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03 December 2008
And the best man is.... a woman→[More:] Friends of ours are getting married in March. When the groom thought about it, there was no one he wanted as his Best Man more than his sister.
My best friend asked me to be his best, um, person when he got married. I was honored, and I would have done it if it hadn't been for the fact that I was really pissed off at him for sleeping with my ex.
I think the "tradition" nowadays is to "trade", so that his sister is a bridesmaid and her brother/male friend is a groomsman.
But I just had two bride's dudes (my best friend and my brother) and he had a groomslady (his sister), we called 'em all "attendants", and that was that.
You know a whole lot more about wedding traditions than I do, muddgirl, but I thought that was the old school way. I thought it was becoming more common to cross the sex/gender boundary now, instead of having to keep all the girls on one side and the boys on the other. Maybe I just know too many people who have problems with authority?
At our wedding I had my son and my two sisters on my side and my wife had her brother and two sisters on her side. Most of those traditions aren't really very old anyway, I don't see why you can't mix them up.
mudpuppie - all the weddings/commitment ceremonies I've been to recently have been between early-twenties straight couples, so that probably has something to do with it - it seems like nowadays, "wedding tradition" means "what everyone else you know did" or "what Martha Stewart says to do".
A couple of years ago our own matildaben was asked to be best "man" at a wedding, and I remember her wondering what to wear... I need to email her and get her in her to ask how it went.
You know a whole lot more about wedding traditions than I do, muddgirl, but I thought that was the old school way. I thought it was becoming more common to cross the sex/gender boundary now, instead of having to keep all the girls on one side and the boys on the other.
I think it's more common than it used to be, but at the majority of the weddings of people I know (mostly weddings for the 25 and under set), they keep girls on one side and boys on the other.
We split the best man duties (his brother held the ring, his old school friend played music during the ceremony, his other best friend made the speech) and I didn't have a bridesmaid but my sister acted as witness, along with his brother.
That's an interesting point that I'll agree with, muddgirl and TPS. When I've been to younger peoples' weddings, they are a lot more "traditional" in the "everyone does it like that" way than weddings of friends in my (early-mid 30s) age group. Once you get older you stop caring as much?
I was the best man in my best friend Scott's wedding. Here's what I wore - a vintage-influenced black and peach cocktail dress with a tuxedo-inspired black women's jacket. Flickr picture 1, Flickr picture 2, Flickr picture 3 (giving the toast).
Also, when you're older there's a lot less parental/grandparental influence to have a "proper ceremony" or whatever.
That makes a lot of sense. I haven't been to many weddings over the past several years (and the ones I have been to have all been straight couples), but they have all been over 30. I hadn't thought about the weddings of younger people being more traditional, but it makes perfect sense.
Definitely see more tradition in the younger set. My girlfriend (25) wanted to have a Cupcake Cake for her wedding, and the Groom's parents went so far as to offer (more like threaten) to buy the cake for them in order to get something more traditional. Dude, why does it matter? :P As far as I'm concerned, a wedding should be less about tradition than about reflecting the nature and character of the bride and groom. So, hell yeah, my "little brother" is my choice for "man of honour". Who else would I choose for such an important day?
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
