A maid of honour and 6 other American wedding traditions Meghan Markle might import
Although we don’t yet know a great amount of detail about the pending Prince Harry-Meghan Markle big fat royal wedding, that certainly hasn’t prevented some wild speculation. And why not? It’s not a bad distraction from the January blues, the newly unshuffled Cabinet and the possibility of nuclear war in 2018.
The latest assumption we have collectively reached is that Jessica Mulroney, a Canadian stylist and Markle’s best friend, will be maid of honour. “Ahhh”, you will sigh. “How lovely for her.” Or, if you’re of an older, more traditional persuasion, you might in fact reply: “Sorry, what?”
Because the role of maid of honour is, like Markle herself, an American import, and not a part of the traditional British wedding set-up. If you’ve seen the 2011 filmBridesmaids, you’ll be roughly familiar with the maid of honour’s work. (Or should that be maid of honor’s?) If you haven’t, it is this: the maid of honour is chief bridesmaid; organiser of fun things; mopper-up of messy things; holder of useful things (hankies, mascara). She is almost always the sister or best friend, or best sister, of the bride. These days she can even be a man, in which case she is more likely to be called the man of honour.
But what began Over There has, inevitably, now migrated Over Here, and it seems Markle will indeed have a maid of hono(u)r. A source told US Weekly: "While it is very much a British wedding, expect a few American touches too. She's not picked a chief bridesmaid, she's chosen a maid of honour."
So what other American wedding traditions might she and her very British fiancé choose to import? Here are our suggestions:
1. Bridal shower
No, this does not involve an ancient practice of washing the bride in readiness for her big day, rather a party for the bride-to-be in which guests are obliged to shower her with gifts. Picture a baby shower but without the unborn baby. These parties are typically attended by the bride’s female friends only, but men are finding themselves increasingly dragged in. Apparently refreshments might include a “candy buffet”. Yes, I know. My teeth hurt just thinking about it.
2. Rehearsal dinner
This happens the night before the wedding, and is traditionally paid for by the groom’s parents. (Well they’ve got to have something to do, haven’t they?) The purpose of the occasion is for the families and friends of the bride and groom to meet ahead of the day itself. That way they can work out in advance quite how much they’re going to dislike each other during the rest of their lives and brace themselves accordingly.
3. Shorter reception
In Britain we tend to get married any time from midday, stand around for a long time drinking fizz, sit around for a long time eating stodge, get up and dance for a long time, eat some cheese, dance some more, and generally spin the whole thing out until midnight or beyond, by which point very few guests can remember whose wedding they’re even at. This is not always so in the US. Sandy Malone, a Washington-based wedding planner, in a blog post entitled 5 reasons not to have your wedding reception go all night long, writes: “Fortunately, for wedding planners and vendors like me, most of the time, the reception gets limited to four or five hours. That’s what most venue and catering packages are based on.” By British standards, this is not very long. Will Meghan and Harry pack their guests off early? It is the FA Cup Final that day, so you never know.
4. Registry
We call this a gift list in Britain. We can’t see Harry and Meghan opting for a John Lewis one somehow - one imagines they already have all the crockery and bath towels they need.
5. Cupcakes not fruitcake
Remember when cupcakes were called fairy cakes and were the preserve of the child’s tea party, not the infantilising, 1950s-throwback treat of the fully grown adult woman? Well, forget it: that time is long gone. Not only that, but the march of the cupcake has advanced so far that towers of the nauseating things are even replacing the good old traditional wedding fruitcake, which was built to last a century and to withstand a hurricane. According to a survey in 2015, one in five British couples now opt for tiers of American-style cupcakes in lieu of the old-fashioned wedding cake. We can only hope the senior members of the Royal family are not subjected to this nonsense on May 19. After all, there's no polite way to lick buttercream icing off your fingers.
6. Bachelorette party
We call this a hen party. It is organised by the aforementioned maid of honour and her merry troop of bridesmaids. Markle’s version, one assumes, will be far too classy to include the customary pursuits of tittering over plastic phalluses and squealing when the butler in the buff walks in. Hopefully someone will still pin an L-plate to her back before they hit the All Bar One though.
