the post office #socialdistancewin. Just upload your guest list and they’ll print, stuff, and mail your cards directly to your guests. It’s legit so fast and easy, and the looks are luxe and stunning.

If you’ve been working with a custom stationer one-on-one, though, you probably have even more possibilities to put out the good word about your wedding. Plus, you’ll have someone helping you through the pain-in-the-ass process of when to send things, what to send, who to send to, etc.

Here are some general guidelines that Becca Goldberg, girl boss at Suite Paperie, has been following with her clients:

For couples who’ve postponed before invitations were sent: “We’re sending snail-mail change-the-date announcements at the time that the guests would be receiving the invitations (approximately 8-10 weeks out),” Goldberg says. “These can still read ‘formal invitation to follow’ on the bottom, since the guests haven’t received the actual invites yet.”

For couples who sent out invitations, but now need to postpone: “Since time is of the essence, we’re typically sending out an email with ‘formal re-invitation to follow’ to let guests know that they’ll be receiving something else in the mail when it gets closer to the date in 2021.”

Just writing out “re-invitation” makes me cringe, because I know how much invitations can cost. But Goldberg totally gets it, and she hates to imagine making her clients re-up their already-pricy investment. “Some things that we’re doing are digitally printing their invitation on duplex or even triplex paper and giving it the same finish as their original suite (beveled, foiled or painted edges), but at a fraction of the cost of letterpress or foil stamping.”

She adds, “The other thing we’re doing is keeping the additional information online. So, instead of a suite that has a RSVP card and envelope, details card, brunch card, etc, we’re just sending a main invitation and a single insert that sends guests to the couple’s website to RSVP, find new hotel dates, and more.”

For couples whose invitations were printed, but not yet mailed: “These are the trickiest scenarios, where we need to get clever,” she says. “Some couples are opting to reprint their main invitation with the new date, while others are OK with an insert stating the new date.” Goldberg relays that one of her favorite executions of this route involves using an annotated overlay. “We essentially “mark up” the invitation, cross out the old date, and print the new one on a 100% clear transparency that lays over the entire front of the invitation. This is a bit more on the fun side, but we’ve had a few couples go this route, and it’s been very well-received.”

And then when it comes to invitees, here’s who Goldberg says should get the stationery:

For couples with a postponed date (and a wedding of roughly the same size): “Everyone who received the save-the-dates the first go-round should be getting the change-the-date as well,” Goldberg advises.

For couples who want to scale back the celebration altogether: “In some instances, couples are opting to keep their original date, but instead going more intimate, with immediate family only,” she explains. “In this case, of course the change-the-date goes out to only those in the intimate group, but additionally, a follow up wedding or ‘elopement’ announcement should be sent to the rest of the guests. Share a photo and have fun with it, because at the end of the day, this alert really helps to make your friends and family feel connected to an event they were originally invited to in-person!”

And if you still want to save money, stay formal, and get things out f*ckin’ fast, you can always consider a postponement announcement from a place like Paperless Post or Greenvelope.

Paperless Post is rallying hard with the “love is patient” point of view during this COVID crisis, and not only are we obsessed with their dynamic designs, we’re also loving on their well-rounded wedding extras for after the postponement.

“With digital wedding postponement cards, you are able to upload a copy of your email list and send it to your recipient’s inbox in minutes,” reassures Paperless Post. Then, “Once you’ve ironed out a new date, let friends and family know it is time to get together again. You’ll have the option to send out a new design from our online wedding collection or update your postponement announcement with the new event details. If the latter, you can use our follow up tools to send a message to your guests letting them know it’s officially time to RSVP.”

We get it, it’s a lot to postpone your wedding, but if you’re making it through quarantine with your S.O., you’re doing amazing, sweeties… You’ll get through this too!

Images: Unsplash; Basic Invite; Suite Paperie; Greenvelope

Why I Don’t Want Bridesmaids At My Wedding

I’m in my mid-twenties, which means if you need me, you can find me at a wedding or bridal shower or engagement party or bachelorette party or wedding dress shopping or any of the myriad events that happen after one of my friends gets engaged. And at each of these events, while I am celebrating my sweet, sweet friend and whatever halfway decent guy she’s marrying, I’m also taking diligent mental notes. I’m not planning on getting engaged for a little while, so that means I still have a couple more years of seeing 11-year-old Pinterest boards come to life at my friends’ weddings until it’s time for my own fairy tale day. So far, I have decided that I want first look photos, I want a huge cocktail hour, and I absolutely most definitely, for sure, do NOT want bridesmaids at my wedding.

 

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also how many PTO days did she have to use to go on 27 bachelorette weekends??

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It sounds harsh when I tell people this, but tell me, what is the modern-day necessity for bridesmaids? I’m not being traded like a cow, so why do I need my future sister-in-law to tend to me like I’m a slab of meat in a satin, off-the-shoulder, fit-and-flare wedding gown? It’s nice that the bridesmaids get to feel like they’re special or whatever, but I just think having no bridesmaids at my wedding will make everything infinitely easier.

