Bridesmaids go professional | Hacker News Reader

Bridesmaids go professional

sixthtone.com

My first thought is that the pictures would be super awkward in ten years, but I think that's already the case when looking at many people's bridesmaids and groomsmen.

Seeing a stranger in the picture is probably less awkward than the person who scammed you out of a bunch of money or broke up with your siblimg.

I've read that rent-a-family is a normalized service in Japan, I don't know if that's a common rental there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rental_family_service

This makes me think that humans don't crave actual emotional ties and connection as much as the appearance of one. That is, they are not paying for love and kinship, just the ritual of it, which maybe all we have to go on. "There's no such thing as love, only proof of love."

Come to think of it, I think there's an east Asian tradition of hiring mourners to follow the funeral procession of the deceased, and the expected crying and expressions of grief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_mourning

To me it's just a reminder that the east and west are different. It seems "kinda weird" to me to want a fake family, but it's not more shocking than wanting thousands of TikTok or Instagram followers. It's good we have diversity of values, as it makes us more resilient as a species, although I suspect this trend will not take off in the US.

I’m pretty sure ancient Romans and Greeks hired mourners too.

I like the end of the article:

> Xie met her current boyfriend at a wedding, where they were working as a professional bridesmaid and best man. He’s promised to make her the happiest bride. “We will hire 24 groomsmen and bridesmaids,” Xie told Sixth Tone.

I realize cultures are different, but as a wedding photographer I can tell you the happiest brides are usually the ones that have the fewest bridesmaids.

Smaller weddings are less stressful, but more importantly the friendships seems to be closer/more loving when there are 2 or 3 bridesmaids instead of 10.

I'm from the UK and we got married in the Seychelles 32 year ago - there was just the two of us and some people from the hotel standing in as witnesses.

It was brilliant and completely stress free.

The hotel even organised a "honeymoon" for us for free where we flew to another hotel on a different island for a few nights - they didn't even charge us for it.

Ever since then I've noticed how stressed people are at weddings....

Edit: I should also point out that this was also much cheaper than a "normal" wedding.

there is something in this. Maybe the having a huge squad is itself an attempt at asserting popularity, a narcissistic trait which is usually an unhappy one

Ring cost and length of marriage seem to be similarly related.

I once performed services for a wedding where there were 28 bridesmaids and groomsmen combined (a roughly even mix of each). Everything seemed very status driven and the wedding was at least a $500K affair.

That is clearly the setup for a not-very-good romantic comedy movie.

Life imitates Gilbert & Sullivan?

Gilbert & Sullivan's "Ruddigore" (1887), a comic parody of Victorian melodrama, was set in "the only village in the world that possesses an endowed corps of professional bridesmaids who are bound to be on duty every day from ten to four ...".

I wonder how looks other than height affect the job. You probably don’t want your bridesmaids to be prettier than you, but you also want them to look good for photos. That’s a fine line for most of the population.

TFA doesn't say, and it's hard to make an educated guess without (I think) being embedded in Chinese culture.

In my experience, the entire point of bridesmaids is that they are your friends, sharing your "special day". The photos exist to document that you were, briefly, the top of the social heap and the center of attention. It wouldn't be meaningful to hire non-friends.

Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, of course. And since TFA says that the get 10-20 "inquiries" per day, it may just be that with > 1 billion people there's always somebody doing anything. In which case it's probably hard to draw any patterns about what people want, since they're so far off the end of the bell curve.

Makeup solves that problem for most people.

I'm in a wedding soon where the groom basically sent all the groomsmen a kind of odd message saying here is what you are responsible for doing. I think it was intended as being kind of funny but none of us know each other and this isnt someone I'm exceptionally close with anymore.

It feels like I just got signed up to do work. I could see how this could easily be a job.

This seems normal? Groomsmen are supposed to be part of the groom's helpers/runners. Apparently the original purpose of the best man to act as the groom's backup in the event that one of the bride's loved ones tried to take her back from the groom (or the unwilling bride tried to run away). Official sword-fighter/protector type fellow.

I don't think anyone accepts being a groomsman at a wedding without expecting them to be tasked to do something to help out.

As a groomsman, yes, you are there to work. You are an attendant to the groom (and often also the bride and her bridesmaids to a lesser extent). You will also assist other contractors and members of the wedding party.

As someone who recently got married I can tell you that anyone in the wedding party who hasn't been married is useless. Total dead weight at best and counterproductive, self-centered a*holes at worst (sorry the venue made you get a covid test Greg). But the ones that have are worth their weight in gold. The behavior, thoughtfulness, and even the toasts are night and day.

For context we really had 6 wedding coordinators the day of (venue coordinator, catering coordinator, MC, actual day-of coordinator + 2 assistants), to give you an idea of how many people are running things behind the scenes. If I had to do it all again I can't say I wouldn't hot swap out some of the wedding party for professionals.

