Bridesmaid etiquette for DW

Hi-

I don't have it quite narrowed down yet who I will ask to be in my wedding. How many bridesmaids is too many to have for a destination wedding. I know that I will have my sister and my cousin at my MOH, then I wanted to also have my future sister-in-law, my brother's fiancee, and 3 of my best friends. That is 7 people. I feel like that is a lot for a destination wedding. What are your thoughts? Should I just have my sister and my cousin, or family only and no friends? This is hard!

In my opinion, there aren't really any rules. You should do what you want to do. If you want 7 or 17 - do what works for you.

I agree! No rules ... you wouldn't be happy if you couldn't have those closest to you. My FI has two more groomsmen than I do bridesmaids. I worried over it for a while - thought the pics would look "unbalanced." Then I decided to just go with it. Not worth worrying over. Just ask whoever you feel closest to.

I agree - no rules! Have as many or as little as you want. I had 4 and my DH had 6, and it was fine with me.

I think you can have as many as you want. I have my two best friends, and FI is still deciding. I wanted to ask my cousins, but then it gets into if I ask one then I have to ask them all so I decided not to go that route. Plus, I didn't want anyone to feel obligated to come if I asked them to be in the wedding.

I just did my two sisters, and for me that was the best decision I could have made. It was stressful and overwhelming (and expensive!) enough with just the two of them. I did include my friends in the ceremony as readers, and I had two of them join for hair and makeup.

It's definitely up to you, but I have to say that in general, larger parties can cause more conflict. So it's something to think about.

We went through the same worries and in the end, we wouldn't have felt right leaving any of our good friends out of the wedding! We have 8 attendants each, and, since we needed witnesses, were able to include another 2 friends. 18 of the 100 or so people we're expecting at the wedding are in our wedding party, but we wouldn't have it any differently!

When we talked about getting married and having a DW, we always agreed we would keep it small and both have just 1. But after we got engaged, I had the hardest time picking between my 3 sisters (and 1 sister-in-law), so I decided to have all 4 of them. Then, I was so sad because I have 4 best friends that I've been friends with for about 15 years, and was upset that they wouldn't be in our wedding. So now I have 8! FI laughs at how I went from 1 to 8; but then I remind him that it could have easily been 11 if I had his sisters in it too...lol! I think 8 is a lot for a DW, but I'd rather it look weird (to some people) than not have those closest to me in our wedding.

I've been having similar issues, having wanted just 4 but it just doesn't work out that way when you consider people's feelings, and so some folks have offered the idea of the bridesmaids walking down the aisle and then sitting, and just having your MOH and parents (and best man and inlaws) up there. I might do this. Also, b/c we'll probably have more bridesmaids than groomsmen, I may do some 2 gals to 1 guy pairings if the aisle is wide enough.

My question is though, do bridesmaids NEED bouquets? Are there other options?