What To Do When You Can't Afford To Be The Maid-Of-Honor

Being a bride's maid or matron of honor is a distinction many women cherish. But it doesn't come cheap.

It can easily cost a woman $1,000 or more for the honor of standing beside the bride on her big day, according to TheKnot.com, the leading wedding Web site.

On top of the traditional expenses of wedding attire, transportation and chipping in for a gift from the bridesmaids, maids of honor can wind up hosting bridal showers, bachelorette parties and even the co-ed Jack and Jill party -- often footing the bill entirely.

Expectations are reaching bridezilla proportions, a trend Anna Post, spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute and great-great-granddaughter of the etiquette authority, attributes in part to the extensive coverage of celebrity weddings on television and in style magazines.

Many bridesmaids are left torn between maintaining a friendship and breaking the bank.

Is all this necessary? Are brides asking too much of their friends?

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[dadw5boys]

Tell your girl friends the best you can do is a tank of gas and a trip to a Notary's office.

[marko77]

I can't believe the prices for these weddings!!!! You couldn't have thought up anything this weird while on LSD in the 60s. What drug are people taking these days to think in such an absurd manner?????

[dadw5boys]

The girls are telling DADDY if I do not get a big wedding I will never leave home!!!!!

[wm1066]

Has anyone seen the movie "A Catered Affair" with Betty Davis?
Same theme in that movie about Betty trying to give her daughter a perfect wedding that her bridesmaids can't afford.

[SonofLiberty1]

If I ever get married, and at 51 it seems doubtful, I won't pay for a horrendously huge wedding period.

Really, after all, it's just the first hours of the very first day of your marriage...why blow so darn much money?

It's just plain damn stupid...

Money doesn't grow on trees and you never know what is around the corner:(

[robXdion]

What limits will a woman go to just to have her ego stroked and be Queen for a day? Because that's what this is about. People break the bank for a wedding and divorce before they pay it off.

[wwja]

and people in the bridal industry laugh all the way to the bank.

[trinity]

With the divorce rate well over 50% these days...it's both comical and pathetic that these brides are breaking the backs of not only their parents (who are taking second mortgages out) but also their best friends. I hear stories all the time of the wedding that cost $50,000+ and then the divorce less than 5 years later. Meanwhile the parents are still paying off that debt.

[dadw5boys]

62 % now with the last reports from the courts 2006 numbers.

Funny the more Christian are around the high the divorce rate.

[Topfeeder]

Ugh, not a great time for me to see this article. My step-daughter and I aren't speaking over her insistence on breaking the bank on her 2nd wedding. She wants to sent out invitations to all the same folks she invited to her 1st wedding only 3 short years ago. Finally, after months of arguing, my husband and I contributed "our share" and told her good luck. She has not spoken since. We'll see if we get an invitation.

[mandycat]

I recently watched one of my favorite movies, "Father of the Bride" (the 1950's original with Spencer Tracy and a radiant young Elizabeth Taylor, not that wretched Steve Martin ripoff.) The Banks are portrayed as a prosperous, upper middle class suburban family. The wedding in question is regarded as rather elaborate. Dad compares it to a Roman spectacle.

Most young brides now would consider it one step up from an elopement. No bachlorette parties, in or out of town. No bridal showers. No rehearsal dinner. A reception at the home of the bride's parents. The guests get sandwiches, cake and champagne. The whole thing is planned and executed in about three months.

Ninety percent of what are now considered traditional wedding customs are crass money makers that the wedding industry has dreamed up over the last 30 years. The sooner couples stop the madness the better.