First of all, the drama of having bridesmaids is just too much. Picking an appropriate amount of friends to feature is like the adult-world version of picking your Top 8 on MySpace. If you ask your best friend from college, then you also have to ask your best friend from high school. If you ask your sorority big, you also have to ask your sorority little. If you ask one of your future spouse’s sisters, you have to ask all of them. Before you know it, you have 27 girls standing next to you all wearing the same exact sh*t (which, in any other context, is a total fashion faux pas). I’m still trying to figure out how a single day could cost the same as a year of college tuition, but I do know that it’s not worth it to make all the best friends I’ve had throughout my life (who only know each other by association) agree on the same style of gown or feel pressured to pick a color that everyone looks good in. Also, I’ve been to weddings where the bridesmaids don’t even stand next to the bride, which goes back to my original supporting thesis of this article: what is the f*cking point?

Weddings are expensive as it is, and not having bridesmaids saves me a ton of money that I can put elsewhere. Perhaps, instead of monogrammed silk robes that everyone will wear exactly one (1) time, I can have a chocolate fountain at the reception. Instead of wine glasses and shot glasses that say “Bridesmaid” on them that will be used exactly zero (0) times, I can get a photo booth that all of my drunk friends will visit several times throughout the night, so they can document their progressive unraveling. Instead of paying for their makeup and hair on the day that I should be looking the most flawless, I will get a juggling Elvis impersonator on stilts to make us all self-portrait balloon animals. The possibilities are endless when you just let all of your friends be guests instead of your matching minions for the day.

 

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honestly a genius move. | credit/permission: @apbenven

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Honestly, I’m doing everyone I love a favor. Ask anyone who has been a bridesmaid—many will have exclusively terrible stories. Planning the bridal shower was a nightmare because the one friend doesn’t want to pitch in money. They had to wake up at 5:30 am to get their makeup done for a wedding that started at 2 pm. They had to freeze outside for pictures while everyone else was inside enjoying the cocktail hour. The time and money spent to be a bridesmaid is just outlandish, and I don’t want to do that to my friends. All I want is for them to come to my wedding, wear what they want, and have a good time. I can take pictures with them at the reception. I can still invite them to go dress shopping and to the bachelorette party. I can still ask someone to hold my flowers for me (or my dress when I pee), and I can still have someone make a speech about how lovely I am and how lucky my fresh new wife is to be married to me. I just don’t have to have a gang of girls around me who I have chosen to announce to my friends and family are my Best Friends.

 

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We say no to our friends all the time, yet when we say I DO to being a bridesmaid, that word gets deleted from our vocab. Click the link in bio to help you say ‘No’ to things you really don’t want to be doing… | credit: @quintab

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All in all, I think I’m helping everyone out here. I get to save money and keep the attention on myself, my would-be bridesmaids can calmly enjoy the day, and my guests won’t have to watch any tacky entrance dances. Seriously, those are hateful.

Images: Devon Divine / Unsplash

Crazy Wedding Story Of The Week: Bride Demands Her Bridesmaid Dye Her Hair

Whether you hate the wedding-industrial complex, are a bride planning a wedding and want to feel better about your own demands, or just need something to read, we’re doing a new series where we share the craziest, most out-of-touch wedding story we found on the internet that week. Submit your own crazy wedding stories to [email protected] with the subject line Crazy Wedding Story, and we just might feature yours. And make sure to follow @BetchesBrides on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast, Betches Brides.

On Saturday night, I was hustled, scammed, bamboozled, and hoodwinked into having dinner with three of my recently married friends. Annnnnnd kill me. Anyway, even though I was both a guest and a bridesmaid at all three of these girls’ weddings, they spent the first hour of dinner showing me pictures as if I didn’t spend my rent money on being a part of their nuptials. The main takeaway? Wedding Instagrams are to newlyweds what “take me back” vacation photos are to single people. So naturally, the bride and groom want their wedding to be as Insta-worthy as humanly possible. Understandable.

Unless you’re Adriana La Cerva getting married in Tony Soprano’s house, the bride usually gets to drive when it comes to every little detail of her wedding. But sometimes, brides attempt to take that too far. This leads me the most amazing thing I’ve ever read on the internet, the Reddit Am I The Asshole (AITA) subreddit titled “AITA for asking my bridesmaid to temporarily change her vibrant hair colour for my colour schemed wedding?” Ok, I’ll give her a point for being British, but will definitely crown her the asshole here because it’s 2020 and friends shouldn’t ever ask friends to change their appearance for a wedding. 

But I know what you’re thinking: maybe this girl has like, bright blue hair, which I could kiiiinda understand the bride wanting to change even though the demand is unreasonable. And you’d be wrong. Even I didn’t see this twist coming.

