Planning a wedding gets compared to a part-time job (or full) quite often, and with good reason.
Brides are crushed by deadlines, projects, and endless tiny tasks to check off. It consumes their free time, physical energy—and sometimes, even their mental health.
So it’s extra frustrating when our bridesmaids refuse to help us out. Why do some maids drop the ball—and is there anything a bride can do about it?
First: What Is a Bridesmaid Supposed to Help With?
Technically, your bridesmaids have only 2 jobs:
- Get the dress you pick for them, and
- Wear it and stand at the altar during your wedding.
Yes, that’s it. A maid of honor has a few more responsibilities, but even her bare-minimum “required” role is a short list.
However, there are some additional things brides expect from their bridesmaids in certain cultures or regions. In most cases, these include:
- Planning the bachelorette party and bridal shower
- Taking wedding portraits before/after the ceremony
- Entering the reception on cue, usually with a groomsman
- Going wedding dress shopping with the bride
- Attending engagement parties, showers, and all pre-wedding events
Finally, there are tasks they might help with not because they’re bridesmaids, but because they’re friends. Don’t expect these from them, but do feel free to ask.
- Wedding crafts
- Tagging along to cake tastings or venue tours
- Helping with invitation stuffing
What You Should Not Ask Your Bridesmaids to Do
- Clean up your venue, or set it up beforehand (with the exception of final touches and decor, if they want to).
- Change their appearance in any way they can’t undo at the end of the night.
- Put their lives on hold for your wedding—i.e., not getting pregnant, not moving away, etc.
- Dress down or make themselves look less pretty to make you look better.
- Shell out money for extravagant bachelorette parties, dresses, or other things they can’t afford.
11 Reasons Your Bridesmaids Aren’t Pitching In With Your Wedding
1. You haven’t explicitly asked your bridesmaids to help.
Let’s start with the most obvious (and most common) culprit. Maybe your bridesmaids aren’t helping enough because you haven’t actually asked them.
Clear, direct communication is a tricky thing to master. We often think we’re being way more direct than we really are.
Sure, maybe you’ve bemoaned how many centerpieces you have to make. You might’ve talked about how much help you need with invitations at the last girls’ brunch.
But at any point have you actually flat-out said, “I could use your help” to your bridesmaids? And was it recently enough that they’d remember?
If not, or if you used language that could’ve been misinterpreted, it’s not too late to change the tide.
Ask your girls directly—and set a date, time, and goal. Don’t just say, “I need your help with wedding crafts this week.”
Instead, get specific: “You’re off Saturday, right? Would you mind helping me at 2 pm for a couple hours, spray-painting the candle sticks I got for the centerpieces?”
2. You’re asking too much of them already.
Maybe your bridesmaids aren’t helping you with certain wedding tasks because you’ve already loaded their plates.
If the girls are in the throes of bachelorette and bridal shower planning, helping you research venues, and hunting down their shoes and dresses? It’s a little much to expect them at a mid-week craft night.
Once again, the solution comes down to clear communication.
Ask your bridesmaids point-blank if you’re overloading them with requests, and what you can do to help them. Maybe they just need a break, and can help with more in a few weeks.
3. You expect them to care about your wedding like it’s their own.
If you’ve communicated your expectations of your bridesmaids clearly and they still aren’t helping, you’re probably thinking, “They don’t care about my wedding as much as I do!”
And you know what? You’re right!
No one cares about your wedding the way you do.
Even your best friend on this entire planet can’t be as excited, as detail-oriented, and as invested as you are—because it isn’t her wedding.
I’ve been in two weddings where the brides complained about doing “all the work,” and “no one caring/doing/spending as much” as they were. Both times, myself and the other bridesmaids simply laughed and reminded them, “It’s your wedding!”
Of course you’re doing most of the work. Of course you’re spending more, obsessing and stressing more, and caring more. This is your big day.
In summary, your bridesmaids might not be lazy or unhelpful—they just aren’t meeting your impossible standard.
Your bridesmaids don’t need to step up. You need to adjust your expectations.
And take heart: just because they can’t care about the wedding like you do, doesn’t mean they don’t care at all.
For more on this issue, check out my post on what to do if nobody seems excited for your wedding.
