Advice to Brides from a MOH

I wonder why some brides are trying to reinstate slavery. I know it is an emotional time and they want everything to be just perfect (I know I do), but treating people like crap ain't cute or necessary. I would like to give your friend the benefit of the doubt that she doesn't know any better, but with all the examples you listed, I really can't see how that can possibly be. (((( HUGS )))))

To answer the question, yes me and ONE other bridesmaid came back... all the other smart ones left too early for them to ask and were smart enough to ignore the texts the following day. I even enlisted my fiance (not in the wedding party) to come help ME.

Ohhh and I was there at the wedding the night of later than most people... why you ask? CLEANING UP!!!! I was honestly so shocked that I can't believe I agreed to come the next day. I thought about it a bit and like the people who's house we used and decided to go clean up for them instead.

Trust me, nice no more, she's going to come back from her honeymoon to a giant email from me.

The Vegas Bachelorette party - I did actually make goodie bags for all the girls and had stickers made for the bride as well as a custom tank top oh and custom shot glasses. I put flip flops in there to stuff in our purses for when our feet hurt... walking directions to the nearest starbucks, water bottles, engraved wristbands, wooden spankers etc.

It was a fabulous time all parties I threw people raved about... except the person I threw them for.

Ugh- I've been to a few weddings like this and was not even in the bridal party. My cousin's wedding, we (our huge extended family) were asked to make the food, serve it and clean up. WTF? We aren't caterers. When we all showed up to the ceremony they even asked us to set up chairs. I was floored. Then at the reception we got to serve the bride's family as they sat and watched us all work like dogs in the kitchen and left without helping us clean up. I was beyond pissed!

At another friend's wedding, they asked people to pick up their ceremony chair and pack it up this grassy hill to use during the reception. I couldn't help but laugh. And since my DH was in the wedding party, I had to stay afterwards to help clean up. Ugh! So I def know what you are talking about. I get it- people have budgets, but don't have a wedding you can't afford!!

Is your BF going to your wedding? Hopefully your wedding will teach her about class and how to treat people!

