When to ask bridesmaids to be in your wedding? (Half aren't local !)

tiff0521

Hello knottie darlings!

I am fairly recently engaged and having a semi long engagement (21 months). I am torn about when to formally ask my friends to be my bridesmaids and MOH. I totally see the merit in waiting, especially with a longer engagement just in case any relationships or priorities change (which thankfully I am not too particularly worried about) but since I had some lovely personalized gift and DIY ideas for them, I don't want to wait too long.

Even more important than just being excited to put together a little gift bundle for my girls and officially have them as part of the wedding, I want to make sure I give them enough notice since several of the girls aren't local (I am in Maryland and 3 of my closest friends live in Boston, NYC, and NOLA) and I want them to be able to plan for and attend as much of the fun and/or important stuff as possible and not feel like they have to take out a loan to pay for travel/hotels/favors/etc. on top of a bridesmaid dress OR feel bad if they have to decline for certain events because of budgetary or time constraints.

Any guidance or advice is greatly appreciated ! This is my first post on the forums here so someone please respond haha

xo, tiff

artbyallie

tiff0521 said:

Hello knottie darlings!

I am fairly recently engaged and having a semi long engagement (21 months). I am torn about when to formally ask my friends to be my bridesmaids and MOH. I totally see the merit in waiting, especially with a longer engagement just in case any relationships or priorities change (which thankfully I am not too particularly worried about) but since I had some lovely personalized gift and DIY ideas for them, I don't want to wait too long.

Even more important than just being excited to put together a little gift bundle for my girls and officially have them as part of the wedding, I want to make sure I give them enough notice since several of the girls aren't local (I am in Maryland and 3 of my closest friends live in Boston, NYC, and NOLA) and I want them to be able to plan for and attend as much of the fun and/or important stuff as possible and not feel like they have to take out a loan to pay for travel/hotels/favors/etc. on top of a bridesmaid dress OR feel bad if they have to decline for certain events because of budgetary or time constraints.

Any guidance or advice is greatly appreciated ! This is my first post on the forums here so someone please respond haha

xo, tiff

What do you mean by the bolded?

As far as their budget/schedule, presumably they know you're engaged and are therefore expecting to be invited to your wedding. You will need to ask their individual budgets for a bridesmaid dress when it comes to that point, but you should definitely wait until you're under a year out from the wedding and 6-9 months should be plenty of time. And certainly they shouldn't feel bad for having to decline any pre-wedding events due to budget. It happens. Only my maid of honor attended even one of my two showers. And my mom specifically planned my b-party (which was super laidback and at home) for the day before the rehearsal to make it easier for all to attend.

tiff0521

artbyallie said:

tiff0521 said:

Hello knottie darlings!

I am fairly recently engaged and having a semi long engagement (21 months). I am torn about when to formally ask my friends to be my bridesmaids and MOH. I totally see the merit in waiting, especially with a longer engagement just in case any relationships or priorities change (which thankfully I am not too particularly worried about) but since I had some lovely personalized gift and DIY ideas for them, I don't want to wait too long.

Even more important than just being excited to put together a little gift bundle for my girls and officially have them as part of the wedding, I want to make sure I give them enough notice since several of the girls aren't local (I am in Maryland and 3 of my closest friends live in Boston, NYC, and NOLA) and I want them to be able to plan for and attend as much of the fun and/or important stuff as possible and not feel like they have to take out a loan to pay for travel/hotels/favors/etc. on top of a bridesmaid dress OR feel bad if they have to decline for certain events because of budgetary or time constraints.

Any guidance or advice is greatly appreciated ! This is my first post on the forums here so someone please respond haha

xo, tiff

What do you mean by the bolded?

As far as their budget/schedule, presumably they know you're engaged and are therefore expecting to be invited to your wedding. You will need to ask their individual budgets for a bridesmaid dress when it comes to that point, but you should definitely wait until you're under a year out from the wedding and 6-9 months should be plenty of time. And certainly they shouldn't feel bad for having to decline any pre-wedding events due to budget. It happens. Only my maid of honor attended even one of my two showers. And my mom specifically planned my b-party (which was super laidback and at home) for the day before the rehearsal to make it easier for all to attend.

Thanks artbyallie! I wanted to wait until 9-12 months out so it wasn't like "YAY I would love to be a bridesmaid.... okay well see you in a year when it's time to get dresses" (not that we would only plan visits for wedding related things but you know what I mean) I think I just needed to hear it from someone outside my close group of friends.