The bride starts off strong:

“The ongoing issue is that my wedding has a blue and green peacock theme” (why) “and guests have been asked to follow this colour scheme with their clothes. Hair wasn’t originally included at all in the colour scheme, but my cousin Ella has natural bright ginger hair.

I would never ask someone to permanently change their hair for my wedding, I know that would be bonkers so I suggested some temporary hair dye, but Ella argued that she has been growing her hair for six years and doesn’t want to risk the colour not washing out. I thought this was ridiculous because it literally says washes out in like 14 washes. But Ella says because her hair is completely natural colour it might take strongly to her hair.”

First of all, wtf is a blue and green peacock theme? Why peacocks? Will there be peacocks at the wedding? Where does one procure peacocks? I need more info on the peacock situation. Condolences to Ella, though, on her lack of a soul, but as my beautiful redhead girlfriend complains about all the time tells me, once a ginger dyes her hair, it’s really hard to get her natural color back. Anyone who’s friends with a red-headed person knows this because it’s literally all they talk about, so the fact that the bride is asking her bridesmaid/cousin who’s never taken a foil to the head to dye her hair for the sake of fitting in with the weird af wedding theme is pretty rude. Honestly, Ella shouldn’t have to explain why she doesn’t want to f*ck up her hair with drugstore chemicals, but here we are. Also, 14 washes? Unless you wash your hair every damn day, that could take weeks to get out, and the bride is acting like it’s easy-peasy.

“So I gave up on that avenue and suggested a wig, it is one day, one single day, and there are some amazing wigs these days. I had a look on Instagram and you wouldn’t even be able to tell. But she said she would feel self-conscious and weird wearing a wig and that because her hair is butt length that it might sit weird on her head. So she won’t dye it, and won’t cover it up. I really don’t want to come across as a bridezilla but butt-length flaming red hair will destroy the wedding photos, and ruin the colour scheme completely.”

I once went to a birthday dinner that was wig-themed, so I got a Kylie Jenner-looking number and truly hated it. It was so uncomfortable and stupid-looking that I couldn’t keep that thing on for more than a few minutes at a time, and my hair is only shoulder length! I can’t even imagine trying to get a wig on a head of hair that’s basically grazing the floor at this point. Tbh, I feel like the bizarre color scheme and wild peacocks will ruin the photos more than your bridesmaid’s very normal hair. Also, it’s not like she just recently dyed her hair magenta and it’s all anyone can see. Like, we’re talking about her natural hair color here. No one is going to be like, “She seriously came to this wedding with the hair color she was born with?” 

Im at a loss, I can’t cut her from the wedding because my mom would murder me, but I can’t have freaking Merida ruining the photos, AITA for asking this of her for just one single day?

First of all, Merida was a brave soldier who saved her mother, there’s no need to bring her into this. Also, is anyone else seeing the hilarious irony here? Just the English major? Cool. So the bride is saying that her cousin should just dye her hair because it’s one day of her life, but this horrible dye job will not only live forever in the photos, it will also likely ruin her natural color and take at least two weeks to rinse out. Like??? Anyway, to answer the bride’s question, yes, honey, you are the asshole. 

Before I end, there’s an update!

EDIT: Ella has dropped out of the wedding because we couldn’t reach a compromise so it doesn’t matter anymore. I now have to deal with my mom and aunt chewing me out over it all.

Honestly, good for you, Ella. F*ck your cousin. I’d drop out of the wedding too, and I probably wouldn’t even attend.

Look, the only time it’s okay to demand someone change her appearance is on makeover day for America’s Next Top Model. Other than that, we non-Tyras need to just let our friends and cousins and whoever look how they want to look. If red-heads are so offensive to you and your stupid photos, maybe don’t ask them to be in your bridal party. Then find a therapist to find out who hurt you. 

Images: Unsplash

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Crazy Wedding Story Of The Week: Puffy Sleeves, Macaroni Salad, & Pervy Dads

Whether you hate the wedding-industrial complex, are a bride planning a wedding and want to feel better about your own demands, or just need something to read, we’re doing a new series where we share the craziest, most out-of-touch wedding story we found on the internet that week. Submit your own crazy wedding stories to [email protected] with the subject line Crazy Wedding Story, and we just might feature yours. And make sure to follow @BetchesBrides on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast, Betches Brides.

In case no one told you, planning a wedding is hard. As I have mentioned in about 87 other articles, I know firsthand how hard they are, so I am sympathetic to anyone going through this process because it will age you 100 years is a grueling one. To all of the ladies and gents who are just getting started, just remember that all a wedding is is a glorified party. I mean, unless Beyoncé accidentally stumbles in and decides to stay and sing a song during the reception, your rustic chic nuptials aren’t, like, that different from all of the other weddings we’ve all been forced happy to attend. Some, though, are so out-there that we can’t ignore them and must talk about them right this very second.

