Aisle switcheroo: Here come the bridesmen and groomswomen
At a pre-wedding trip to Amy’s Nails Plus in Pittsford, N.Y., 24-year-old Gregg Snyder joined four bridesmaids and the bride-to-be for a manicure and pedicure. Although he declined the nail polish–and a waxing–Snyder did everything else the women did, because he was a bridesmaid too. Bridesman, rather.
He enjoyed the hand rub, the foot rub and the vibrating chair. And he spent three or four hours chatting in the salon.
When the bride, Kimberly Noye Rice–a college friend of Snyder’s–requested his services, Snyder says he “felt lucky to be considered one of Kimmy’s best friends, and even more lucky to be part of her bridal wedding party, rather than with the groomsmen, whom I don’t know well.” Snyder also co-hosted the bridal shower at a winery in Massachusetts.
This sort of arrangement, while still unusual, is becoming more common. And grooms are calling on female friends to stand up for them too. Theknot.com, a wedding-planning Web site, estimates that 9 percent of engaged couples are considering opposite-sex attendants, up from just a trickle a few years ago.
For the bridesman, sometimes called “dude of honor,” “manmaid” or “honor attendant,” feeling comfortable around a bunch of women isn’t necessarily all that difficult. And in the age of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the metrosexual, all the primping and posing might not be foreign to a guy’s experience.
But there are unknowns.
Like bustling a bride’s dress. “Learning how to bustle is something I didn’t imagine would be one of the benefits of being asked to be a maid of honor,” says Philip Belfer, a 29-year-old New York attorney who will be his friend Carolyn Mansfield’s “male maid of honor” in September.
The bride-to-be giggles: “I can’t imagine Phil getting down on his hands and knees to pin up … my dress.” But he’ll have to do it, anyway, she adds.
Women who stand on the groom’s side of the wedding party, often called “groomswomen” or “friends of honor,” might not participate in a traditionally bawdy bachelor party. But they may well dress in dark suits to match the guys.
Amanda Goltz, a groomswoman to her college friend Jonathan Stone, gave him and his best man, Willard Kasoff, “a full military inspection” before they headed off to the wedding ceremony in San Francisco. “I took a minute to dust them off and straighten their suit jackets and button their buttons,” she says.
Once the ceremony ends, there are reception duties.
“My first dance was with a girl,” says Victoria Fleming, 27. She was a “groom’s girlie” for college friend Michael Tomasch at his wedding in Santa Barbara in September. “We got some hoots and hollers.”
These days, the average wedding costs about $24,000, according to Gerard Monaghan, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants. And couples who pay for their own ceremonies want things done their way, wedding planners say.
About 70 percent of couples, overall, contribute to or pay for their weddings themselves, adds theknot.com’s weddings editor, Kathleen Murray. So, rather than having and holding with tradition, modern-day couples frequently opt for smaller, tailored ceremonies that spotlight their closest friends.
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Brotherly love
Caroline Pasquesi considers her twin brother, Joe, her best friend. The two almost always got along, went to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign together and have always been close confidants.
So when Caroline became engaged, she knew she wanted Joe to play a special role in her wedding in October–her “man of honor.” Having a male in a traditionally female role “was really quite a natural decision for me,” says the 30-year-old bride-to-be. “Of course, I have to repeat ‘man of honor’ a lot because people don’t get it right away.”
Becca Kaufman, a Chicago-based wedding planner, estimates as many as three in 10 weddings she handles feature mixed-gender wedding parties. –Tribune
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
