Is this a reasonable amount of ‘jobs’ for a maid of honour?

[sorenlorenson1]

I’ve been asked by a close friend (since childhood) to be maid of honour at her wedding, this September.
She asked me last weekend, they had only announced their engagement a few days prior, but I immediately said yes and was happy to have been asked… however, I either am completely naive as to what I’ve let myself in for and this is the norm to expect from a maid of honour… OR it’s not the norm and is OTT…
Today, we spoke about the upcoming wedding in more detail.

Friend said ‘well obviously, you will be in charge of organising the hen weekend. I will send you the details of my friends you don’t know.’ (So 25 in total. 10 of these are mutual friends. The others I haven’t met or have met briefly.)

‘you will be in charge of organising the dress fittings for all bridesmaids. (11 adult bridesmaids. 2 flower girls aged 7/9) I’ll give you a list of Saturdays to pick from.’

‘I’ll be buying a gift for each bridesmaid but if I tell you what to get, you can order them and sort out as I won’t have the time to do it.’

’Help me pick a photographer / videographer. You can decide out of a few we both choose. I will trust your judgment on that obviously.’

’organise the flowers. I will send you some examples. So all you have to do is have a look at a few florists and their reviews, prices… and then just go from there.’

’I’ve got someone to do the hair but not the make up. I probably won’t have the money to be honest for make up. But on the day if you start early, you can do the make up for everyone.’

’if you’ve got the time, can you sort out some wedding favours for the table. Maybe make something.’

‘Keep an eye on the flower girls on the day. Their mums won’t be with them so need to keep them happy!’

‘After the best man speech, I will let you do one obviously.’

that’s everything she can think of ‘so far.’ 😭
I have never been a bridesmaid, let alone maid of honour… I did expect to have some input with the hen do… but the rest feels like she’s expecting me to be a wedding planner. 😐

I should definitely mention that I live a 3.5 hour drive away (I moved away from my home city 8 years ago.)
I love my friend dearly, and have always felt it to be a very equal friendship, despite the physical distance between us now. But I think she’s thinking that I have a LOT of spare time, due to not working.
But I have four children, one of them is severely disabled and requires round the clock care (hence I’m on mumsnet at 1am) and I don’t want to commit to every single thing, if I’m not able to deliver, due to being exhausted or in hospital with my son.
(happens often.)

My OH says it sounds reasonable and most
of these things I can organise easily enough from my phone…. What’s the verdict here??

is this expected of a MOH?
would I be unreasonable to say I can’t / don’t want to take responsibility for all of the above?

[daisychain01]

It's disappointing your friend continued to defend herself and make out she was doing you a favour. Seemingly not a flicker of recognition, while you had to justify yourself. She sounds very self-absorbed.

As to your family saying you're lucky to have a disability car and not having to work. Really? How crass is that! There really are no words for people like that.

It's very generous of you to agree to arranging the hen night. I'm sure you're not expecting any appreciation for that, which is just as well.

[ordinarilyordinary]

Glad you spoke to her, and that the pressure is off now. I'd maybe ask MN to delete this post now in case the papers pick it up, and she sees it. Because that wouldn't end well...

[rookiemere]

Well done OP, you did a brilliant job of sticking up for yourself there.

I'm sorry your life is so hard and people don't appreciate what you do.

However even if you were sitting eating bonbons all day, your friends expectations were still beyond ridiculous, so continue to have your guard up for what she wants for the hen do.

[Chamomileteaplease]

Well done! That was assertive and brilliant that you have spoken to the bride.

I am concerned that you are saying though that you are just organising the hen party. That sounds very big in itself. Perhaps you could have another bridesmaid as back- up for when your personal life does get tricky again. It might make you feel less overwhelmed.

I hope the hen party is in the UK???

I am also concerned that your husband thought all those jobs are a reasonable ask. I think it is over a 1000 people on here who have said you are not unreasonable. It makes me wonder what he expects you to do at home. I hope he pulls his weight. Your joke about him looking after all four kids is worrying - I bet you do that all the time.

[Sceptre86]

Ypu need to phone and say that you aren't the right fit for a maid of honour. Live too far away and with your sons health things can be unpredictable and rightly so you would need to out his needs first. She needs someone who lives closer to bounce ideas off and who is able to go check out things with her. If you go ahead and things atemy quite too her liking I think you will gey the blame and you'll lose this friendship.

I actually think she's a CF expecting you to be an unpaid wedding planner. If you can't afford a makeup artist for yourself as a bride then you don't have the size of wedding where you'd need 11 adult bridesmaid's.

[Henuinequest]

No, it’s not reasonable. And if that’s what she expects I would bow out now and say you’ll be a bridesmaid…
I’ve been MOH twice and my main jobs were hen, and looking after the brides on the day. The on the day role is
a biggish one, helping dressing, carrying stuff, being their wing woman basically and white full on.

[Dontjudgeme101]

You are amazing op. So glad that you stood up for yourself. I still think that you shouldn’t even organise her hen-do! That’s just my opinion. Please don’t falter and let her try to get you to do a few things more for her. 💐💐

[piedbeauty]

Well done for standing up for yourself, op! Sounds like your friend was genuinely coming from a good place.

Wishing you and your son all the best.

