The A Team

Women today are successful. We have successful careers, relationships, homes. We are skilled mothers, travelers, friends, cooks, and—in a pinch—most of us could change a tire if we had to. And we do all of this looking beautifully put together.

Is it any wonder then that being a bridesmaid has become a bit more of an involved favor? We are very accomplished and capable at running our lives, and why on earth shouldn’t we give the bride our very best efforts when we’re asked to be her bridesmaid?

Case in point: two years ago, myself and two other bridesmaids were helping "our" bride choose our bridesmaid dresses. There were four websites we were considering dresses from, and at least forty options on the table. One busy afternoon at my desk I received an e-mail with an attachment. It was the dresses, organized in an Excel spreadsheet with columns for their website, style, color and yes, their average rating. There was room for each girl to place her vote on a scale of 0-3, with .5 increments allowed. It gets better. Shortly afterwards, I received another e-mail with an attachment. This one had a PowerPoint of the ten most popular dresses, each with their own page, showing a picture of the dress, its cut and color information, its good and bad points, and a hyperlink to its web page.

I felt a paradigm shift: no longer was I “bridesmaid: close friend of the bride”; now I was “bridesmaid: professional member of type A personality wedding team”. In fairness, I should mention that we had several restrictions of color and style given to us by The Mother Of The Bride, so the organization was needed at that point. But I’m glad that my sense of humor was still intact enough that I could get a good laugh out of the fact that what was once a fairly simple office to perform for a friend had turned into something requiring professional business skills to accomplish.

We did make our dress choice in the end, and looked lovely, if I do say so myself. Despite our best professional efforts to find something that could be worn again, mine did go the way of the charity bin, following in the floor-length teal footsteps of many bridesmaids dresses before it (dresses not chosen by PowerPoint, I might add).

My point: have we become so accomplished at running our lives that we are over thinking what in essence is a simple responsibility? Or have weddings become so over the top that being a bridesmaid is no longer a friendly favor, but a donation of professional skill?

Comments

[l schaub]

Is it a combination of two deadly elements: Superpowered women taking on the "event of a lifetime" launching us into a New Wedding World Order? Or are details of the old-style weddings and conduct forgotten and we compensate by replacing them with details and approaches (i.e. powerpoint! Excel!) of this era? Either way, it's a daunting proposition!

[Sara Blum]

What's next? Bridesmaid applications with check boxes for your particular skill set? Heaven forbid there are too many bridesmaids skilled in purchasing and not enough covering the hospitality area!

[Maggie]

I admit that I used the same level of "organization" to pick bridesmaids dresses, although I tried not to burden my bridesmaids quite as much. I did it more in the name of efficiency, because I was letting each 'maid pick out her own style of dress within the parameters of the designer, color and length. But, while I was creating a web page of all the possible style options, so I had an easy "menu" for the 'maids to choose from, I couldn't help but think, is this really necessary? But, in the end, each 'maid knew exactly which dresses she had to choose from [it also helped that I went with most of them to the bridal shop and had a print-out of said "menu" of dresses] and they all looked great. Their dresses will probably also make their way to a resale store, but I never tried to lie by saying "oh, you can totally wear this again!" It's a bridesmaids dress, what do you expect?

Planning my own wedding made me realize what a control freak I am. But if the use of technology (and a personal computer) can help with efficiency, why not? And I've been a bridesmaid enough time to appreciate being able to at least have some say in the dress I'm going to wear and spend over $150 on.

[KEP]

Speaking as the mother of the bride, I was impressed at the effort the bride went to to give her far flung bridesmaids a say in what they wore. Orgainzing the options in an Excel spreadsheet was very kind of her. She could have simply dragged them around with her until they found an option they liked. Or picked the dress with input from only one or two of them.

As the old-fashioned mother, my big concern was that their outfits not violate the expectations of us old folks by revealing far too much of their bodies in a church. Many bridesmaids seem to think they are dressing for a dance not a wedding.

As for throwing out the dress afterwards, that seems to be the norm from time immemorial. It is important for brides to remember that this is the likely outcome and not make it a financial hardship on their bridesmaids by thinking their expensive choice is going to be different from all the others.