4. Your bridesmaids don’t like your fiancé.
At the risk of unlocking a new fear, this possibility is worth mentioning. Sometimes your bridesmaids don’t seem excited about your wedding…because they aren’t.
Don’t get paranoid: this rarely catches brides off-guard. In other words, if your best friends don’t like your fiancé—you’ll probably already know.
If that’s the case, it’s not exactly surprising they aren’t helping with the wedding.
But this just explains their behavior—it doesn’t excuse it.
Unless your fiancé is abusive or otherwise putting you in danger, they should be able to put their feelings aside and respect your choice. And their roles as bridesmaids shouldn’t be affected, either.
Being a bridesmaid is an honor, but it’s also a gift to the bride: standing beside her, offering support, and being a good friend during the biggest day of her life.
If your girls aren’t doing that because they don’t like your fiancé, call them out on it. They don’t have to understand your choice to respect it.
5. None of your bridesmaids are that “into” weddings.
Some people just don’t get weddings. Others are jaded on marriage due to childhood experiences, or their own rough love life.
If your girls roll their eyes at words like “forever,” have commitment issues, or just don’t get the appeal of dresses and wedding cakes…you can’t change their minds.
But you can change their behavior—by calling it out.
Bottom line: they agreed to be in your wedding, and knew beforehand what weddings entail. It’s not fair for them to bail on pre-wedding events like the bridal shower or dress shopping just because it’s not their scene.
What’s more, they’re your friends first, and bridesmaids second. Friends try to act excited about their friends’ interests. And right now, yours is your wedding.
Tell them they don’t need to fake enthusiasm about wedding stuff, but you do expect them to be happy you’re happy. That’s what friends do.
6. You’re all pretty young, and they aren’t in the same place as you yet.
This is a mixed bag. Some younger wedding parties love the novelty of planning. If you’re one of the first in your friend group to get married, your bridesmaids might be just as excited as you are.
But most of the time, young bridesmaids care about…well, other things. Young adults are finishing school or starting careers. They’re dating. They get more excited about the alcohol menu than your napkin colors.
Unfortunately, there’s no real fix for this.
You can’t make anyone prioritize something they don’t want to. Especially when it’s a life milestone they aren’t even thinking about yet.
You can communicate your concerns, however. Tell them honestly how you’re feeling, but be respectful of their own lives and interests.
And hey, if they do care more about the bar menu than your napkins? Have them help with that, instead!
7. They believe they are helping enough (and they might be right).
It’s possible you just aren’t seeing all the ways your bridesmaids are helping with your wedding. After all, you’re caught up in your own to-do lists—maybe you’re missing their contributions.
They might even be hiding it on purpose!
Bridal showers and bachelorettes get input from the bride, but it’s not uncommon for bridesmaids to keep those things secretive.
Other tasks are kept hush-hush so as not to stress you out. I’ve fixed wedding cakes, hemmed dresses, ordered backup champagne and beer—all without the bride knowing. At least, not until after the wedding.
Just because you don’t hear about it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
8. You’re annoying your bridesmaids so much, they don’t want to help.
I was once a matron of honor for a bride who texted me daily about her wedding dress try-on appointment for two weeks straight.
Her wedding was still over a year away.
Don’t worry; I’ve since forgiven her. We laugh about how eager and excited she was, in fact. But yes, in the moment—it was incredibly obnoxious. And it made me (temporarily) not want to do anything in preparation for her wedding.
Your bridesmaids don’t want to hear about your wedding 24-7. They do not want to spend every Saturday from now until your wedding day doing errands and brunches.
Remember, this is your day—not theirs. They’re happy for you, but they can’t be as excited. At least, not in the same way.
Be honest with yourself: are you overloading them with wedding info and plans too early in the game? If so, it might not be surprising they don’t want to help right now.
9. They’ve all got their own stuff going on.
Your wedding is the center of your universe right now, and that’s okay. It’s normal. It’s necessary, even! So much work goes into pulling off such a huge event.
But it’s not the center of your bridesmaids’ universes. They have their own lives going on—drama, work stress, love lives, money woes, and more.
If your bridesmaids aren’t helping enough and you aren’t sure why, check in with them. They might be feeling stretched thin, and could use your support right now.
And when the smoke clears and their lives settle, they’ll be ready to return the favor.
