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Secret Bridesmaid Duties
by Grace
If you’re lucky enough to be a bridesmaid, you’ve got a few formal duties that we’ve listed for you over at http://www.onewed.com/article/story/1488797 . But if you want to be a really good bridesmaid, you’d better get familiar with your secret duties. The bride in your life will love you forever.
Preparing for the wedding
•Deal with the crazy
Your friend, sister, or cousin is no longer the woman she once was, and she won’t be until the wedding is over. In most cases, this isn’t her fault. She’s got to arrange the biggest party of her life – during which she will be on display. And she’s being forced to care about things that she may not care about in real life, like flowers and who sits next to whom. That sort of thing can make any woman lose her mind a little bit, and your bride is probably no exception. So smile and nod when she flips out about cake toppers and know that this will pass.
•Keep your drama to a minimum.
She does love you and she does want to hear what’s going on in your life. But she is a big, diaphanous ball of stress right now, so pick and choose what you vent about. Major breakup? Yes. Spider in the bathtub or fight over who doesn’t replace the toner cartridge in the office copier machine? Maybe not.
The day of the wedding
•Be ready to drive the getaway car.
Not that it will come to that. But many a bride gets cold feet, even if it’s for just a moment. If that moment hits, she needs to be able to look into your eyes and know that if she said the word, you would hike her up through the window, commandeer a car, and speed her off to the airport without batting an eye. She won’t need you to actually do it; she just needs to know that you would. Then she can settle back down and go back to figuring out her bobby pins.
•Spot the craziest and/or most stress-inducing relatives.
Deflect these people from the bride at all costs. Get them drinks, flirt, or send them on important errands for items that may not exist. Whatever you have to. Just keep them out of the bride’s dressing area.
During the wedding
•Look great, but not too great.
People joke about it because it’s true. It’s her day. Keep your own sexy dialed down to a nine.
At the reception
•Help the bride get some.
Should the bride and groom desire to sneak up to their hotel room while that first flush of wedded bliss is still on, you are honor-bound to help them do that. You should also run interference with any boneheaded young men who think it’s hilarious to try to stop them from doing that very thing. Yes, you can leave them 4,000 wake-up calls later. Just not now. You should also think of a plausible story about where the bride and groom are when you get back to the reception. No, not too plausible. People understand. Just something to say other than “Bonking like there’s no tomorrow,” should Grandma Ruby happen to ask.
•Dance with the groomsmen.
Yes, this is your job. By all means, dance with the sexy groomsman as much as you want, but take at least one dance to let the unsexy groomsman feel like he’s quite the tasty number himself. It’s a fertility ritual. Everyone in the wedding party should feel sexy. Plus you’ll get points in heaven.
•Make out with someone.
Assuming you’re single, of course. And, yes, you want to be discreet about it – no macking in the middle of the dance floor or while the cake is being cut. You don’t have to go crazy. But it’s a wedding, and it is a fertility rite, and newlyweds like to feel like their own love was so powerful that it inspires the love of others. So if you find a likely candidate and a properly secluded corner, go for it.
After it’s all over
•Tell her the whole thing was perfect.
Over and over, as much as she needs. Even if the 4,000 butterflies they were going to release died in the Georgia heat and fell onto the pastor in one horrific clump or the whole wedding party ended up with salmonella poisoning or someone accidentally put on “Me So Horny” for the father-daughter dance, everything was just perfect. She needs the reassurance, even if the wedding really was perfect. And you’re not lying, even if it wasn’t. You’re talking about the wedding’s inner beauty. Admit that the wedding wasn’t perfect only if at least ten years have passed and if the bride admits it first. And then only if she’s laughing. Points in heaven. Trust me.