My MOH is recently married and so sweet and excited to return the favor in helping with any ideas or planning but she worried me a little by telling me I should be planning my bachelorette party like a year out if we wanted to travel anywhere/the other girls needed to arrange flights and such. But I guess I needed to realize that just because she is my best friend and has already gotten married doesn't mean I need to follow all her suggestions or timeline... She did after all have us try on and buy our dresses a year and a half out from the wedding because she didn't want it to be discontinued and I ended up spending $250 between dress and alterations.

I definitely don't need all the extra pizazz and events that people feel pressured to do nowadays. They are certainly fun and I think some of my friends are more excited about a bachelorette party than I am! If they decide to throw any parties or showers, I'm sure they will be amazing but if not, I wouldn't mind at all. I think you're right in that I should just stick to my gut and wait until about a year, then formally send them the personalized cards asking them and talk to them individually about general budget/any financial concerns they may have so I can figure out how to best accommodate them all whether it's discouraging a bachelorette trip that I am fine without or offering to help pay for a flight.

(sorry this is so long! thank you for your input! )

artbyallie

You're welcome! Cards are good. Everyone loves getting mail.

I do agree with you that traveling for a b-party may not work for everyone. Since it sounds like she is already offering to throw/plan one, it is perfectly acceptable for you to decline the offer or to suggest she avoid picking a destination weekend to be sensitive to other people's budgets. Which she should be asking before doing any planning because it wouldn't be appropriate for you to plan your own b-party.

In the meantime, stick around the forums and talk wedding and not-wedding with us!

MegEn1

I'm in the same boat. We're finally less than a year out and starting to think about this stuff. I think both FI and I are settled into knowing who we want to ask.

Right now we were just going to ask before STDs go out, which will likely be around February for our October wedding. It sucks so hard waiting, but I've heard such horror stories on The Knot about people who didn't wait, I'd definitely recommend sticking it out. That's one of the reasons we tied ours to our STDs - we're looking forward to the STDs so we're not so distracted by the fact that we want to ask our BMs and GMs!

Best of luck!

knottie75e99fe4be548d97

I would think that once you set the date, be sure the ladies you anticipate on asking know the date (whether it's by Save the Date cards or word of mouth).  If you consider them close enough to be BM, I would think they are close enough to you that they would plan on attending whether as a BM or a guest, so their calendar will be marked with your day, and once it gets time to start dress shopping about 6-10 months out, then ask them.

MnHGirl

I was engaged in March (2014) and our wedding is in July (2015). I let my close friends know when the date was when we found out. I just asked them last week if they would want to be a BM for me and they were excited. we still have time to get the dresses and I can figure out the gifts for them.

I am REALLY glad I waited since my relationships changed since March and we would have had 5 people in the wedding instead of 3. Having time to really think who you want in the wedding is nice  

ETA- My MOA is pregnant and due in March. We are dress shopping a bit early so that we know what since she probably will be (just starting to show). Thankfully my mom is a seamstress and will be able to help out with the alterations. 

badbnagdway

21 months out does seem really far out. The thing is, no one thinks a relationship will change. And you might be right, I sure hope you are, but it happens. I am a woman who has a lot of female friends and I get along well with women in general. 

But I also do not have a single friendship other than my friendship with my sister that has remained substantially unchanged over the past 10, or even 5 years. I am still in touch with friends I met 16+ years ago, but we aren't geographically or emotionally super close. I have two newer friends (have known them about 2.5 years) who are local, and they are both great in their own ways, but they have both done things over the course of our friendship that have made me consider whether or not I want to be friends with them anymore. In short, friendships change, sometimes over time, sometimes on a dime. You can't totally protect yourself from that but I think the best thing to do is to wait a while, make sure you tell folks when the date is when you pick it, and for now that should really be enough. 

ahyatt87

I am in the minority, but I also asked my MOH and BMs much earlier than most Knotties would recommend. I asked my sister to be MOH the day now DH and I got engaged (24 months out). I wanted to ask my two BM in person, so I asked 18 months out, when I saw them at Christmas. I was not worried about our relationships changing. One BM is DH's sister and the other BM is my BFF. It worked for me, but it's definitively not for everyone.

I also wanted to give the girls the opportunity to think about it as one BM lives in a different country (travel expenses) and another BM lives across the country (again, travel expenses).