I'm about to keep it VERY real with this. Some of this, I agree...at worst was really tacky. But some of it, I feel like you are ...well, over shooting your importance or how much sway your opinion should hold over someone else's wedding. Again, some stuff..def tacky...to the nth degree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KittenHeart This may come off as a bit of a vent... but I wanted to give you ladies perspective from a MOH and how to keep the wedding/bridal party happy (we know, we know it's all about you) but at least don't anger everyone   I was MOH in my best friends wedding over the weekend, it wasn't a DW, it was local.   #1 - don't be EXTREMELY cheap (there's nothing wrong with a budget but be sensible too) One person's cheap is another person's "what I can afford". Without knowing this girl and her situation, I don't know how many of us can actually make a judgement call on a lot of this.   Each bridesmaid including myself was asked to pay for the hideous pink sash she made us wear which was $16.25... I even politely tried to get her to realize that it was ridiculous she was asking me to collect this money from everyone... she didn't get it, so I dropped it and collected the change. (I wouldn't have thrown hints; I would have simply said, I'm not comfortable with this" if I though it was ooooh so cheap. Depending on how many BM's she had and just how broke SHE may have been at this point in the whole shindig, things add up. When you agree to be a BM and do so knowing that you are responsible for the cost of your attire...you are responsible for the cost of your attire. ABSOLUTELY, it's nice and completely within etiquette to throw your girls a bone WHEREVER you can...but to dog her for this, I'm not so sure about.   I threw her a Bridal Shower on short notice (1 week) because her family was complaining about there being no bridal shower. The bride told me she wanted a HUGE blowout in Vegas, a weekend with 9 girls and her having fun and she DIDN'T want a bridal shower. Once I came to her letting her know that her mother was up my a** about this Bridal Shower she backed up and didn't speak up letting them know she didn't want one. Then complained that no one got her anything for it off the registry telling another bridesmaid this (I just found out) even though EVERYONE bought her gifts for the Naughty and Nice shower I through. Then she didn't send ANYONE thank you cards or emails. TRULY bad etiquette and tacky of her not to send thank you notes. The rest? Sounds like someone who wanted to pick her battles, and who knows? Maybe she changed her mind and did want a shower. How she handles her mom, while it may not be the RIGHT thing to do isn't necessarily anybody's call but hers. You didn't have to do it..you could have simply said "Hey, ___ has told me repeatedly that she doesn't want a shower. Talk to her, if she has changed her mind, we will SEE what we can do at this late notice." Two weeks later was the Bachelorette party that cost $3k total... she hardly spent anytime with ME. Whatever... Unless there was a locked and loaded weapon to your head, I'm not seeing how this is her fault. Again, tacky..in the extreme to dis her MOH at the shower you threw for her. However..with that being said, HOW MUCH you CHOSE to spend on said shower was entirely up to you. You can blame her for her treatment of you..but not for the expense. The thing about gift giving is that you shouldn't do it if you can't afford to. And this? Was a gift. Hell, I WANT a weekend in Bermuda, child free, with some oiled up cabana boys attending my every need as my bachelorette...nobody will be giving me one.   I told her after this Vegas Bachelorette that I had to cancel my hair appt. (that's how broke I was) and I could do it beforehand and meet her at the salon. She tells me to come and do it myself at the salon... thanks for not ponying up $50 to help me out... which is fine, she doesn't need to. If it was fine, why vent about it? It doesn't sound fine to me..sounds like you are angry about it. I'm not even sure I can call this tacky....again, not without knowing what HER bank account was looking like at that point. Did she realize how much expense you went to for her bachelorette? If so, yea..tacky.   Friday was her rehersal dinner... which was pizza and beer. Neither of which is on most of our diets. Fine... whatever. So...now she's responsible for tailoring her rehearsal dinner to fit...dieting? For who? And where does it stop? Should there have been a full on selection for those who WERE NOT dieting? Sounds like this girl is kinda broke herself, which is certainly something many of us can identify with. This seems petty to me.   She then gives us our bridesmaids gifts which was an empty frame (cheap) saying picture coming soon and a pen she got for free from her grandpa's company. Everyone got the same thing including me. Yea..this is pretty cheap. Again, wondering what this girl's budget/finances are. If she didn't have much to spend, can't really blame her. If she's rollin' knee deep in green, then yes, this was quite tacky. Wedding day - went well, went off without a hitch... until we were taking photos and noticed that all 120 guests were eating dinner. By time we sat down (it was a buffet) the food was cold and there was hardly any left and none left of some of the items. My fiance who attended said that there were these terrific stuffed mushrooms but literally about 50 of them... for 120 people.   Bad planning and execution on the part of..whomever. Most problems that happen during weddings, happen during the RECEPTION. Food shortages, equipment failures. Things can be planned better, but you can't cover every eventuality.   I had 3 minutes after I sat down to eat and read my speech... no one warned me about this. Again, an execution problem. But unlike the one above, chances are really good that this one just...happened. No one's fault, just a series of events that lead to a shortage of time. Someone didn't do something they should have early enough, or something else ran over....nobody's fault.   It was a karaoke wedding... the BM's and me had been practicing secretly her favorite Beatles song to sing as a dedication to her. She stood there and watched the whole thing then walked away after we were done...!!! No hug, no thank you... walked away!!! Tacky and ungrateful. Plain and simple. Very.   Fine, dancing, good times, didn't see her most of the night, fine.   11pm, I'm exhausted by now, about to leave and the Groom asks me to come tomorrow (the wedding was at his bosses house in their giant backyard) and help clean up... WTF!?!?!?!?! They asked the wedding party to janitor this f-ing wedding... I'm SO livid I can't even express it. This whole thing has left me with such a bad taste in my mouth I can't even believe it. I spent the entire night before my friends wedding a month ago, cleaning the sanctuary. I mean that, literally. We had rehearsal at 5 p.m., I didn't get home til after midnight. This fell under the heading of bridesmaid to me. When I agree to participate in a friend's wedding and hold this position of honor, I do so willing to do whatever it takes to be there for her during the process. When I know I don't have the time, or feel whoever is asking isn't deserving of that time and commitment, I say no. Period. There were six of us girls, and all six of us put our back's into decorating and cleaning that night. And I didn't even think about complaining, nor did I hear a single complaint, even though to MY way of thinking, all of that sh*t should have been done already. Not my call and it wasn't..so I helped. What her hubby did in your case..tacky, yea. But..thats about it. After the way she treated you, I simply wouldn't have done it.   CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP. I would have let everything slide if they hadn't asked me to be a janitor yesterday... that set me over the edge.   I just wanted all you brides to understand we are willing to go out of our way and help but PLEASE, I beg of you don't take advantage of the wedding party and please thank them... for everything, even if it's just verbal or a nice email. That's free and very much appreciated. Absolutely agree with this. You have the right to expect better.   Thanks for listening

BillysBride -

I definitely agree with most your arguements against me, it's not a SUPER huge deal and keep in mind I haven't complained to her or her husband ONCE. The cleaning up after the wedding AND the next day was too much for me and it sent me over the edge.

