4 reasons we had no wedding party: Why we skipped the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and everyone else

I see so much talk online about “Do I need a wedding party?” Or “Are bridesmaids necessary?” And then there's “What if my wedding party is uneven?” I'm here to say you can skip ALL THESE QUESTIONS, by having no attendants at all.

Here are four reasons why we decided to have no wedding party.

1. We didn't want to ask people for more

Since we had a destination wedding, we were already asking people to make complicated plans and travel a long damn way for us. It felt like it would be a dick move to make further demands on anyone.

No wedding party meant no additional details or demands for our guest. We wanted our guests to come to our wedding with no expectations other than having a damn fine time.

2. We didn't want to get hierarchical

Since we had a destination wedding, it was already a very small wedding. We invited all the people we are the very closest to — out of this group of really important people, we didn't want to them say that certain people were EVEN MORE important.

There's so much drama around who gets picked for wedding parties, hurt feelings around who's the maid of honor or best man. We didn't want to rank our people. We just wanted to celebrate with them.

3. We agreed: nothing that isn't fun!

Our mantra for planning the wedding was “Nothing that isn't fun.”

You know what's not fun? Buying an outfit you'll never wear again, and taking orders from somebody.

For similar reasons, we have no dress code! …apart from “don't wear something that'd cause anyone to call the cops.”

4. We were going for less hoopla

We didn't want a lot of the hoopla like showers, or big groups for dress shopping, or bachelor/ette parties, etc. Since we were skipping a lot of the pre-wedding events, we didn't really need designated hoopla handlers.