We received an email submission about a wedding that took place before most of you youths were even conceived, but it is so f*cking juicy that we couldn’t not cover the insanity that went down, so here we are. I was literally cringing the entire time I read it, and my neck is now sore from scrunching my shoulders up to my ears for however long it took me to get through the email. Honestly, worth it, though. Let’s get into it.

Our submitter writes: Jane was the first person in her family to go to college, but they all made fun of her until she dropped out. Fortunately, she met the love of her life, Derek, at that time, so she didn’t feel she needed school. He was a former high school jock now working in a gas station and she got a minimum wage at a retail job. Everyone’s happy. 

Good for Jane for being a first-generation college student and f*ck her hick family for making her feel bad about wanting to educate herself. Jane, honey, I know the ‘90s was a different time, but don’t perpetuate the stigma that women only need an education until we get a husband. However, high school me is giggling with glee that this once jock is now the creepy gas station guy with whom you don’t want to make eye contact when the pump eats your debit card. Ya truly love to see it… unless your friend is dating the jock-turned-gas-station-guy. And it’s not all sunshine and rainbows:

Dereck was the f*cking worst. He was totally controlling, jealous, abusive, and he cheated. Sometimes in front of her. She obviously wasn’t allowed to have friends or make plans or do anything that didn’t involve him. And she was required to speak to him entirely in baby talk. To this day I think of him as “Dewek.”

Hold. The. Phone. Ew that she “obviously” wasn’t allowed to have friends or do anything at all without getting her keeper’s boyfriend’s permission? Gross. I honestly don’t even know what to say about the baby talk thing because the second I read that, my bacon, egg and cheese started to creep its way back up my throat. I don’t even like when babies do baby talk, so count me the f*ck out when adults do it. These dudes always turn out to be serial killers. Run, Jane, run!! 

You In Danger Girl

Unfortunately, she did not run. In fact, the opposite.

Seven years later, they get engaged, but she and I have grown apart. I’ve moved away and I’m finishing my second degree while she’s barely been allowed to talk to me. Plus Dewek is her only topic of conversation anyway. She seriously DNGAF what’s going on in my life, but for some reason, she asks me to be her maid of honor. 

I’m no therapist, but this is textbook jealousy. You represent all of the things she could have been—chief among those things is educated. The maid of honor thing is definitely weird, but maybe she wants to make a big gesture to invite you back into her life and maybe help her escape Dewek? Who knows at this point, though.

Now, the next bit may be hard for the ’00s babies to understand, but use your imaginations and bear with me, kay?

This is in the late 90s, but Jane is HELLA 80s: like perm, spiked bangs, the works. She comes to the big city I’m living in with her four other bridesmaids to spend the weekend dragging us to various bridal shops trying to find the perfect puffed sleeves, off-the-shoulder, dusty rose scary-ass 80s crap that we will all be paying for ourselves. Huge fights ensue, one of Jane’s sisters is a vicious witch to every sales girl, and we all go home without dresses. Eventually Jane orders dresses from some boutique in her small town without any input from the bridesmaids and mine arrives six days before the wedding and is a size too small, so I start starving myself to fit into it. 

Drama, drama, drama. Ugh, starving yourself is never the answer. Stand up to your friend and tell her you don’t feel comfortable wearing an ugly dress that’s too small! Also, this is how I’m picturing these dresses:

rachel green bridesmaid

Then comes the wedding weekend. Turns out that the five bridesmaids were expected to fully create the entire wedding, including cleaning, setting up and decorating the “hall,” and cooking all the food! Apparently this was so obviously our job that no one thought to mention it to us. First, the hall. It was the local small town community center GYM. Like, lines on the floor for soccer and basketball, and no less than six basketball hoops. All five bridesmaids were sweeping, mopping, setting up folding tables and chairs, and blowing up hundreds of white balloons for two hours, and then climbing ladders to try and hide the hoops with the balloons. All while the five groomsmen stood outside and smoked. 

I am so over all of these brides asking their guests/bridal parties to cook and clean! I don’t even like asking my roommate to do that on any given Tuesday because I feel like I’m Miss Hannigan-ing her, so asking my friends to clean/cook for my wedding is out of the question. But at the very least, you would think the bride and groom would tell them??? I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve heard such an outrageous request, but this happens in almost every crazy wedding story we do! WTF??? 

Then back to Jane’s parents’ house where, it turns out, the five bridesmaids were expected to make food for 100 guests in the parents’ tiny kitchen the night before the wedding! The only thing I clearly remember was sitting on a wooden chair at 2am with a huge plastic bucket full of macaroni salad between my legs, which I was stirring with my whole arm. No one seemed to think this was strange or unhygienic. Then we were all given mattresses on the basement floor to sleep on.

