(Closed) Guests of Honor instead of bridal party

• creativescientist
• 6 years ago

• Wedding: July 2013

My fiancee and I are planning on having a very small ceremony (immediate family and a few of our closest friends–probably 10-15 people total) followed by a big reception (around 100 ppl) with extended family and all of our friends later in the day.  We want our ceremony to be casual and we’re envisioning everyone standing in a circle around us, so it seems a bit awkward to have a traditional bridal party.  However, we both want to show our love to a few of our closest friends that we do want to be there with us, and we have decided to ask them to be our ‘guests of honor.’  We’re basically making them very informal bm’s– the only things we are asking is that they wear something in our color scheme (we know we want pictures with them all) and to be with us for the ceremony rather than just be at the reception. 

I’m going dress shopping next week with some of my friends, but not all of them are going to be included in the ceremony as guests of honor.  Part of me wants to ask the two that will be before we go shopping because I think they’d be really excited and want to know ahead of time, but at the same time I don’t want to hurt the other girls’ feelings, especially since we’ve told people that we aren’t having bm’s.  It’s not just a matter of standing at the front during the ceremony or watching from farther back, I’m asking 2 of the girls to come to the ceremony and the rest of them to only come to the reception.  I think they’ll all be pretty understanding because they know we’re planning a small, non-traditional wedding, but I still don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.  At this point I’m leaning towards waiting until after the shopping weekend, but still on the fence…thoughts?  I’m probably completely overthinking this and they won’t be offended at all…

• creativescientist
• 6 years ago

• Wedding: July 2013

Thanks for your input bees.  I certainly don’t want to offend anyone!  I guess I’m partly looking for a title to use other than ‘bridesmaid’ as I just really don’t like the term.  In regards to putting friends into tiers…we really want our ceremony to be us and immediate family, but my family will not attend, so to avoid having no one there to support me, I was going to invite a couple of my closest friends to essentially ‘be my family.’  They are the ones who have been there for me over the years and I consider them to be my family, and I would like to give them some sort of honor similiar to being a bridesmaid.  Pretty much everyone knows that we are having a private ceremony and a big reception, and while I don’t think anyone would be offended if they were only invited to the reception perhaps I am wrong.  I’m definitely open to suggestions if anyone has any!