How Many Bridesmaids Is Too Many Bridesmaids?

Welcome to Pop The Question, a weekly space to dissect every aspect of wedding madness. Each Tuesday, we’ll ask a question (sometimes there might even be a poll!), you’ll share answers and stories, and then we’ll bring you the best of the bunch on Thursdays. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fly into a total rage over something that doesn’t actually matter … it will be just like your wedding day.

Two friends and I have a running game we play over email, called Too Many Bridesmaids. It’s fairly self-explanatory: When we see wedding photos of old family or school friends on Facebook, we share the ones in which the number of bridesmaids exceeds good sense. How many is that? Well, it’s a bit like porn in that you know it when you see it.

A quick look through our emails turns up weddings that feature nine and eleven bridesmaids; there was another with ten bridesmaids and, in the words of my friend, “and—find your pearls—FOURTEEN GROOMSMEN.”

I can actually top that. I was once a bridesmaid in a wedding party with twelve other girls. And a 7-person house party. Do I need to tell you that it was in Texas? No, no I do not. You already guessed that.

Given the nature of today’s question, we should have a poll. (The poll will close at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 6.)

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And let’s make this space a place for our brides with a gaggle of ‘maids to tell us how, exactly, they ended up with so many attendants. Did it all turn out okay? Was that too many girls to have clucking around on your big day? Did you absolutely love being surrounded by your favorite ladies? Tell us what that was like, and we’ll meet back here on Thursday to admire your fortitude in the face of all those ruffles.