If I was in this bridal party, now is right about when I would have staged a coup and/or dipped immediately. Whichever takes less energy. Macaroni salad at a Fourth of July cookout, yum! Macaroni salad at a wedding? Nope! Also, the mattresses on the basement floor is giving me serious American Horror Story vibes and I’m a little scared to keep going. 

Three hours of sleep later, we’re all up and getting ready. I’m exhausted and still not eating much because I want to fit in my dress. Jane’s dad, the one who has known me since I was eight years old, is hitting on me. I spent most of the day backed into corners so he’d stop stroking my ass. Jane’s mom has quite reasonably decided that this is my fault, so she is being an utter bitch to me. Jane is demanding that I help her stick maxi pads to the underarms of her dress because she has chosen a long-sleeved, high-necked, massive tulle-skirted monstrosity of a wedding dress, and it is 104 degrees outside. 

All I have to say about the dad is:

yikes

Re: the maxi pad situation… try antiperspirant, I guess? Don’t even get me started on the dress because it sounds like a direct assault to the eyes. Every bride has her own unique style, but this thing sounds offensive. 

The reception for me is blurry. It’s a cash bar, but as mentioned I hadn’t eaten for five days so I started drinking right away and I don’t remember anything after the first 10 mins, except for being expected to go into the small metal stalls in the bathroom with the bride to hold her massive skirts up while she peed. 

Ok, to be fair, it’s one of the more unfortunate tasks involved in being a maid of honor, but you are required to hold up the bride’s dress while she pees. However, my sympathy ends there. Cash bars at weddings shouldn’t be allowed. People are coming from far away, buying outfits, getting you gifts, etc. for your wedding, so the least the couple can do is let them drink for free. 

The reception ended just as I started to sober up (I ran out of cash) and that’s when I learned that the bridesmaids were solely responsible for cleaning the hall. In our frothy ‘80s dresses and sh*tty dyed-to-match heels. In 100-degree weather. We had to sweep and mop again, pack all the leftover food back into buckets, clean the bathrooms, put the tables and chairs away, and climb ladders to take down the balloons. The groomsmen obviously stayed outside and smoked. Jane’s dad continued to sexually assault me throughout. I finally sat down from sheer exhaustion and Jane’s mom arrived immediately to tell me to “get off your lazy ass and help.” 

I’m sorry, but wouldn’t the bride be excruciatingly embarrassed that her dad is literally sexually harassing her maid of honor and do something about it? Like????? Anyway, wtf is with the bridesmaids having to do all of the heavy lifting for this piece of sh*t wedding? Where did the bride and groom even go? And if the wedding is over, why are the groomsmen just standing around smoking still? Enjoy lung cancer, boys! All I have to say about the bride’s mom yelling at the MOH is that she can get off her lazy ass and control her disgusting husband’s hands. But more importantly, WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST LEAVE?? Were they being held at this wedding against their will? I truly don’t understand the lengths people will go to because they feel bad/want to avoid conflict.

I passed out on my basement floor mattress as soon as we got back to the parents’ house, and then got up early and left before the gift-opening. I must have been otherwise disappointing and/or offensive I guess, because Jane never spoke to me again. A mutual friend told me though that the marriage lasted eight months. 

LOL. Eight f*cking months. I’m dead. The fact that she even went to the wedding after the whole bridesmaid dress situation is pretty impressive, so she clearly wasn’t that disappointing. I am fully obsessed with this and need to know what the divorcées are up to. 

Can you top that craziness? Prove it! Submit your crazy wedding story to [email protected] with the subject line “Crazy Wedding Story”!

Images: NBC; Giphy (3)

IDK Who Needs To Hear This, But It’s Bullsh*t To Let A Wedding End Your Friendship

From the moment I waltzed out of my mother’s womb three weeks early (as a 5 lb. baby, I might add—I was like, so skinny), there’s been one main goal in my life: to have the best. f*cking. wedding. ever.

I know that seems obvious. Hello, I’m a red-blooded American girl with bleached blonde hair and skin damage from all the *shudders* tanning beds in my teens. Of course I’ve been obsessed with my wedding long before I swiped my v-card for a boyfriend in 10th grade.

Still, whether it’s a cliche or not, planning my big day was my full-time, self-employed, unpaid job from the ages of consciousness to about a month after my wedding when I finally stopped obsessing over everything that went wrong. While, sure, the details changed over time and my tastes ebbed and flowed, one thing stayed the same: I knew I was going to throw the party of a lifetime and walk away happier, more popular, and if you can believe it, even more beautiful than I already was. Pre-engaged me was as humble as she was realistic.

The thing is, before I was engaged, I loved planning my wedding. LOVED it. The pinning, the dreaming, the sheer obliviousness over how much that 12-tier geode cake would cost—it was my obsession. I was Joe Goldberg and weddings were my damaged girl with daddy issues.

