Bridesmaid Boxes!

Photo Credit: Erica

Hey friends! I've been absolutely loving my time in Hilton Head, and I can't believe it's almost time for me to go home again. While I'm excited to start my legal residency and start my classes (and to see my baby kitties again!!!), I'm also going to miss seeing my family and walking on the beach every day. Concord's going to seem a little lame in comparison to living on the beach. :)

But back to this post! 

J and I settled on having six people each in our wedding party, so I then had the difficult task of choosing six of my best friends to be my bridesmaids. I struggled with choosing only six, because I felt like I was close with a lot of really amazing women, even if I'm not in the same city, state, or even time zone as many of them. After a few weeks, I had decided on who I wanted to ask, but I also didn't want to ask them right away. I had a long engagement ahead of me and there was no rush - one of the things I love the most about long engagements!

After waiting for a few more months, I decided to ask my six tenacious, smart, stunning bridesmaids if they would, well, be my bridesmaids... by sending them bridesmaid boxes! 

I looked up bridesmaid boxes on Pinterest, and I thought the idea was adorable - getting your (potential) bridesmaids little presents and asking them to be in your wedding party in a thoughtful way. To prepare the boxes, I not-so-subtly asked each of them what their favorite alcohol of choice was. Here's what I put in each box:

• A letter to each of my besties about why I love them and our relationships on the most beautiful cards in the world (see top picture);
• A bath bomb
• A spa face mask
• Paint samples of our wedding palette colors
• A nipper of their favorite kind of alcohol (except for Liz, because I couldn't find a nipper of beer - so she got a dog bone for her new puppy!)

Each box was actually a little container I found at Target, which, as an organization freak, I thought would be a fun part of the gift!

Ultimately when I sent four of the six boxes across the country, it turns out it's kind of illegal to ship alcohol... so most of the nippers I had so carefully chosen couldn't be sent. :(

Even though shipping four of the boxes was kind of a pain, I was so excited for all of my friends to get their boxes in the mail! It's not like I expected any of my friends to say "no," but I didn't want to presume anything - so getting calls and texts saying they would be by my side was the most exciting and heartwarming! I'm so grateful to have strong, lovely women like them in my life, and I don't know how I could get married to J without my best friends and loved ones there!

It seems like when people talk about bridesmaids and bride(zillas), the stereotype is that the bride is totally mean to her friends and walks all over them before the wedding. I've watched my fair share of "Bridezillas," but I've also read horror stories on The Knot about brides who made their bridesmaids lose weight, or talked down to them, or made them color their hair, or purposefully made them wear ugly dresses. I even read a ton of cards made to ask women to be bridesmaids that said things like, "Be my bitch for a whole day," and things like that. Clearly that's not me and I doubt it's the norm, but the best part of these bridesmaid boxes for me was getting to tell each of these women how much they mean to me and to ask them to be with me during one of the most  important days of my life. I wanted to make it a fun experience for them too, not just me!

What's your view on bridesmaid boxes? Do you think brides are too mean to their bridesmaids? What would you put in a bridesmaid box?