Wedding Blog
When Mr. Kiwi and I first got engaged, I was a little stumped as to who to ask to be Matron of Honor and Bridesmaids, since I have no actual female friends. The day after the engagement, Mr. Kiwi called his brother and asked him to be the Best Man, which I was wholeheartedly behind. That left me the dilemma of actually having to have at least a MOH, since I am all about matchy-matchy!
I tried in vain to tell Mr. Kiwi that we really didn’t need people to stand beside us, but he was adamant. So I set about trying to wrangle some friends. None of my guy friends would be my man of honor, darn them. My women choices were slim, for many reasons. I have no girlfriends. Well, none that I could ask to do such a high stress, involved task for me. I have no sisters. My sister-in-law lives in Australia with my brother, so that left cousins. My cousins are either busy with work and personal lives, children and married life, school and boyfriends. I can totally understand that, which is why I didn’t want to ask them.
So I thought of the only person crazy enough to do it, and who had plenty of time on her hands: Mr. Kiwi’s sister, Lena. She’s a stay at home mom to a preschooler and a kindergartner. She has plenty of time, and a lot of experience from her own wedding ten years ago. So I sent her a sweet little card from Paper Source asking her to be my Matron of Honor. She said yes, and that was that. FMIL tried to recruit Lena’s 5 year old daughter as our flower girl, but Mr. Kiwi told her that position was taken. Now to that little one…
Our flowergirl is my second cousin, M (don’t know if her mom wants us to use her name). Little M is the first child in my immediate family since I was born in 1979. She will be four when we get married, (for some reason I always think she’s totally older) and a few months younger than our ring bearer. We wanted her from the start because she is the cutest thing ever with curly blond hair and the cutest “Say Cheese” smile. M is so thoughtful, and I can’t wait to see her in an adorable no-frills dress for the wedding. I’m thinking of a wreath of flowers in her hair, and a little cardigan over the FG dress.
Mr. Kiwi’s nephew Spencer is our ring bearer. He is about two months older than M so they will be so cute in pictures together. He’s the cutest thing - such a smart little guy, if a little accident prone. As much as I’d love to see him in a little mini-tux, we’re just going to put him in a suit, since we’re kinda informal.
This is our wedding party. While it’s small, it’s full of people we love to death, and are so touched they can be a part of our day. My flowergirl’s mom reads this blog, and I’m hoping she remembers that we want M to be our little girl on our day!
How did you choose your wedding party? Were you agreed on it from the start?
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Share this post: Wedding for Party for Six
I like the idea of a small, intimate wedding party. Good call, Miss Kiwi!
Although my wedding is probably about five years off, I someone found myself discussing this with the boyfriend a few weeks ago. I really want one of my guy friends to be in the party, so I thought the best way to have that happen while staying matchy-matchy is to have the boyfriend choose one of his girl friends he’d like to have in his party. I love this idea. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it’s a little too untraditional for his side of the family…
We are really into matchy-matchy too…so we had to have an equal #.
Hubby knew he wanted slutty friend since childhood to be Best Man & Grungy friend since HS, big bro, and HS friend/college roomie to be best men (that’s 4 for him).
I knew I wanted my middle sis to be MOH, and my littlest sis and my cousing to be BMs. BUT I also had some friends to consider. (So far I am at 3). The problem I ran into is that I have 3 very good friends and the 4 of us are all dear friends since 1st year of college…so I couldn’t do just 1 or 2 of them. It HAD to be all 3. So here I am now at 6…which is fine. Except hubby still only has 4 and that does not match.
So hubby recruits his BIL and nephew (who is a little young, but close to hubby so he is SO honored and he is somewhat near the age of my littlest sister).
Now to FG/RB…we may have 2 of his nieces be FGs, not sure. The RB might be my cousin who is 7, still not sure there either.
So now we are one happy huge bridal party with 6 on each side and a few little rugrats.
We had talked about our wedding party since before we were even engaged! Like you, I don’t have that many female friends (I grew up with 4 brothers, so it’s only natural that I feel more comfortable with guys), so I had to limit my FI to how many guys he could have. We decided on 4 attendants each.
My MOH is a very dear friend that I met in high school. We lived together our freshman year of college, then drifted apart, drifted back together, were planning on transferring schools and living together again, she changed her plans, and then we drifted apart again. But over the last year, she has become the best girlfriend I have ever had. She is always there for me and always willing to listen. I have the best time with her! When I got engaged, I couldn’t imagine getting married without her by my side. My other three bridesmaids are another friend from my first college, my current roommate, and my FI’s sister.
My FI’s best man is his best friend (and one of my close friends now, as well). His other three groomsmen (all fraternity brothers) are 2 friends from his hometown and one friend that he met in college, who happens to be one of my closest friends since kindergarten and the reason we met. 
We have two flowergirls, my niece and his cousin, and one ringbearer, also his cousin.
I’m into matching, but if we were to get married right now, Andrew would probably just have one guy MAYBE two up there with him, whereas I would have the MOH, 2 BMs, and a Junior BM. I’ve had my wedding party picked out since we started talking about marriage, and I know it’s what I want…and will always be happy with. My MOH is my oldest friend, Felicia. When we were younger, we made a pact to be each other’s MOH, and she’s getting married in 2008, and guess who her MOH is? Of course, me! And I definately want her to be mine. Then, my BMs are my little cousin, who’ll be 18 or 19 by then (she’s 15 now), and one of my other closest friends. The junior BM will be my other little cousin, who’ll be about 13 or 14 by that time. She’d be too old to be a flower girl, so a Junior BM works out well.
