Part of the job of a wedding planner is to problem-solve in a creative way. For me, it is actually a fun part of the job to come up with new solutions for situations that I haven’t encountered before.

And that’s what happened when a mother of the bride posed the following “issue”:

The bride was planning on having her two sisters and the groom’s sister as her bridesmaids. But she is in her 30’s and has lots of friends from different parts of her life- childhood, high school, college, graduate school, and various employment. There are 27 (26 women and 1 man) she would like to include and honor. How could we make this happen?

Now, sometimes I need to think about issues for awhile. But I had an idea immediately (and laughed at myself!), and actually here is what happened on the wedding day: The twenty-seven “HONOR GUARD” (my term) aka “BRIDAL BRIGADE” (bride’s term) walked down the aisle, two by two (and yes, the last group was a threesome), and each person carried a single long-stemmed flower. There were two vases with a little water, one on each side of the altar, and each person put a flower in the vase on the side he/she was walking on. Then each person went to sit in a reserved seat for the ceremony. (This was important, so that other guests wouldn’t be disrupted while 27 people searched for seats.)

And then the processional started… and the bride and groom lived happily ever after (I hope!!)