After I got a ring on my finger, however, I realized why all of my already married friends complained about planning so much, something I thought was absurd and spoiled at the time. Between the Hunger Games-esque competitiveness to see who would be a bridesmaid, the fact that my once large-sounding budget was actually a budget for ants, and the helpful suggestions-turned-demands family members had in exchange for monetary help, it was, to put it lightly, a sh*tshow.

As someone who grew up watching Say Yes To The Dress and insisted that all of her potential maids of honor watch Bride Wars together in theaters during her junior year of high school, I was no stranger to the drama that surrounded weddings.

After my day came and went, along with most of the mistakes and the drama, I still love to read and research about weddings, but this time, from a different point of view. I love to see how other brides’ big days went totally wrong and how they managed to pull their sh*t together. What can I say? I love an underdog in tulle.

When I came across this piece published by Vogue, which is one of the bougiest things I’ll type all day, I quite literally rubbed my hands together and audibly said, “this oughta be good.” I know. I’m the worst. In the editorial titled “When Weddings End Friendships,” the author, Grace, details the account of how she lost one of her best friends during the wedding planning process (not to death, just to general bitchiness) and ultimately outlines the angst that brides, as well as their friends and family, face during those emotion-filled months leading up to the wedding.

it’s crazy how much a wedding can put friendships into perspective

— betchesbrides (@betchesbrides) December 24, 2019

And while I can relate to our gal Grace in the sense that weddings stir up all kinds of drama and feelings and chances to make others feel like sh*t, letting one day ruin an important friendship is, in my not-so-humble opinion, complete and utter bullsh*t. While, sure, I can see how it happens (trust me, as you’re drowning in relationship politics and vendor contracts, you’ll feel more than willing to bitch slap anyone who annoys you in the slightest), I want to urge any and all future brides to pull this entitled bridezilla mentality out of their asses and get real.

The thing is—and this is going to be a doozy to accept, so deep yoga breaths, ladies— this time is not just all about you. Don’t get me wrong, the wedding is all about you (well, and your fiancé lol). Despite your annoying MIL or your father with the finicky wallet who wants to dictate every decision, your wedding is ultimately about creating a memorable day to, you know, honor love and get some bomb-ass ‘grams that will hopefully be reposted on one of those wedding inspo accounts

But as much as we want to assume that the bride is the most important person in everyone’s lives during the entire wedding process from engagement party to honeymoon, there’s one small problem: Everyone else is still living their f*cking lives while you’re off tasting cakes and panicking about your first dance song. And a lot of the time, those lives are chaotic and messy and frustrating.

In the Vogue piece, the author talks about how the relationship with one of her college besties went to sh*t over an unreturned RSVP. Her friend didn’t respond to the invitation, and after the bride reached out, she learned that her old pal would not be in attendance due to some weak reason. And she was hurt, rightfully so. But what happened? The bride got married and to this day (over a year since The Incident), believes that it’s her friend’s fault that the relationship is over and that “the damage is permanent.”

Yeah, having an old pal unable to come to your wedding is a bummer. And having to reach out to her asking if she was coming only to get a seemingly bullsh*t regret is a double bummer. But is that a reason to detonate your whole friendship? And if so, if your relationship was that shaky, was it even a real friendship in the first place?

From my maid of honor who couldn’t come to the wedding after giving birth weeks before, to the bridesmaid who kept planning her own hypothetical big day, despite a naked ring finger, to the friend who was devastated that she wasn’t chosen to wear an itchy, matching sequin gown, I’m no stranger to strained relationships in the face of wedding planning. With big changes in the forecast, lots of reflection, and plenty of opportunities to compare and contrast lives, it can really f*ck with people’s heads, especially the heads of your friends who have been there with you every step of the way. Sure, it’s exciting. But it’s also kind of sad. A chapter is over and different people handle that in different ways. Some get mad, some get drunk, and some just shut down.

With everything going on, I’ll admit, there’s plenty of space for relationships to implode.

The thing is, the event you’re planning for? It’s a wedding. A wedding where you’ll marry your so-called best friend and you’ll spend the rest of your life watching reruns of Friends together. Between money, sex, careers, houses, and family drama, you’ll have a sh*tstorm to face together. A sh*tstorm that’s way bigger than an unreturned RSVP or a weird response to your engagement post.

I hate to sound like a new age hipster, but communication is key. If you can’t talk to your friend of a decade to let her know you’re hurt about her not coming to your wedding, how are you going to communicate with your husband when you’re frustrated over how little he goes down on you or how much you want to spend on a hallway table? How are you going to handle the bigger roadblocks in life? The career pitfalls, the illnesses, the moves, and the deaths?

The secret to not letting your big day ruin your big relationships? Talking. It’s that f*cking simple. Because when you get to the root of it, my maid of honor who got pregnant was devastated that she couldn’t stand by my side, and the bridesmaid planning her non-existent wedding was worried that her time would never come, and the friend who wasn’t in the party was hurt that she might not mean as much to me as she thought. But the key is I know the way they were feeling because I talked to them about it, instead of staying in my feelings and ghosting them.