As for flower girls and ring bearers? We most likely won’t have them.
I’m glad you were able to make your bridesmaids and maid-of-honor work out…
but dear god, how do you not have any girlfriends? I hate when people say that girls are backstabbing b*tches.. because only some are.. there are a lot of good / nice girls to befriend.. i find it hard to believe that girls just don’t get along with other girls for the most part…
I have 2 bridesmaids..my good friend from college and another one from my job. I decided not to have a MOH (altho I’d really love my sister to take that place, but she’s already married). FI’s side I think he is asking two of his childhood friends. But the real kicker is my newly adopted 16 nieces and nephews ranging from 16 to 1 years old who will play some part in the wedding. I think I am more excited to see them all walk down the aisle then myself. It’s going to be so cute!
Sounds like you are having just the right size wedding party.
We were even smaller. I suppose when you’re practically the last of your single gal-friends to get married, and the ones that are still single would probably not want to be bridesmaids, then the choice is easy. We didn’t have any MOH/bridesmaids or best man/ushers. And this felt very right given our circumstances. So we asked our parents to walk each of us to the marriage circle/altar area, which worked our perfectly.
Stay true to what you both want for your wedding!
I’m glad that things worked out for your bridal party. But I’m w/ tav on this one in wondering how it is that you have no girlfriends….
Hey gals! Well, to answer tav and spk’s question: I have a few girlfriends, people who I talk to every now and then, but they’re all busy with their lives right now, finishing school, touring Iraq with her band, so we’ve all kinda moved away from each other in a way. It’s not that I dislike women, on the contrary! Sometimes I get sick of the glimpses at my boobs when they think I’m not looking. Having guy friends are just different, I don’t have to care how I look with them, since I’m taken and they don’t care. I love being able to tell them when a girl likes them because they don’t know. I have one girl friend who I talk to daily, but she isn’t a typical friend, she’s someone I met via online but despite how well we get along online, we’re not at that level. If she didn’t live in a different state, I’m sure she’d be a bridesmaid, though, she’s that great. And to be honest, I had a best friend I grew up with, preschool to college. We had a falling out regarding her future husband (and it was all my fault, I have no illusions about that), and I was dropped from her wedding. It’s the one thing I regret more than anything in this world, but it’s something I can’t go back and change, no matter how badly I wish I could.
So now, years later, no one really compares to Natalie. She was like a sister to me, and I just can’t find anyone yet who means as much to me. It’s silly, mourning a friendship that ended years ago, but I swear, I haven’t found that one person to fill the empty space left by her. When I do, I’ll have a best friend again, but until then, I’m okay with just my guys.
i too don’t have any really close girl friends who i would immediately think of for BMs, nor do i really think i would be asked to be any of their BMs. i’ve never been super-good about opening up to anyone other than my boyfriend. and though marriage is a LONG way off, i’ve always wondered what our bridal party would be.
The ladies that I mentioned in my above comment are about my ONLY girl friends….
Some girls just DO get along better with the guys. Most of the women around this area, I’ve known since I was in High School, which was NOT a pleasant experience, so I have no desire to associate with them. I think that it’s also because it was mostly the girls that teased me in school, and made my life HELL, that it’s hard for me personally to get close to girls.
We knew our best man and maid of honor right away, as we each picked our younger sibling for that. The others were a bit harder for me as I’ve moved a couple of times since high school and so have my friends, so it’s been difficult to keep up long-term close friendships. I talked to a friend who had recently moved to across country and made sure that it wouldn’t be a burden on her, and then FH said he really wanted 3 people on his side, and wanted them to match (I didn’t care). So I talked to another friend that I’d been thinking about and here we are.
We didn’t want any children in the wedding party, although they are totally welcome at the wedding itself.
I’m also all about matchy-matchy! The best man and maid of honor positions were easy - I have one sister (naturally, my maid of honor) and Sam has one brother (naturally, his best man). We wanted to keep it small and when we started talking about bridesmaids and groomsmen it turned into a long list of people we kept adding just to keep it “even” on both sides. So instead we opted to have a few friends perform readings in our ceremony. This let them know how important they are to us, but kept us true to our small wedding party plan.
We’re only having a best man and a MOH - his bro and my BFF. For us, it was less about being matchy than letting the wedding party reflect the size and formality wedding. I could have thought of 5 or 6 BMs, but somehow that didn’t flow with a 60ish person wedding! I’m sure as it gets closer that we’ll ask our friends to participate in other ways, though, like readings.
I’ve always thought that you should have whomever is important to you standing with you to support you on your wedding day. For me it is my sister as my MOH, my best friend from high school, my best friend from jr. high, and my brother- 4 people in all. For my FI it is three of his friends and I said he had to include his two younger sisters- five in all. So we don’t match numbers wise and we have different genders on both sides. I was a nanny for awhile so we have 5 kids in the wedding. Although the oldest is 9 so I might make her a jr. bridesmaids. Either way it’s practically a preschool class coming down the aisle. I wanted to chose the most natural people for the postions without worrying about having to choose one to make it even. It’s our wedding day not a photo shoot. My FI would have had like 10 groomsmen though if I didn’t draw the line.
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Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
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