I think the sashes, and the shower and bachelorette, of course, I had more control over these and I could have thrown them much more inexpensively than I did. She did know the cost however.

I wouldn't have written this vent AT ALL if it hadn't been for the clean-up part, seriously I would have taken this all as wedding help stuff and the 8 months we spent planning her wedding and me helping her out I've been fine.

Like I said in the beginning, a budget, an inexpensive wedding, no frills wedding isn't a problem. Extremely cheap is tacky and no thanks or grattitude was my issue.

Trust me I know, my wedding is next year so this just really put things in perspective for me as a bride. The people coming to my DW and in my wedding party are my favorite people in the world, I would NEVER want any of them to feel taken advantage of or NOT appreciated ever.

That was my point I hope I didn't offend anyone because that definitely wasn't the purpose.

Savannah- I somewhat see where you are coming from. As bridal party, sometimes you just suck it up and do it because it's your friend. Of course, you also have an alternative to not accept a bridal party position if you feel it's too much money or too time consuming.

However, I would say that when a friend asks you to be in their bridal party they haven't really determined their budget for the wedding. From my experience, the first thing a bride does is call friends to gush about being engaged then ask those closest to her to be in the bridal party. It's fun and exciting and you want to share the joy with your friends ASAP. Usually it's all happy rainbows at this point.

But then reality sets in- maybe the bride will need her BMs to do a lot of manual labor because their budget isn't really there. I think that should be communicated from the start because I'm not a manual labor person. Therefore, I made certain that no one had to lift a finger for my wedding- myself included! Unfortunately, these expectations aren't always laid out from the get go. I'd like to give some brides the benefit of the doubt and say they didn't know they would have to ask those closest to them to do a lot of work because they didn't know weddings were so expensive. So what's a girl to do if they find out their friend wants them to basically be a work horse for their wedding? Back out in the final months? That's not cool either.

Sometimes being a bridal party you can find yourself stuck in a hard spot. I've learned my lesson though- I'm not going to be involved in anymore weddings unless it's my sister's. I didn't really like the planning and work from my OWN wedding so I def don't really want to do it for anyone else- sister excluded.

Kitten- hun I definitely wasn't arguing against you! I hope it didn't come off that way. I just wanted to offer an alternative point of view based on my own experiences as a BM through the years and as someone on the outside looking in. You TOTALLY have a right to be angry with the way you were treated; bridal party does not equate to free, unlimited identured servitude. lol And for her to show no appreciation toward you ladies, especially you as MOH is absolutely appalling.

Rachel- I think that as individuals, ofcourse we bring our own...sense of what's appropriate into the entire thing when asked. I would never expect someone to give me a head's up on how much manual labor was expected of me before giving them my answer. The idea of that makes me really uncomfortable and I think I might even be offended if a friend of mine pointed it out before asking me. My thought being "hey, you're my girl and you think I just wanna look pretty in a dress and won't help out?" I know thats not the intention-it's just something that would come to mind.

It's ALL completely up to individual interpretation. What I feel comfy asking my girls to do isn't going to be the same as what THEY might feel comfy with. Personally, mine won't have to do anything-not even throw me a shower, unless it's something they take upon themselves. All I'm asking for is their attendance but that's just me. Even if I had it at home..I wouldn't ask them to do anything because thankfully, I've got enough family to handle anything that we couldn't afford to have professionally taken care of. I don't consider helping out with clean up/set up being a work horse. ABSOLUTELY there are different levels of what is probably uniformly considered ok to ask of a wedding party. This is just me. It doesn't always or even usually happen. Most of the time, the wedding parties I've been involved in treated us BM's as extended royalty the entire time. lol

Thankfully no Morgan. But then again, I'm not exactly close with a ton of girls so I don't think I will have to be in any more weddings, except for my sisters.

Honestly, I think I'm just jaded by the whole wedding thing because I have a huge family and every single one I have been to they expect me to work. I have only been to a few weddings were I could just be a guest and not do a damn thing. It's an entirely different experience to say the least.

I get what you are saying though Savannah. I just think sometimes bridal parties get to bare more work than they should because of "traditional" thoughts of what's expected. I guess I really meant to say that if you want to help out with someone's wedding and put a lot of time and money into it because you WANT to then by all means do. I just don't think it should be expected- even if you are bridal party. Not everyone has a lot of time and a lot of money to contribute. So if you are in the latter, you get stuck in a hard place. Do you decline or do you look like the BM that all the girls on the forum complain about KWIM?