What it comes down to is that weddings bring out the worst in people. Sure, they might actually, finally bring out our abs (for a solid 48 hours until you have a bite of cake and then you’ll never see them again), but they also bring out insecurities, jealousy, comparisons, and fear. Instead of letting a time of high pressure and heightened emotions sabotage your relationships, use it as a chance to practice compassion, communication, and careful listening. Because once the thank you notes are sent and the non-registry gifts are returned, all you’ll want is the normalcy of your best friends by your side, drinking wine in sweats and talking sh*t on other people’s weddings. Don’t let a white dress and a mediocre DJ take away your real happily ever after with your true soulmates.

And my advice to the writer at Vogue? If Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway can get over blue hair and a leaked spring break video, you and your friend can probably get over an unreturned RSVP and an unattended wedding. Trust.

Images: Youtube; Giphy (3)

4 Bridesmaid Duties You Should Absolutely Say No To

When’s the last time you said no to a friend? Um, for me it was five minutes ago when a friend tried to change our Saturday brunch plans at a place with a free pastry basket to do a workout class. There’s a zero percent chance I’m ditching carbs on the “Day of Rest” to burn calories…you can quote me on that.  My point is, we say no to our friends all the time, yet when we say I DO to being a bridesmaid, that word gets deleted from our vocabulary.

Spend $500 on a bridesmaid dress you’ll never wear again? Ugh, sure. Find your passport so you can jet to the south of France for the bachelorette party that you’ll totally cover most of the costs for? Fine, whatever. Take off a handful of precious vacation days to help the bride go dress shopping and watch her try on Spanx until you find a pair that sucks her in perfectly? Ugh, I already asked my boss for time off. We find ourselves saying yes to everything, even things we can’t afford, don’t have time for, or simply don’t want to do.

Let’s all commit to rolling our eyes at that and instead saying the word “no.” Practice with me now:

“Will you wear this hideous bridesmaid dress that accentuates all the features of your body you work year-round to hide?”

NO!

Jot this list down of all the things you totally can and should say no to as a bridesmaid.

1. Spending Your Rent Money On The Wedding 

Being a bridesmaid is stupid expensive. If you have to do it a couple of times a year, you either have to drain your savings account, dip into your 401(k), or ask your parents for a loan. All for what? So you can pay for a stripper to knock on the door of the bachelorette party or to afford gifts for the engagement party, bridal shower, and wedding?

Before you hug the bride and say “thanks for choosing me,” think about how much money you’re willing to spend on her wedding. Set a limit. If you had to sit in front of your accountant and admit how much you spent on being a bridesmaid, would you be racked with shame or eager to spill the tea that you stuck to your budget? Probably the first. 

If your budget is $500, which is a third of what the average bridesmaid spends (TF right?!), tell the bride ahead of time that you will be buying a dress that you can afford, skipping the international bachelorette party, and only getting a gel manicure once during the wedding process (and it’ll be a color that you actually like, even if that means gold sparkles, deal with it Bridezilla).

2. Wearing An Ugly Expensive Dress

The older I get the more I want to know exactly how Katherine Heigl’s character could afford to be a bridesmaid in 27 weddings.

— Betches (@betchesluvthis) April 23, 2019

Be real, even if there were no more dress stores on the planet and you had nothing in your closet but old bridesmaid dresses (like some 27 Dresses sh*t), you still wouldn’t be caught wearing one of those things again, ever. You’d gladly make a dress out of a bed sheet to avoid putting on a generic-looking bridesmaid dress that wraps you up like the Toga you wore freshman year to the Sigma Chi date party.

Unless the bride is paying for the dress, you have the right to say no to any dress she picks out. If the color makes you look washed out, the style makes your boobs feel violated, or the price tag makes you gargle your own saliva, you can and should say no. The bride has the right to ask that her squad looks coordinated, fine. But she doesn’t have the right to nitpick the outfit like she’s on Fashion Police.

3. Becoming Her Personal Assistant

Nowhere in the job description for bridesmaid does it say “you are my personal bitch and are on-call 24/7 for all my needs, wants, and desires.” The only thing the bridesmaid description should say is that you’re DTF: down to have fun even when my crazy mother-in-law is stressing me out over the color of tablecloths. 

So if you’ve taken more than two “emergency” trips to a CVS, answered the phone at 2am more than once to hear the bride complain about a slimy wedding vendor, or found yourself on your hands and knees hot glueing centerpieces for the bridal shower, without getting a thank-you or a free bottle of wine to accompany you, start saying no. There are people the bride can pay to do all this dirty work: a professional bridesmaid! A day-of coordinator! A wedding planner as good as J.Lo! 

