A few months ago, we asked you to share some thoughts on being a bridesmaid today with a quick survey. The goal of the bridesmaid survey was to find out what it’s really like to be a bridesmaid today. We all have a traditional idea of the job, but what’s the reality? For example, we think of a bridesmaid as being able to attend dress fittings or meet up with the bride on weekends to do DIY projects. But since 64% of bridesmaids don’t live in the same city as the bride, that’s just not the reality. Likewise, the classic bachelorette stereotype is a police man showing up at the hotel room with a boom box. (P.S. He’s not really a cop.) But only 3% of readers said they’d want a stripper at their bachelorette party! Here’s what we discovered through our survey. 

I was very interested in the responses to how bridesmaid dresses were chosen, since I think sometimes the images we see online don’t reflect the reality. Mismatched dresses are incredibly popular on Pinterest and wedding blogs, but our survey found that 47% of brides were still selecting one dress for their bridesmaids and 22% were picking a few dresses for the maids to choose from. Only 27% of brides are giving their bridesmaids varying degrees of freedom to find their own dress, from giving them a color palette to work with (15%) to providing just a few guidelines, like length or level of formality (8%). Of that 27%, only 4% of brides gave the bridesmaids total freedom to choose any dress.

I’m also always interested to see what you think the best and worst parts of being a bridesmaid are. As in our last bridesmaid survey, the cost came in as the #1 complaint about being a bridesmaid, with 66% of respondees saying it was the worst. Our most common write-in complaints were about bridesmaid dresses, from the cost (“the cost of bridesmaid dresses is totally out of control these days”) to your inability to wear them again (“no matter what people say, I’m not going to be able to wear my dress on many other occasions”) to the unintentional horrors of trying to color match with the other bridesmaids when the bride gives you dress-selecting freedom (“I know it’s all Pinterest-chic to have everyone in different hues, but it’s just a pain in the rear end for the bridesmaids”).

On the plus side, there are things you totally love about being a bridesmaid. Namely, being there for your friend on her special day! A lot of you wrote in about your experiencing getting ready with the bride before the wedding, saying “Those were some of my favorite memories from my wedding and from when I was a bridesmaid. It’s so special,” and “I love the idea of being there with friends past and present for the bride. It’s the core of the bridesmaid idea, but it’s what is most beautiful to me!”