Nonsense you can still give a good toast even if you aren’t married.

That doesn’t sound like a wedding it sounds like a money bonfire.

Wedding and money bonfire are synonyms..

Humanity is such a unique and varied place. I don't know anything about Chinese culture but this could easily be the basis of a romantic comedy in America.

There is indeed an American romantic comedy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Ringer

Searching for "professional bridesmaid" suggests this is not a new industry.

I was thinking about that related industry, if that too would make a resurgence in areas and cultures it had faded in many generations ago. I think some places never stopped that industry right?

I wonder how much the one child policy has had an effect in making this type of industry prevalent in China.

With a one-child policy, the first generation you have no siblings. The next generation, you have no cousins.

Add to that the sex selection of many families choosing to have a son over a daughter as their one child, and you end up in this situation.

... Seems unrelated. It would be fairly unusual to have siblings or cousins as bridesmaids or similar, I would have thought? It's generally friends.

I don't know how relevant the parent comment is but I will say it is very common and seemingly often expected for the wedding party to be in part family members.

Assuming bridesmaids/groomsmen would otherwise be selected from the respective sides' extended relations of similar age, this isn't surprising considering the impact of both the one child policy and the urbanization of China, which would limit the number of relatives available.

In many cultures, wedding ceremonies themselves (not the parties and receptions) are mostly an in-family thing, so you wouldn't have friends, however close, as attendants to the bride and groom.

Lacking relatives, it might be easier to just hire these actors. It's a bit odd to be taking photos with them, but perhaps just having a lot of people in your wedding photos has cultural currency.

It seems like it's more of an aesthetic choice according to TFA.

> COVID-19 travel restrictions have made it hard to find friends able to travel to weddings, while some couples complain they can’t find friends that are up to the standard.

> A bridesmaid needs to be unmarried, Xie told Sixth Tone on Monday, and it’s important not to be taller than the bride. For aspiring professionals, 155 cm-173 cm is a good height, she said.

> At a wedding, Xie usually pretends to be the bride’s best friend or a classmate. The couple generally cover the travel and accommodation costs. A typical daily rate is between 500 and 2,000 yuan ($74-$296).

So if you are a short woman who has married later than most of your shorter female friends, this is the service for you.

> So if you are a short woman who has married later than most of your shorter female friends, this is the service for you.

That's extremely niche. Also, I'm guessing if you are excluding friends based on their height, you must not be great friends with them, and maybe vice versa.

I'd guess it's more likely that bridesmaids in general don't have such a sacrosanct and personal role in these weddings, and they function more like models at an automotive/electronics shows.

A niche in a country of 1.3B is still profitable enough for some to earn a living.

This seems like the wedding equivalent of professional mourners, which is practiced in China, but also Egypt and even recently in the UK a company offered these services. And it was common in the accounts of the Bible.

Personally I don’t know why someone would want a random person in their wedding and photos. I’d rather have no one than have someone random stand with you on my day and in all of my pictures to look back on. Bridesmaids are meant to be close friends and family that you could not do the day without and mean a lot to you. If they couldn’t come I wouldn’t substitute them.

However having been in over 9 weddings myself I wouldn’t hate the hustle to have this side gig as I can probably can be a professional bridesmaid at this point.

Came looking for a Golang article :/

Oh, what an awesome article that would have been!

"A bridesmaid needs to be unmarried" - Interesting...

It's in the name.

Webster's 1913:

Maid (?), n. [Shortened from maiden. ?. See Maiden.]

1. An unmarried woman; usually, a young unmarried woman; esp., a girl; a virgin; a maiden.

There is (that I know of) no such requirement in American custom. One does hear of a "Matron of Honor" as opposed to "Maid of Honor", but it is true that "bridesmaids and/or matrons" has an awkward sound.

The whole origin of the tradition was to showcase some other available women for marriage. "Look at these other beautiful girls! Maybe some eligible young man you know would like to be introduced?"

Bridesmaid = maid of the bride.

Bride = woman getting married.

Maid = young unmarried girl or woman/virgin.

In contemporary American culture it's just friends/family of any age/marital status. But they really should change the name.

> But they really should change the name.

If the word "literally" in the vernacular, has come to mean the complete opposite of its original definition, let's not begrudge the word "maid" losing its original marital status -- and it's more about their virginity IIUC -- connotation.

English is just a mess.

If they’re all married who’s going to catch the bouquet?

If anyone thinks they will get cultural capital by having a middle-aged white dude as a groomsman/best man hit me up :-)

given that every bride is obviously unique, being a professional wedding ringer might actually be a viable job for a lot of people, as the qualifying criteria is going to change every time. One of those where maybe we should all sign up on the off chance we get called up - food, party and get paid for it? Deal!

So the wedding ringer was a true story!

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