Thank you for welcoming me! -- Now I need help.

[groomzilla]

First of all, I want to thank all of you.

Thank you for welcoming me to this community. I wasn't sure how I'd be taken here as a groom. And thank you for keeping this community. I haven't even asked a single question yet (before this post, at least), and I've already been humbled, finding out I know very little about this wedding planning thing

Comments

[nj_forever]

So we'll have to figure out a way to have her intimately involved without having her have a large public presence.

There are -tons- of other roles in the wedding that are not directly involved in being a part of the wedding party, which would probably be more suitable for the cousin's personality as you describe it.

She could:
- greet guests as they come onto the wedding site, and show them their places or be in charge of the usher's chowing them to their places
- light the candles in the church (provided you have one) right before the ceremony starts
- be in charge of having guests sign the guestbook
- collect presents and cards from guests, and have them stowed into a safe place until the end of the night
- pin all the corsages onto the "special female guests" (make sure she has one too)
- I would say, "let her do a reading during the ceremony" but if she's shy that's probably not the best thing in the world, but you could consider it
- She could be the one to announce your entrance to the reception (again, depending on her fear of public speaking)

My husband's sister wasn't in the wedding party, so she played the part of Hostess and did a lot of the things mentioned above. Some friends of mine did the flower pinnings, because we gave a small boutonierre to every guest. My brother made the announcement when we entered the reception room (he was an usher.)

There's really more things to do on the day of your wedding than you will have people to do them, so ask for the help if you can!

And... lastly, ask the COUSIN what she would feel comfortable doing. Really I hate to say it, but in modern day terms, unless your parents or your brides parents are paying for a -majority- of the wedding expenses they really don't have much of a say in anything. Even thought it's easy to get swept up in trying to "make everyone else happy".

(Forgive the ramblings. Fighting a migrane.)

[groomzilla]

Wow thanks for the huge response! Lots of good ideas there.

You're right about actually asking THE COUSIN, since that does make a lot of sense -- because if she's not interested in the first place then why would we make such a big fuss of it? heheheh.

I think if she is interested, she'd probably want a less-public role. I happen to think that she'd make an awesome Bride's personal assistant, or like you mentioned, she'd be good at being like... the person who collects presents from guests and arranges for storage/ head usher kind of thing.

Thanks again!