10. You’re bleeding them dry, and they can’t afford your wedding.
Between dresses, shoes, hair, makeup, bachelorette weekends, and presents—your girls are shelling out a pretty penny to be in your wedding.
It’s possible they’re not helping or refusing to answer your texts because they can’t stand the thought of one more bill coming due.
The little stuff adds up. Every outing to shop for wedding crafts or dresses comes with lunch afterwards. Or you keep changing your mind about their shoes, and they’ve now ordered 3 pairs.
Alternatively, they might not be worried so much as resentful. They’ve already spent so much being in your wedding, they don’t want to help you with additional tasks.
And time is money, too. If you’ve already had your bridesmaids spend a few Saturdays dress shopping or doing wedding crafts, that’s time they could either be relaxing for work the next week, or picking up extra shifts.
Yes, they should just tell you outright if money is an issue. Communication doesn’t just fall to the bride.
But money is a sensitive subject, especially when it comes to weddings. It could make a world of difference if you start that dialogue first, one friend to another.
11. You don’t have bad bridesmaids; you have bad friends.
Finally, we reach every bride’s worst and ugliest fear: that our bridesmaids aren’t helping us because they’re not great friends.
But a word of caution, first: don’t assume this when you have no reason to do so.
If your girls are usually helpful, great listeners, and treat you like real friends do? Don’t worry. They are great friends. There’s some other reason they aren’t helping out.
But if you have bad friends, you’ll know it.
They frequently make things all about them. One girl stirs drama constantly, while another is so selfish you sometimes can’t stand her. Or they take and take from you, but never seem to give anything back in return.
In other words, their unwillingness to help isn’t new. It’s been like this for a long time—maybe the entire time you’ve known them.
You’re just starting to see it in a new, undeniable light.
How to Confront Your Bridesmaids About Doing More to Help
First, you need to honestly assess the situation.
Use the list of possibilities above. Are you the problem—asking too much of your bridesmaids, bugging them, etc.?
Do they have a lot going on right now, and waiting it out (or offering to help them) can free up their schedules later?
How you approach your bridesmaids about helping you more depends on those answers. If there’s anything you can fix or improve first—do it.
If not, or if you really don’t know why they aren’t helping, just ask.
Yes, even if it’s awkward. And yes—even if you think you already have.
Again, language is complex. We often think we’re being clearer than we are, or that someone understands us when they really don’t.
I like to use a formula in these situations: kindness, question, listening, request, details.
- Kindness: This means approaching the situation calmly, and not assuming malice. Go into the conversation under the assumption your bridesmaids have a good reason for not helping more.
- Question: Ask them what’s going on in their lives, or how they’re feeling. This is partly to assess why they aren’t helping, but mostly because it’s simply what friends do. The street runs both ways!
- Listening: Really, truly listen to what your bridesmaids say. Don’t rush into your request too soon; give them the floor, and a moment to share their lives and feelings. You might discover they’re more stressed at work than you realized, or caught up in a new romance you didn’t know was that serious.
- Request: Tell them point-blank you need their help, and then clearly ask for it. But remember to include…
- Details! This is the biggest hurdle in communicating clearly. Your girls might have even agreed to help before, but are still waiting on the specifics from you. So hammer down the details right away: time, place, and task.
Example: “I’m so happy for you about that promotion! You deserve it, [Bridesmaid]. Well, it sounds like work is going to be hectic for a while, so feel free to say no to this — but I could still use your help with invitation addressing, if you’re free one evening. What day works for you?”
If Your Bridesmaids Still Aren’t Helping—Accept That You’re Flying Solo
In the event clear, direct communication doesn’t work, and your bridesmaids still aren’t helping with your wedding? There’s really nothing more you can do.
Bottom line: bridesmaids don’t have to help you with your wedding.
Sure, it’s nice when they do. But it’s not a requirement of their role. Technically, their only jobs are to wear the dress and stand at the altar. Everything else is just gravy.
However—it’s important gravy.
We may not be “allowed” to expect help from them as our bridesmaids, but we can—and do—expect their help as our friends. And not getting it can hurt so much worse than if they were “just” bridesmaids.
Still, the wedding must go on. All you can do is forge ahead, ask others for help, and hope your girls will change their tune.