4. Being A Bridesmaid 

Being a bridesmaid is like working two 9-5 shifts in a row and not getting paid

— betchesbrides (@betchesbrides) September 30, 2019

There’s zero reason a bride needs 10 bridesmaids, except if she craves drama or wants a gaggle of people walking down the aisle to prove to her guests that she has friends. So if being a bridesmaid just isn’t something you’re into right now or you have a ton of other things happening in your life and you know you’re going to ghost the bride the second she asks you for a favor, say no. 

Instead, offer to read a poem during the wedding ceremony or help her plan one tiny part of the wedding. You can stay involved and show the bride how much you adore her without running up your therapy bill and having a panic attack a week over someone else’s wedding all because you’re trying to be a subpar bridesmaid. 

Images: Shutterstock.com; betchesluvthis, betchesbrides / Twitter

5 Gifts Your Bridesmaids Actually Want

Getting your bridesmaids a gift is kind of like answering your grandma’s butt-dial calls: it’s not necessary, but you do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do. Brides, you don’t have to buy us jewelry with our names spelled out in diamonds, but getting us a little something is a really nice gesture that goes a long way! Seriously, there are a lot of friends to dump after your wedding and bridesmaids shouldn’t be on that list, so get us a pair of monogrammed slippers or something else we can lose keep forever to be reminded of that time you conference-called us at 3am on a Tuesday to ask if your dress is “too white.” Memories to look back on fondly, am I right? 

Generally, the bride gives her bridesmaids gifts both when asking them to be in the wedding and on the big day. Hope this is news to no one. So if you’re a bride wondering what to give your loyal hoes in different area codes that you want by your side for your wedding, look no further! From the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride herself, here are my personal recommendations for bridesmaids gifts. 

Island to East Side Custom Clutch

Look, getting a gift for a group of people must be hard, so get us one we will all definitely love…like this clutch! There are 39 bag colors to choose from and about a million ways to personalize the writing, so you really can’t go wrong here. In case any of my friends who are about to get married are reading this, my personal favorite is the mini structured asymmetrical clutch with matte silver beads, white letters and a removable silver strap, but I’ve only spent two hours of my life on this site, so what do I know? As someone who has received many a stupid gift, I can confidently say that these very chic clutches are a good move because we will actually wear them again, unlike the monogrammed onesie that “got lost” during my move. 

Shop Betches Bridesmaid Mug

If you’re a bridesmaid, there is a 110% chance that you are drinking a steamy caffeinated beverage at some point between “will you be my bridesmaid?” and the big day, so why not sip said coffee out of a hilarious mug that will most definitely make anyone who sees you with it smile? I have seven beautiful Anthropologie mugs and this mug, and guess which one everyone loves the most when they open my kitchen cabinet looking for wine glasses? Yep, the Shop Betches one. 

BKR Spiked Tutu 500ml

Even though water gives us everything we need to survive and rock a beautiful glow, we do not drink enough of it. Maybe it’s because I’m really busy and forget, or maybe it’s because my big-ass mason jar just isn’t inspiring me. I’ll never know. The first time I saw one of these chic BKR water bottles was in a barre class a year and a half ago, and I’ve thought about getting one every day since. Here’s a few reasons why: they’re glass, so you’re not ingesting all of the toxic sh*t like BPAs commonly found in plastic water bottles, the part you sip from is small, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally dumping water all over yourself at work when you guzzle, and they’re really pretty, so your desk and/or nightstand will look that much cuter. Personally, I like the spiked silicon sleeve, as opposed to the smooth one, because it’s really cute but also badass, which is what every bridesmaid should aspire to be, in my opinion. 

Pinch Provisions Minimergency Kit For Bridesmaids

My sister-in-law gave these to her bridesmaids the day of her wedding and let me just say, I am impressed with how useful this tiny pouch and its contents were to me that day. These little guys are 3.5’ x 2” x 2” and are stuffed with fashion tape, floss, nail polish remover, ibuprofen, tissues, earring backs, blotting wipes, bobby pins and a bunch of other sh*t. I am a very organized person and generally always have my bases covered, but on the day of her wedding, the hair stylist accidentally knocked my earring back out and I chipped a nail trying to find it. If you thought my sister-in-law was about to let me walk down the aisle with a chipped nail and one earring, think again. Luckily, I had my handy-dandy Minimergency Kit to save the day! They come in eight different colors, four of which are sparkly, so take your pick!

Sugarfina Will You Be My Bridesmaid Bento Box

People who don’t like sweets are not to be trusted. Sugarfina products are truly superior to all other candy companies, so getting not one, but three of the brand’s signature boxes is a great gift. The bento box is filled with three of Sugarfina’s best-selling gummies, which include Champagne bears, Pink Diamonds, and Champagne Bubbles. The boxes are enclosed with a sticker that reads, “will you,” “be my,” and “bridesmaid?” I mean, is that cute or what? Fun fact: the Champagne Bears are made with Dom Pérignon! 

Images: Unsplash; Sugarfina; Pinch Provisions; Shop Betches, Island To East; My BKR
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