A bride may have a veritable procession: eight or ten bridesmaids, a maid of honor, flower girls and pages. That is, if she follows the English custom, where every younger relative even including the little boys as pages, seems always to be brought into a perfect May-pole procession of ragged ages and sizes.
Or she may have none at all. She almost always has at least one maid, or matron, of honor, as the picture of her father standing holding her bouquet and stooping over to adjust the fall of her dress, would be difficult to witness with gravity.
At an average New York wedding, there are four or six bridesmaids—half of the "maids" may be "matrons," if most of the bride's "group" of friends have married before her. It is, however, not suitable to have young married women as bridesmaids, and then have an unmarried girl as maid of honor.
Best Man And Ushers
The bridegroom always has a best man—his brother if he has one, or his best friend. The number of his ushers is in proportion to the size of the church and the number of guests invited. At a house wedding, ushers are often merely "honorary" and he may have many or none—according to the number of his friends.
As ushers and bridesmaids are chosen only from close friends of the bride and groom, it is scarcely necessary to suggest how to word the asking! Usually they are told that they are expected to serve at the time the engagement is announced, or at any time as they happen to meet. If school or college friends who live at a distance are among the number, letters are necessary. Such as:
"Mary and I are to be married on the tenth of November, and, of course, you are to be an usher." Usually he adds: "My dinner is to be on the seventh at eight o'clock at ——," naming the club or restaurant.
It is unheard of for a man to refuse—unless a bridegroom, for snobbish reasons, asks some one who is not really a friend at all.
Bride's Usher And Groom's Bridesmaid
A brother of the bride, or if she has no brother, then her "favorite cousin" is always asked by the groom to be usher out of compliment to her.