One of the things that seldom comes up on lists of bridesmaids’ duties is “Keeping one’s mouth shut.” And yet I’d suggest that it wouldn’t exactly be far fetched to tack it on to the end of one of those lists. For as much as the bride-to-be worries incessantly that she will notice every little thing that goes wrong before, during, and after the wedding, a great bridesmaid will do the noticing for the bride and then gently steer the bride away from whatever is wrong so that someone else can handle it.
Or in other less common cases, that same great bridesmaid will find herself smack in the middle of what’s wrong and not go blabbing to the bride until at least after the ceremony.
Recently, that’s just what five Boston bridesmaids did when their wedding limo carjacked before the ceremony by a man fleeing the scene of a crime he’d allegedly just committed. According to a charter bus driver delivering guests to the wedding, the suspect started fighting with the driver, smashed the passenger side window with a hammer, the bridesmaids got out and ran, the driver bailed, and the suspect took off. To their credit, none of the bridesmaids left a bouquet behind, and they all stayed mum about the incident until after the bride had tied the knot.
This particular item on the list of bridesmaids’ duties won’t always be exciting, of course. In some cases, it’s tragic. At my own wedding, for example, I wasn’t told that the reason one of my aunts wasn’t in attendance was that she was terminally ill. And in other cases, the no-no topic is fairly mundane. Maybe the bridesmaids have found out that the ceremony seating arrangements are all wrong and send some of the groomsmen to rearrange everything before go time.
What the conscientious bridesmaid may have to keep to herself on the bride’s big day might be anything, but I can almost guarantee that the wedding will be all the better for her keeping her mouth shut. Yes, in a few cases the bride will wish that someone had spoken up and told her just what was going on. But a bridesmaid’s silence – sometime paired with a little sneaky initiative – can sometimes be all that it takes to keep the bride from realizing that anything is amiss.
It’s true. A bridesmaid has to keep mum abut the things that went wrong to keep the bride’s nerves calm. These things make a quality bridesmaid.
At my wedding, the DJ was a good friend of mine doing me a favor, and we were using borrowed sound equipment. When they started to set up at the reception venue, apparently the equipment started to smoke and wouldn’t work. The DJ and another friend spent the entire ceremony making an emergency trip to Radio Shack to get things up and running. I did find out about any of this until the end of the reception. It made me realize what awesome friends they were for just taking care of things.
When we went to return the borrowed equipment, I was worried I’d have to pay a fair amount to replace the now faulty pieces, until he replied “Oh, that old stuff? It’s been acting up for years!” Er, thanks for telling me that NOW?