My fiance and I started out planning our wedding party to include my best friend from college as my matron of honor, and my two sisters and my fiance's one sister as my bridesmaids. He would have his best friend from growing up as his best man and three other lifelong friends as his groomsmen, with two other lifelong friends whose weddings he did not stand in as ushers. (No brothers on fiance's side or mine). He was certain about two of the groomsmen and was having a hard time deciding between two other friends to be the third groomsmen since he had valid reasons for including each of them. Meanwhile, I always felt shortchanged by having my side taken up by sisters, and I always would have liked more room to include at least one friend aside from my matron of honor, but we are having a small wedding and we were concerned about keeping the bridal party contained. There was one close friend in particular whom I would have liked to include, who is the wife of one of the ushers, and out of that desire to include her I've been using her as kind of a "wedding consultant" while I've been planning, and she's been very supportive (and a big help to me since she had a large wedding but my family's wedding planning experience is nil). My fiance and I finally realized that it might be a win-win situation for him to ask both of his friends and me to ask my friend, since we're certain that these are the only other people we would like to include and it won't go out of control as we had feared. I don't think my friend is a touchy/sensitive person but I'm afraid she might be surprised, especially after everything I discussed with her including who would be in the wedding party. Any suggestions on how I can make sure she knows I always wanted to ask her and it isn't a mere afterthought? Do you think everything would be fine if I told her the truth, that despite our original intention to contain the wedding party to the sisters as bridesmaids and three groomsmen, from the outset I have appreciated her support and always wanted to include her, and my fiance always had four friends he wanted as groomsmen instead of just three, so we finally decided to go with it? Or should I say I always wanted to ask her but couldn't mention it to her until my fiance and I had a chance to sit down together with her and her husband and ask him to be an usher and her to be a bridesmaid? (This would still be the truth). Should I mention to her sometime that I don't like being monopolized by sisters while my fiance gets to include all his friends? Or is this creating a mess and should I stick with my original plan and not ask her at all? Thanks in advance for your advice!
Whoever said it was supposed to be happily ever after is a big fat liar.