Attendants have NOT always paid for their own attire. American wedding customs mostly come from England, where the bride's family always pays for attendants' attire. Also, the bride's family is supposed to provide or pay for her attendants' lodging. That's another tradition that's been conveniently forgotten over the years.

Being a bridesmaid has gone from a fun honor to a never-ending bank account hemorrhage: from engagement gift to multiple shower gifts to destination bachelorette party (complete with klassy pole dancing lessons), to an expensive dress (and the alterations the bridal shop makes sure are necessary when they order it), to mandatory salon hairdo, to wedding gift, to dollar dance (no, the dollar dance is NOT part of your culture, you're just greedy). It's difficult to feel joy for a friend when she spends eighteen months vacuuming your wallet and whining about "all those awful guests who didn't cover their plate".

P.S. The next wedding couple who decides to play "ransom the bride" may just find that the reception guests don't want her back!

Re: Ari. Geesh. Makes me glad I'm a guy. We rented a tux (yeah, I paid for my own when I was a best man) and show up. I think I bought the happy couple a single present (whatever I could find in their registry that was cheap), wolfed down a plate at the rehearsal dinner. I stood next to the groom at the ceremony the next day, listened to the bride's father babble on before the vows were spoken, spoke a few words of my own at the reception, threw a handful of rice at the happy couple and called it a day. No muss, no fuss. I cannot say I envied any of the female members of the wedding party.

Re: Ari

Amen, Ari. In my circles, it is incomprehensible to ask attendants to pay for their wedding attire. It is considered rude, cheap and ungracious to do so.

As an aside, I find the advice given in this column generally poor and at best, incomplete, which reflects on the columnists' lack of a certain standard of living.

I've been in a lot of weddings, and with one exception I've paid for my own dress. I've always thought it was rare for a bride to pay for her bridesmaid dresses. That said my brides have also always been courteous in choosing reasonably priced dresses, and there was never multiple showers.

I've been in three weddings as a bridesmaid, and I always paid for my own dress. Back then, a bridesmaid's dress meant sewing it for myself. Of course, we were always told "you can wear this again." :) On the other hand, when we were first married and extremely broke, a guy my husband had worked with for a few weeks asked him to be his best man. There was no way we could afford the money to rent the tux, so the groom paid for it. As a groom's gift, he gave my husband a gold pen and pencil set. We returned it to the store and got about $25 cash back. As I said, we were BROKE. I'll never forget that feeling of sheer joy when we walked out of the store with that little bit of money, which we spent on groceries.

When did tradition become more important than common sense? When I married, I had one maid of honor, no bridemaids. So I paid for her dress which needed no alterations. She was not exactly happy with it, but she didn't have to pay one cent and she looked good in it (she didn't like the color but it was my choice for the wedding: silver). However, if I had to buy 3, 4, or 5 dresses (not to mention my own wedding dress) it would have been too expensive. I paid for my own wedding and had just one wedding shower, no bachelorette, no engagement party. And in the end, I sent thank-you notes to everyone, regardless if they brought something or not. I was just happy people showed up to celebrate with us. Why has everyone become so materialistic? Matt, good for you, although dancing at the reception would have been nice too ;) People, to this day, ask me how me and my husband planned such a nice wedding: Simple, I kept things uncomplicated. When you follow common sense instead of these out-dated traditions, you can't go wrong. Unless of course, you HAVE no common sense to begin with. That's another issue completely!

I have only been in two weddings, paid for my dress both times. The one girl's parents had plenty of money but did not offer to buy any of the bridemaid dresses (maybe because it was a double shotgun wedding--two sisters-- or they were just being cheap). My friend though was smart in a way and we got the dresses at a hihg-end department store, so it was just a fancy dress that I happened to love and look good in that I could actually wear again. ---When I got married I just had one attendant, my BF for Maid of Honor (from the shotgun wedding), I bought her dress (a regular one that looked nice on her) as I knew she could not afford it and I could pay for it easily from my wedding budget. But I have never heard any of my friend's in wedding EVER having their dress paid for by the bride's family. I am sure it happens but rarely.

Like Marie-Claude I did not have all the bloodsucking gift grabs....no engagement party, no wedding shower, none of that stuff. My dad gave me a set amount of money and told me spend what I want, and whatever was left was our wedding gift. Was fine by me. I planned my wedding in about a month, all set up, deposits down, etc. Nothing fancy, married at parents home, had it catered, and played the radio for music and had a pool party reception. My husband's parent's did pay for the rehersal dinner which I did feel bad about asking (though they had the money, no problem there, quite well off) since it was their son's second time marrying. I have no idea how involved they were for his first wedding. I would have taken out of the wedding money provided by by dad had they balked though. My only complaint were people who RSVP'd they were coming and did not show, that is a costly issue for small weddings (50). My husband's boss, who was supposed to be a friend, decided not to come that morning, and yes I was annoyed by that and the fact that he never gave us a gift or even a card. I'd known his boss for years through work. That bothered me for a long time. My BILs GF never showed either, we thought she ws dead as she was driving in from another state about 20 hour drive. Kind of put a damper on the day. Found out a few days later when my BIL finally got a hold of her that she just changed her mind and decided not to come. Guess rthese people never learned any manners or consideration.