5 traditional mother of the bride duties to keep in mind

Even if your family isn’t big on adhering to tradition, many of the traditions around the mother of the bride play simple, practical roles in making everything go off without a hitch. So to give you an insight into what’s expected from a proactive, mindful mother of the bride, we’ve compiled this list of five of the traditional duties left in your hands.

1) Dress help

It’s traditionally the role of the bride’s mother to offer support related to the wedding dress: searching for shops, discussing adjustments with dressmakers, offering feedback, and providing all the help a bride might need in the shopping process. Then, on the wedding day, these duties resume with dressing assistance: helping the bride into her dress, placing the veil, giving a once-over to spot anything that needs a quick fix, and so on.

2) Coordination of dresses with the mother of the groom

While there’s not necessarily any reason it must be the mother of the bride who figures out how to keep everyone from clashing on the big day, that’s traditionally her responsibility; figure out what the bride is wearing, then figure out what you can wear to complement without surpassing, then talk to the mother of the groom to help her fit in to the picture. As long as it gets done, the specifics don’t matter — just don’t forget to deal with it!

3) Contact point and organizer

In many cases, the mother of the bride gets to be the primary point of contact for every caterer, contractor, planner, florist, entertainer, and other outsider important to making the wedding perfect. No one needs to handle it all single-handedly, especially for bigger weddings, but it’s important to have a go-to person when decisions need to be made.

4) Reception host

Continuing on in the role of chief organizer, the mother of the bride traditionally hosts the reception. In a broader sense, the mother of the bride plays host from beginning to end — including welcoming guests and getting them settled.

5) Tradition researcher

The final traditional role of the mother of the bride is researching those traditions! Family, cultural, religious, regional — it’s up to the mother of the bride to do the homework and find out if there’s anything special they should be doing. Of course, you can always toss the weird or dated ones out if no one likes them, but it can be fun to find something uniquely traditional to toss in to the ceremony.