Pick a Maid of Honor or not...

turtlelip

There are 3 ladies I plan to ask to be part of my bridal party.  Two are friends I met in high school and one is a friend from college who I originally met through my fiance. I've know them all for many years (I'm well out of college). I'm torn over who to ask to be my Maid of Honor.  I'm going back and forth between one of my friends from high school and my friend from college.  The one friend from high school is practically family and we have been through a lot together.  However she lives a few hundred miles away and I worry about burdening her with MOH duties (nothing too crazy as we're planning a pretty casual affair).  My friend from college lives very nearby and I know would love to help with the wedding (based on things she's said already) and I think its a plus that she is close with both my fiance and myself.  I don't want to cause offense to either by picking one over the other.  I considered not having an MOH at all but feel like inevitably more duties would fall to one person so it might be best to just select one to start with.  Having 2 MOHs isn't an option as I think it would be very rude to leave my other friend out since she would be the only non-MOH in that situation.  Has anyone faced this before?  Any recommendations?

KatWAG

MOHs are not required. Just have 3 Bms.

What duties are you referring to? The only duting a maid of honor or a bridesmaid has is to buy the dress, show up the ceremony relatively sober and smile for pictures. That's it. Now, if someone offers to help in other ways that is great. But you shouldnt require or ask for that help. Hire a DOC if you think you will need lots of help the day of.

NYCMercedes

turtlelip said:

There are 3 ladies I plan to ask to be part of my bridal party.  Two are friends I met in high school and one is a friend from college who I originally met through my fiance. I've know them all for many years (I'm well out of college). I'm torn over who to ask to be my Maid of Honor.  I'm going back and forth between one of my friends from high school and my friend from college.  The one friend from high school is practically family and we have been through a lot together.  However she lives a few hundred miles away and I worry about burdening her with MOH duties (nothing too crazy as we're planning a pretty casual affair).  My friend from college lives very nearby and I know would love to help with the wedding (based on things she's said already) and I think its a plus that she is close with both my fiance and myself.  I don't want to cause offense to either by picking one over the other.  I considered not having an MOH at all but feel like inevitably more duties would fall to one person so it might be best to just select one to start with.  Having 2 MOHs isn't an option as I think it would be very rude to leave my other friend out since she would be the only non-MOH in that situation.  Has anyone faced this before?  Any recommendations?

All three BM's duties are only to show up sober in the dress you all chose. One will have an additional duty of holding your bouquet during the ceremony. Seems as though any one of your three could handle bouquet holding.

turtlelip

Thanks. I'm new to all of this.  I'm still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of BMs and MOHs, they are roles that can (but don't need to be) tied up with lots of tradition.  I'm not really expecting them to do anything other than show up. If they offer more, great, but if not I'm fine with doings things out on my own.  Mostly this has come up because I'm close with both of them and up until a few months ago it would have not been a question about who would be MOH (it would have been the HS friend since we've been friends the longest) but I've gotten even closer with my college friend and she's already offering to help with certain things (MOH type things like planning the bachelorette party and helping me look at wedding planning stuff).  May the 3 BMs route will be the way to go and I can figure out the other stuff (toast, bachelorette parties, etc) as they come.

allispain

I didn't pick a MOH at all - just 4 BMs. It has created some difficulties, in that one of them was visibly hurt that I didn't single her out as MOH, but I'm glad I chose to go this route. It wouldn't have felt right to me to do anything else.