Usher / Picture question

TheSlowskys

I am having my ceremony at a church, and my reception at another location (with a 2-hr Catholic gap in between - which is common in my circle).

My fiance will probably have 2 ushers (he hasn't asked yet). One is my BIL and the other is his friend.

Between the ceremony and reception the wedding party is going to go take a few pictures at the church, and then pictures at another location and we are getting a trolley or limo bus for the bridal party, their dates (if they want to come), and parents. My question is should the usher (FIsfriend) and his date be invited? Since the other usher is my BIL he will be there anyways.  We won't ask the ushers to rent tuxes but we will give them bouts.

Also, in follow up, we/he still haven't decided if we do want ushers. FI has 5 groomsmen - should they just usher guests?

baystateapple

If you already have groomsmen and you haven't asked these other two men yet, I would just have your GMs usher. 

However, if you choose to invite them, and you're inviting the GMs to bring their dates to the photos during the gap, then yes, I think you should ask your usher's S/Os as well.

J&K10910

Ushers are really not necessary, IMO, unless you're having a really large wedding.  Your groomsmen can absolutely act as ushers.

For reference, my H was an usher in a 350 guest wedding.  Most guests told HIM where they would be sitting, so his "job" really had no point.  We had a 100 guest wedding, and had no ushers, and people seated themselves so stupidly that the venue staff had to bring out more chairs at the last minute.  I would simply have the groomsmen (or even the BMs) hanging around to greet people and help seat if necessary.  They can also answer questions, which is helpful (where are the bathrooms, etc).

But if you do want to have ushers, I think it's good you're not going to require tuxes.  And you can have them in pictures if you want.  I assume they're important to you, so if you'd like them in pictures, great.  If not, oh well.  If you don't want them IN the pictures, don't make them go watch you take pictures.  But you can give them the option to ride along with you if they'd like.

Summer2011Bride

I think with 5 GMs a few of them (or all of them if you wanted) could usher guests before and after the ceremony. If FI wanted to ask some of his friends to be ushers though, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If you do go ahead with ushers, I would invite them with SOs to the pictures and riding the trolley as well.

kimandjosh22

I would just have your groomsmen usher, maybe ask BIL if you feel like you want him involved.  My little brother is acting as an usher because we wanted him to feel included, but our 4 groomsmen will be ushers as well, there were several other people we wanted to ask, but ultimately decided that adding more people (and more SOs) was just making it more complicated than we wanted.

Ditto to what Bay said, if you decide to include anyone S/Os should be invited along for the photos as well

Meegles4

Our groomsmen (we had 7) ushered guests. We put 2 or 3 in charge of this, so all 7 weren't standing around with nothing to do. They also gave out the programs as they sat people.