Choosing your men

You’ll be relying on your best man and ushers to be charming, organised and reliable on your wedding day. Sound like anyone you know?

Your best man and ushers are also known as 'groomsmen'. They are your people and it’s up to you to choose them. You might be surprised to know that they are actually required to do a little more than drink heavily on the stag night...

Best man’s duties

In a nutshell, the best man organises the stag night, accompanies the groom to the ceremony, brings the rings to the ceremony, introduces the speeches at the wedding reception and makes a (preferably funny) speech himself.

The best man is meant to perform a supportive role, and not add to the pressure. So avoid asking someone who is too busy, unreliable, notoriously difficult, or who has had a previous romantic relationship with the bride.

Pair share?

If you can't, or don't, want to decide between two friends, or one best man can't make the stag party and the other can't make the wedding, it’s fine to have two best men. If both are present, they can both stand up front with you during the ceremony, and you can divvy up their on the day responsibilities as follows:

• one brings the rings, the other acts as toastmaster for the speeches, cake cutting etc
• one is master of ceremonies for the day, the other makes the speech

or

• they make a joint best man speech and hand over one ring each...

Can a best man be a woman?

If your best mate/best choice for best man is a woman, it’s advisable to make sure that you and the bride are in harmonious agreement over this one, as it’s just possible she might not be keen on another woman standing at the altar on her day. If she’s got no reservations, then go right ahead.

Usher honours

Choosing the ushers is a much easier job, and is a nice honour to bestow on friends or brothers -- especially if there is someone out there who hoped to be made best man.

There’s no rule as to how many ushers you should have, but as their main role is to make sure the guests are organised at the ceremony, you’ll probably want fewer ushers for a smaller venue and more for a larger one.

You might decide with your bride to have the same number of ushers as bridesmaids, so that they can escort each other in pairs out of the ceremony and sit boy/girl at the reception, so it’s worth comparing notes with each other before you ask anyone.

Page boy

If you, or the bride, have a much younger brother, nephew or cousin, you might want to make him a page boy, or ring bearer. However, bear in mind that the younger a child is, the less likely he is to do exactly what you want, when you want. Page boys score massively on the ‘ahhh’ factor scale in a ceremony but can behave badly if bored!