[Henuinequest]

It’s good you have. Friendship strong enough to just chat and be open about this. You’ll have enough to do in the day!
mine if my MOH stints involves helping the
bride go to the loo as her dress was v complicated !
with the other it was helping her get over her last minute nerves! At one point I thought I was going to have to go out and tell everyone it was off! They’ve been together 15 happy years since then…s

[Lemonyfuckit]

The number of bridesmaids alone indicates this woman is deluded about how important her wedding is to anyone except her and the groom, and therefore I anticipate the bridezilla antics to only increase.

Yes it's normal for the (bridesmaids, not just the MoH) to organise the hen. Everything else on that list is for the bride and groom to do. If she's got too much on she can hire a wedding planner.

Good luck OP at holding firm boundaries with this one, as I suspect you'll need to!

[RampantIvy]

You’ll have enough to do in the day!

Comments like this always baffle me. What exactly will the MOH have to do on the day? When I got married I had my sister as bridesmaid. All she had to do was turn up, wlak down the aisle behind me and hold my flowers. I didn't need any help with anything else.

[LookItsMeAgain]

Well done on putting your foot (or even feet at the sheer CFery of her making these suggestions to you) down now.

At least she isn't going to be expecting you to be her wedding planner anymore. Did you ask her where she got the idea that you would be selecting the photographer/videographer? Or that you would be organising the fittings???

I'm guessing she watched the J Lo movie where she is actually running a business planning weddings and thought "Oh that would be perfect for sorenlorenson1 to do for me".

[Bluegingerbread]

Well done, OP. Definitely the right decision. Personally, I wouldn't organise the hen do unless it's just a night out. Once you go away, even if in the UK, it's a nightmare of organising money, rooms etc and you could easily end up out of pocket. And you don't know most of the people invited so it's more of a faff.

I think having a bridesmaid sort out your hen night worked when women married younger and were probably still in the same town they grew up in as the hens were people you'd gone to school with and worked with and knew each other and lived locally so it was easy to organise. Things have changed and now it's usually a mix of friends from childhood home, friends from uni, friends from current job and location, probably friends from previous jobs and they don't know each other, they have different family circumstances and budgets and locations and it's a nightmare to find something that suits most of the group and the bride is the only person who links them all so it's actually more sensible for her to organise.

[Blocked]

'She did also try to say that all money would have been provided upfront, and that she’s definitely not a bridezilla'

11 bridesmaids kind of says otherwise! Well done OP.

[Againstmachine]

Won't be able to afford makeup but can afford to have and buy dresses for 11 bridesmaids.😂

[thecatsthecats]

I can definitely sympathise on the managing a life with disabilities front.

I had long covid for 14 months, and have migraines. I'm lucky that these things have relatively minor effects on my life compared to most. Some days I feel like about 80% of a person.

But the utter SURPRISE when I make choices that reflect those limitations is astonishing. My nearest and dearest know plenty about these issues, but they never accept that it will affect THEIR requests.

Take the ILs - I have three weeks off over Christmas, very lucky. But they expect me to come to four different multi-day get togethers over the same period (let alone see my own family and other friends). They just don't understand that I don't have enough energy to do all those events, plus my family, plus having any sort of downtime sorting out my own home!

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

Kinell.

She doesn't need a maid of honour, she needs a PA. Or a lady-in-waiting, perhaps?

[Starseeking]

Well done on explaining to your friend @sorenlorenson1, that is a great outcome!

[Silversaxo]

I’d reply and say “I’m more than happy to arrange your hen, however I can’t commit to your other requests, it sounds like you would benefit from a wedding planner”

[Sunshine275]

She’s taking the piss, simple as.

I expected nothing from my bridesmaid.

However I’ve been in this position as a bridesmaid, my friend got married abroad so I paid my myself and baby to go, I was newly single so my parents came to help me out. I went to her hen do, helped her pick her wedding dress. The one thing I couldn’t do because I had childcare issues she was a bitch with me, she was nasty to the point she made constant dogs at her wedding and snubbed me when I went to gave her a hug. This massively effected our friendship until 3 years after and she made some snide remark and I lost it and told her exactly what I thought and how much I’d for her when she got married, I don’t think she expected it and suddenly changed her tune. It took a good while to get back on track but we did, stand up for yourself please don’t be a mug like I was.

[ALJT]

The hen do is a given for the MOH - yes. A lot of these jobs sound like stuff the bride and groom should be doing?! I chose my own favours, childrens parents sorted responsibly of who watched them… I wouldn’t of dreamed of asking the bridesmaids to sort it… I dunno I feel a lot of this is lazy on her part… delegating jobs she should be doing herself

[MeridaBrave]

That’s way too much. Even the hen weekend seems like a lot to me - when I got married it was one evening and even then only 10 friends so 25 for a weekend…!

The other stuff is totally unreasonable - eg bridesmaid fittings, gifts, photographer. That’s a job for her, her mother / MIL or a party planner.

I might also expect stuff on the day eg helping photographer to make sure all the right photos taken.

[DragonWasp]

Amazing well done you!!!

[Mummyof4Ireland]

Other than organising the hen do and accompanying the bride to dress trials the rest is completely out of the question and not normal at all. Tell her now before it's too late!

[GrumpyMummy123]

Well done OP for putting your foot down! Why she thought it would be reasonable to off load all her wedding planning onto a dear friend that already has enough on her plate who knows?! Weddings do weird things to peoples perspectives of reality!

Why don't they want to do it themselves?! We made all those sorts of decisions as a couple (or at least I made short lists and got DH to help choose / decide if he had an opinion!)

Hen do fair enough that's a classic MOH job.