Crafty and clever brides, here is the blog post you've been waiting for! Today we're talking about the 2nd most important proposal of your life: proposing to your bridesmaids. For more help on how you should pick out your bridesmaids, please visit my previous blog post titled "Take a Seat: We're Talking Guest List, Wedding Party, and Seating Charts." There, I have a whole section where I lay out some criteria that you should strongly consider if you're having difficulties deciding who should be a part of your bride squad and who should not. Once you know who you want to ask, it's time to do your bridesmaid proposals! Whether you want to send a heartfelt card to each of your besties or put together a fun gift, video, or outing with you, now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you want to ask them. For a card/gift/video, you can even share it with your bridesmaids-to-be RIGHT NOW! These times have been tough for us all emotionally and spiritually. How awesome would it be for you to hear about your friends opening up their card/gift and knowing that you gave them a little bit of happiness to help them through this?! I know for me personally, I sent all of my girls bridesmaid proposal gifts and the anticipation of them each being surprised (they had no idea it was coming) and opening their personalized gifts gave me so much happiness through the first few weeks of our "new normal" in quarantine. Any videos I received of them opening their gifts just made my day. And I also had SO much fun trying to think of what to give them and how to personalize it. Since then, I have also sent my bridesmaids little "thinking of you" cards and things during this time to check up on them. For as much as our current situation sucks, it has brought us together just a little more. I wish I could say that I kept up with my bridesmaids' lives regularly before the pandemic, but that would simply not be the truth. I get busy, life gets in the way, and I often forget to slow down and take the time to check on my friends and update myself on everything in their life. For me, the pandemic has slowed time down and has allowed me the time to do just that. So if you're like me (I realize that not everyone is and for some it is extremely difficult. That's totally fine. Everyone is experiencing their own valid feelings and their own unique "stage of disaster") and you are starting to reflect on your life and feel really grateful for all of the people in your life, bridesmaid proposals are a great distraction from all of the crazy. Here are some tips when putting together your bridesmaid proposal:
~Make it personal! Whether this means a gift with their name engraved on it, or a heartfelt and special message from you, the best thing about a bridesmaid proposal is that it is unique and conveys your relationship with your bridesmaid. People love seeing their names on things, so that's usually a safe bet for personalizing a gift. You can put your bridesmaids' names on mugs, wine tumblers, shirts, robes, sunglasses, sneakers- you name it! I gave my bridesmaids each a tumbler with their name on it. To take that personalization even further, I even picked out different fonts for each that matched that person's personality.
~Stick to your budget. In a future blog post, I'll be going into more detail on budget. But until then, you might want to set aside a "gifts" budget. For my wedding, our gifts budget is for our groomsmen and bridesmaid gifts, parent gifts, any gifts we give our vendors, and our wedding favors. From there, we portioned off the giftrs budget to how much we could spend on each section so that I had a specific budget just for my bridesmaid gifts. This was very helpful in referencing when choosing my gifts, and it helped me make budget-conscious decisions.
~Make your Maid of Honor(s) stand out. You picked your Maid of Honor for a reason. Show her how special she is by personalizing her gift just a little more. Maybe it's something subtle like a different card, a different colored gift, or personalizing a gift to say "Maid of Honor." She will surely appreciate the extra effort!
~Look to Etsy and other small businesses. A lot of small businesses and merchants are hurting right now. Consider purchasing gifts or cards from a small business to help them out. This way, you are boosting your happiness, boosting your bridesmaids' happiness, and are helping someone pay their bills!
~Consider wedding location/theme/colors. You may want to incorporate these into your proposal in some way to be uniform throughout your whole planning process. For instance, are you having a nautical theme? Maybe you get earrings that look like a rope knot with the saying "I can't tie the naut without you."
~Find a cute slogan. "I need something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. But most importantly, I need YOU!" People always appreciate cute little sayings like this, and they are a perfect way to do the official "ask" in a card or on a gift box if you can't do it in person.
~Find a fun phrase to use instead of "bridesmaids." Do you want your girls to refer to themselves as the bride's babes? Bride squad? Bride tribe? Team bride? Your "I do" Crew?
Share any other creative bridesmaid proposal ideas below in the comments!