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Soon, you will be introduced to my beautiful bridesmaids. For right now, I want to talk about what to do if your closest and finest happen to live in a different city, state, or country (you bold, bold bride, you!) than you do. That can set up some serious challenges!
Image via Manolo for the Brides / Photography by Steven Meyers Photography
Regarding OOT (out-of-town) bridesmaids:
1. Be flexible – Choosing OOT bridesmaids means they may have to miss some of your pre-wedding festivities. Decide whether or not that it something you can handle.
2. Set dates in advance – Try to arrange meetings when one happens to make a visit into town so they don’t have to make extra unnecessary trips.
3. Go to them – The perk of having an OOT bridesmaid? An excuse to get out of town for the weekend and have some girl time in another city. Yes, please!
4. Get creative – Having OOT bridesmaids forces you to think outside the box to make the bridal-party components come together nicely. Don’t be afraid to try something new and out of the ordinary!
Image via Bespoke Letterpress Boutique / Photographed by Sugar Love Weddings
Swoon. Who else loves, loves, loves this picture?!
All of our bridesmaids made it to our engagement party, and we had a little meeting during the weekend to talk about dresses, dates, etc. And that, my friends, will be the last time we’ll probably all be together before the wedding.
Did/will your bridesmaids live out of town? How did/will you make it work?
I live in Texas too!… only one of my four bridesmaids lives here though. My MOH is in Los Angeles and my other two are in Big Fork, Montana, and Southampton, UK, respectively. Yes, one out of country! (our wedding is in the UK where my fiance is from)
it’s been tough being apart from my girls during the planning, but I’m blessed with a MOH who is a planner extraordinaire. seriously, she could have planned the royal wedding, no joke.
the other girls have been a little disconnected as far as detailed planning goes, but i love em so what can you do? haha.
my girls never even got that first “we’re-all-in-the-same-place-for-once” thing that you got at your engagement party…. they’ve never all been in the same place since we got engaged… in fact maybe never haha. you can do it! you just have to be diligent with phone calls and emails. and follow up with your bmaids if you have any like i do who are just a little forgetful 
I have one bridesmaid who lives out of town. Its really not a big deal, however, since I am letting my bridesmaids pick their own dresses. I will be sad that she can’t attend the little get-togethers I have planned for my bridesmaids, but the most important thing for me is that she stand up with my on my wedding day!
My MOH is my only BM and she lives 4 hours away from me, across the state. We have bi-weekly planning phone calls, as I’m also going to be a BM in her wedding in 2012. Also, my wedding is taking place halfway between us, in my hometown, but we do LOTS of work by phone and email. We did my dress shopping when she came to town for a visit, and when we do the bridal shower we’ll go over some other stuff as well.
only one of my BMs lives in New York with me, but it hasn’t been a big deal because we did J.Crew dresses, and I’ve been telling them all along they do NOT need to travel for all of the pre-wedding events! the one time we’ll all be together is the bachelorette party, which will be the most fun! =)
My MOH lives out of town, and it can make things difficult. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way!
I also have to say that I LOVE the first picture in this post! I am leaning towards the BMs wearing boots.
I have two BMs out of state, one in medical rounds (so super busy), and one in town. Two of them are also getting married this summer, so they understand why its so hard to get together. We do a lot of facebook messaging and emailing.
In LOVE with both of the pictures, have had both saved forrrreverrrr! I have two out of town bm’s…and I’m a BM in one of thier weddings this fall so we understand the additional difficulty without OOT bm’s.
ALL of my gals live out of town!! My fault - I up and moved to GA and then got engaged, leaving everyone near and dear to me up in NY/NJ. I’m sure some things (like dresses) will be more of a struggle, but lucky for my ladies I don’t expect too much out of them! I also have an amazing MOH (my sis) and mom who have been so helpful with planning our NY wedding.
All of my attendants (3 female, 1 male) are out of town… Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. I’m in California. 
Some of them haven’t met each other before, some have met once 15 years ago.
I don’t care. They’re my closest friends and them being OOT never entered into my head for whether or not to include them.
I actively want to avoid some of the traditional pre-wedding activities, so that checks out. Mostly I’m trying to make things as simple as possible for them. And when I do manage to be in town with them, we go dress-shopping. It’ll sort itself out. They like to hear wedding news (when there is any, ours is a very long engagement) and the internet is a wonderful thing for sharing photos.
Half of my bridesmaids live OOT. I’m sad that they won’t be able to be here for everything, but I plan to do special things with them as soon as they get in town. I’m holding off on my bridesmaids luncheon until a couple days before the wedding so they can be here for it. And we are all going to stay together the night before the wedding.
We have a facebook thread going so we can all chat with each other. I also text or talk to them all on the phone regularly. Once I get enough details ironed out I send an update to everyone via our facebook message.
Dress shopping is proving to be the most difficult thing. It’s just taking more time because each one of them has to go to a salon in their area and find the dress I want them to try on. So instead of knowing in one day if it fits everyone correctly it takes a couple of weeks. It’s actually starting to make me think about having them pick their own dresses in the color scheme I want.
Originally I had planned to have all 3 of my bridesmaids be from out of country. (Originally from the US, but now living and getting married in Australia.) Unfortunately 2 weren’t able to make it for financial reasons, so now I have 2 locals and 1 OOC. For some reason the idea of having 3 OOC bridesmaids was much less stressful than having 1 OOC (who is also my MOH) and 2 locals.
I live in NYC getting married in So California. My MOH is in central California, two bridesmaids are in NYC, thank goodness, one is traveling with a show in Japan, and my last girl is traveling in India! Talk about long distance! I’m not to worried. I’m going to chose dresses they can order online, and I’m going to have a NY and California shower. As long as they are all their the day of, I will be a happy bride
mine are sprinkled near and far, so these are great pieces of advice!
Thank you for posting this! My bridesmaids are all over the country and none of them have met each other. I sometimes feel like I missed out on some wedding planning fun with my girls (for example, only my mother and FMIL were able to come with me dress shopping) but it’s more important to me to have the girls I love standing by me in support at my wedding than to have them be super involved in the process.
One bridesmaid lives in Massachusetts, one lives in Georgia, one lives Oklahoma, one lives in Florida, and only 1 lives here locally with me
3 out of 4 of my BMs were out of town and I couldn’t thank them enough for traveling to try on dresses one weekend, and my shower/bach party another weekend… and then of course for the wedding. I am an out of town BM for my friend’s wedding in August and it’s tough, but you find a way to make it work.
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Mrs. High Wire, Dallas Age and Occupation: 23, Legal Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Director of Communications Engagement Date: October 9, 2010 Wedding Date: September 2011 Venue: Clark Gardens About Me: My loves include yoga, anything spicy, our eccentric cat, our rambunctious dog, and Mr. High Wire, of course! Like the steadiness act of the tightrope walker, this gal is busy balancing life while planning a wedding to the man of her dreams. We’re hosting a laid-back, vintage-inspired, bird themed wedding with heavy doses of love, good eats (did someone say tacos and margaritas?), and endless Texas charm. Mr. High Wire and I are so happy to have you along for the walk across the tight rope.
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