Bridal Party Tasks
A key part of reducing your wedding stress is not to do everything yourself! If you have chosen a bridal party, they will most likely be very happy to help out in any way they can. This is part of their job so don’t feel bad about asking. They would probably love to be involved. There are certain tasks which you can’t delegate(e.g. you need to try on the wedding dress yourself) but there are others which can easily be passed onto bridesmaids/ushers etc. Here are some of the tasks your bridal party can do.
Shared Pinterest board
Not a “task” in the purest sense, but certainly a big part of the planning process. At the beginning of your wedding planning when you have lots of theme and style choices to make, it can be fun to involve your bridal party by creating a shared Pinterest board(or several). This is also really helpful for getting lots of ideas very quickly. As ideas bounce around, new things will pop up that you could never have imagined if you were doing it on your own. Read our hack on using Pinterest to plan your wedding to learn more about this. You don’t need to use Pinterest to collaborate with your bridal party. You can do this in whatever way is best for you.
Arranging an engagement party
This one is definitely a “bridal party” job. Assign this task to members of your bridal party. Give them a rough idea of the style of party you would like, who you would like to attend and the max number of guests. Leave the rest up to them to allow you to get on with wedding planning.
Arranging the stag/hen do
As above
Finding hotel rooms for out of town guests
A couple of hours of research from your bridal party and data entry into your accommodation spreadsheet is all it takes to create a database of all available accommodation. Once complete, they(or you) can send it to your wedding mailing list.
Arranging transportation for guests
Ask somebody to look into local transport companies and get an idea of pricing. Once you give them the go-ahead, ask them to make the booking with the transport company and forward the email confirmation onto you for your reference. The person who handles this would also be in charge of ensuring the transport arrangements go to plan on the day of the wedding. This would involve a final call to the company to make sure everything is in place and sorting any problems with guests not being at the pick-up point on time.
Reserving equipment hire
Since this is one of the more boring tasks of your wedding planning, you may feel ok about delegating this one. Lighting for example can easily be delegated. Ask your delegate to contact a few companies to get quotes. Check the quotes yourself before asking them to confirm the booking. Make sure they get the relevant details of when they will setup/takedown at the venue. The delegate for this task would also be responsible for meeting them on the day/day-after the wedding.
Printing printables
If you have any printables that need printed, ask a member of the bridal party to arrange this. Give them a budget and the number of copies you require as well as any details of paper stock etc.
Writing save-the-dates/place names etc.
If you have a lot of invitations to write, draft in some extra hands to help out. You may not want to do this with the actual invitations but the save-the-dates and place names are lower risk.
Emailing and printing directions for drivers of transport vehicles
Ask somebody to draft up directions/parking information for your venue and send this to your wedding mailing list.
Collecting groomswear
If hired, a member of your bridal party can collect the grooms wear (although it’s better if you can try on your suit in the shop).
Tidying up the “day after”
The day after the wedding can be pretty busy. You may need somebody to collect decorations, flowers, dresses etc. You may also need somebody to return certain hire items (e.g. grooms wear) and liaise with equipment hire companies who are collecting their equipment.
Book a spa treatment
In the week leading up to the wedding, ask somebody to book a spa treatment for the bridal party.
Arrange favours and decor that you are taking
Ask your bridal party to help you out in arranging your wedding favors.
These are just a small selection of the tasks that you can delegate to your bridal party, although this accounts for a significant portion of your wedding planning. Try to keep higher profile tasks(such as venue visits) for your fiancé and you as these tasks would burden your bridal party with too much responsibility and would rob you of the pleasure of arranging it yourself. Try to only delegate tasks that don’t have a significant impact on your wedding and can be easily carried out without too much communication with you. If a lot of communication is needed, the benefits of delegating the task are negated as you will end up spending as much time calling/emailing as you would have if you had done it yourself.
Image by The Hendrys