Since you’ve hopefully been discouraged from asking a friend to be a wedding vendor, the question becomes - well, what can I ask my friends to do for my wedding? Your friends may offer to help generally or in specific ways and you can also ask if (and how) they’d like to be involved. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Ask friends to be in the wedding party
The most common way to get your friends involved in your wedding is to ask them to be a bridesmaid or groomsman (or bridesman or groomswoman). This is a position of honor and they’ll literally be up front with you at the ceremony.
Members of the wedding party often provide other types of support throughout the planning process and throughout your wedding day. They may attend appointments with you to give advice and opinions, throw you a shower or bachelorette party, help you get ready on the big day, and help with set up before and clean up after the wedding.
Your wedding party takes on that role because they love and support you. Show them the same love and respect in return by taking into account how much time, effort, and money you are asking of them. Being a bridesmaid can be a huge undertaking as well as expensive. My favorite experiences as a bridesmaid were when the bride knew and respected my time and financial limitations and were truly grateful for any of my help.
Have a friend officiate
One of my favorite things about my wedding was that my best friend and my husband’s best friend officiated it together. It was so meaningful to have them marry us that its a wonder we didn’t bawl through the entire ceremony! Plus, since only one person can sign the marriage license as the officiant, we had a fun game of rock, paper, scissors (lizard, Spock) to determine who signed as the officiant and who signed as a witness.
Getting ordained online is easy but writing the ceremony can be difficult. Before asking them to officiate, figure out how much (if any) you want them to be involved with writing the ceremony. That way they know exactly what they are saying yes to. The best thing about having a friend officiate is that they now you so well, which means you can work together to get a super meaningful ceremony script.
Perform a reading
Another tried and true method for involving a friend in the wedding is to have them perform a wedding. You can let them pick what to read or request something specific. At our wedding, we had people we were close to from school and work read specific passages that evoked both love and our time together as friends. Its a great way to work in your personality and honor your friendship in the ceremony.
Throw you a bridal shower or bachelorette party
If you aren’t having a wedding party, you might think that you won’t get to have a bridal shower or bachelorette party. But that’s probably not the case! You may not be able to throw your own bridal shower because it could look like a rude gift grab, but if someone offers to throw you one you can graciously let them. You can organize your own bachelorette party, but if your friends are anything like mine, they’ll take over.
Your friends may be disappointed that you aren’t having a wedding party, but they’ll likely still want to be involved in the fun stuff like showers and bachelorette parties.