Posted by
On my side of the wedding party, I'll be having both bridesmaids and bridesmen. I am not sure how much of the wedding planning to include them in and what events they should/would want to attend. Should I have them come to the bridal shower which, in the past, has been a traditionally a female-centered event? They will attend whatever I ask, but I am not sure where to draw the line.– MK
Alternative and gender-neutral wedding party names: adventure party, bridesmates, henchmen, and TONS more!
With the rising popularity of gender-blind wedding parties, and weddings without bridal parties, we need terms beyond "bridesmaids" and "groomsmen" to refer to the people... Read more
With more and more wedding parties going the way of the coed, it's becoming pretty common and no big deal to see men on the bride's side, especially around these parts. Sometimes couples even have a shared wedding party, especially if they have a ton of shared friends. The point is, there are no set rules for gender-blind wedding parties as long as you're honoring the feelings of your friends. Let's talk about asking dudes to join you at your pre-wedding parties and planning events.
Our advice is pretty simple: if they'd enjoy helping and being a part of the celebrations, invite them. Trust us, nobody should be balking at bridesdudes crashing the traditionally lady-filled parties.
If they're not interested in (or would feel awkward at) the pre-wedding parties, you can absolutely tell them they don't have to attend with no hard feelings. Sometimes wedding party members are more ceremonial than practical in their roles, and that's totally cool.
But really, if they're part of your select crew, they'll likely want to be a part of the fun and know that they'll need to step up when it counts. Hell, if they'd be more comfortable attending your partner's parties, toss them an invite to those instead. Seriously, anything goes here.
Consider having a quick chat with each bridesman to give them the run-down of the events and seeing to which they'd like an invite and act accordingly. If they're rad at DIY, they may want an invite to craft nights. If they're partiers who can hang with the chicks, your bachelorette party could be their thing. Just do a little party to due match-up and you're set. Then be sure to send us photos of the fun!
A ton more coed wedding party advice here:
Do YOU have any tips for inviting bridesmen to your pre-wedding parties? Share in the comments!
About the Author: Catherine Clark
Catherine Clark loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur babies, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com.
This conundrum was easy for me for two reasons: 1, my bridesman was my only attendant who doesn’t live locally and 2, I didn’t have very many pre-wedding events. But, I invited him to everything I did have because he was part of my group and I wanted him to feel included even if he couldn’t attend due to distance. So my advice would be to invite the bridesmen to everything but make sure they know they’re under no obligation to attend.
One other thing though. I don’t think anyone in the wedding party should be treated differently. For example, I don’t think it would be cool to say “It’s okay bridesman, you don’t have to come to the shower” and then turn around and say “What bridesmaid? You have a conflict on my shower date? Rawwwr!!” That’s not cool. With mine I invited all four to everything and let them make up their own minds about whether they wanted to attend.
My suggestion would be to invite them to everything but let them know it’s okay if they want to opt out.
For me, it was pretty easy because I had only bridesmen — no bridesmaids. In fact, our entire wedding party was a sausage fest. I made sure that all my guys were invited to the bridal shower my mother-in-law threw for me (and, indeed, they were the only reason I maintained my sanity through the whole thing). My “bachelorette party” was a mixed-gender affair which consisted of brunch followed by a rousing game of 7th Sea. And, finally, we had the entire wedding party join us two days before the wedding for an evening of chocolate fondue and vintage porto.
I didn’t have any of them come dress shopping with me. I’d invited my man of honor but he was unavailable, so I wound up going with my mother and mother-in-law, and honestly that was enough. 🙂
Thank you for this. I haven’t told any of them besides my essentially de-facto maid of honor, but with the exception of her my bridal party (or bridesguard) will be otherwise all men. My d&d party, specifically. Thanks to your mention of 7th Sea the idea to play a D&D one-shot for my party is actually very tempting. Far down the line in planning things, however.
Point is, thank you. I don’t personally know anyone who’s had more than one bridesman among their bridal party, so I feel like I’m wandering into uncharted territory with my group of mostly men. It’s really good to hear from someone who did (virtually) the same thing and how it went for you.
All of my side of the wedding party live out of state, but my bridesman is the only one that lives too far away to drive and too far away for cheap plane tickets. So as much as I’d love for him to be involved in pre-wedding events, he can’t go. Honestly, I’ve pretty much been doing all pre-wedding events by myself because of this, so its not really something I’m holding against him. Him and my maid of honor were able to make it out for a couple days a few months ago so we took that as an opportunity to go wine and beer tasting, which is his thing. Its not something I’d usually do (I don’t really drink wine and when I do its usually out of a box lol), but I wanted to make sure we did a pre-wedding event that he could attend and would enjoy, and since wine-tasting needs no advance planning (it was a last minute trip out here) it was perfect. He has also been helping me design my invites and wedding signage because he’s a graphic designer, so we skype every couple weeks to go over everything. That’s really helped make sure he feels like he’s as involved as he should be. I’m even thinking about having him on skype at the batchlorette since he won’t be able to fly out for it.
We had two bridesmaids and a bridesman, two groomsmen and a groomswoman.
I didn’t have a shower, or take anyone dress shopping. (I actually knew from the start I wanted a custom dress, so I never set foot in a boutique at all. My fiancé was the only one accompanying me to meetings with my seamstress.)
We had a combination bachelor / bachelorette party, a bonfire hosted by our groomswoman, with a coed guest list. Unfortunately, none of my bridespeople were able to attend, as they were all from out of state.
We gave our bridesman and groomswoman the option of whether they’d prefer to get ready with the guys or the girls. Bridesman chose to stay with me and the girls (which I expected; we all lived together in college) and groomsgirl chose to go with the boys (I had no idea which she’d prefer / be more comfortable with).
Ooh, I hadn’t thought about where they should get ready! I’ll have my brother as one of my three bridespeople, so it’s really interesting to hear about how other people have done things.