I have two problems that I need advice with.
I'm planning on asking my three best friends, my sister and a cousin of mine that I am really close to to be my bridesmaids. The first problem is my sister is a maid of honor zilla, I witnessed it first hand during our step-brother's wedding when his fiance, who happened to be one of my sister's friends asked her to be the maid of honor. She turned into a maid of honor zilla and it caused A LOT of drama that caused my sister and step-brother to stop talking for several months after the wedding. She also lives several states away from me and since I'm going to be doing a lot of DIY if she is going to help with that I would have to supervise her, because I don't trust her to change the DIY things to how she wants it based on past experience so it would be difficult. Everyone keeps telling me she should be maid of honor though, but I feel the maid of honor should be someone who isn't going to turn into a zilla and will actually be doing a lot of work on the wedding with me. My three best friends don't live near by either, the closest is about 4 hours away but my cousin lives in the same town as me. Therefore I plan on asking my cousin to be the maid of honor since I feel like she should get credit for all the work she is going to be putting into the wedding for me by helping to make things since she lives literally two streets away from me. I haven't told anyone my plan, when people ask me about who will be maid of honor I just say I haven't decided yet and I usually get told well it should be your sister. I know my three best friends will not care about being maid of honor, but I'm afraid my sister is going to start drama over the fact she will not be maid of honor. I'm planning on telling everyone that I'm picking my cousin just because she is in the same town as me and is helping with most of the work to make things and then having my sister stand in the spot right next to my cousin so she knows she is important to me as well, I'm not going to bring up the zilla stuff that will open a can of worms I don't want open. I just wanted some thoughts on this.
The other thing is I have another sister who past away in a car accident a few years ago. We were always super close going up, much closer then I am with my sister who is still alive, and we always talked about how we would be in each others weddings and I want to honor that during the wedding. My idea is to have one more groomsmen then bridesmaids and then after the first pair of bridesmaid/groomsman walk having the extra groomsman walk by himself. Then having the bridesmaids stand so there is an empty spot where my sister would had stood during the wedding. To help explain this I'm planning on placing her name in the program as a bridesmaid and making a note that she is there in spirit but the people I have told about this to say its stupid and confusing and I should just make a special note in the program for her and leave it at that. My guy though doesn't have a problem with it and he has a cousin who he wanted as a groomsman and his cousin has no problem walking by himself and has even stated he was going to loop his arm as if someone was walking on his arm like the other guys, but now I'm starting to doubt the idea because of the comments some of my friends have said about it. When they say it will just be confusing having one of the groomsman walk by himself and leaving an empty spot for my sister I explain that I'm going to list her in the program as a bridesmaid and make a note she is just there in spirit besides everyone who is going to be invited to the wedding knows my sister past away and that we were close and I'm just told that no one reads the programs so it'll just be confusing. Any ideas?