How to Choose A Maid of Honor Among Multiple Best Friends or Sisters

Let me let you in on a little secret – planning your wedding will require you to make more decisions in a short period of time than you likely ever have in your life. And while so much of wedding planning is a lot of fun, some of these decisions can feel challenging on a deeper level, especially when they involve relationships with family and friends. One of the toughest decisions I personally faced was choosing a maid of honor. 

Since you’ve found yourself on this page, I’m guessing you’re dealing with a similar dilemma. You might be weighing things like, how to pick a maid of honor when you have two best friends. Or how to choose a maid of honor when you have more than one sister. Or how to pick between your best friend and sister for maid of honor. And tougher yet, how to make this decision without hurting anyone’s feelings. For me, it was a combination of all of these factors.

I have three sisters and multiple best friends, so my wedding party (which totaled six) included all of my sisters and three close friends. What made things even more difficult was the fact that I was the maid of honor for exactly half of the women in my bridal party. And if you’re wondering, “why didn’t you just assign some of them the role of matron of honor vs maid of honor?” Well, all of them were already married, except one.

In addition to not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, truthfully, I knew they’d all be great at the job in their own way. That’s when I made a pretty bold decision–I decided not to pick at all. Instead, I chose to make ALL of them my coveted MOHs. Not only was it one of the best decisions, it was actually pretty simple: I split up the primary maid of honor responsibilities and asked each friend and sister to play a role based on where I knew she’d shine best. 

How Do You Split The Maid Of Honor’s Role?

You can assign each bridesmaid the following maid of honor duties:

1. The Bridal Shower Planner
2. The Bachelorette Party Planner
3. The Bridal Attendant
4. The Speech Giver
5. The Marriage License Signer

The Bridal Shower Planner

This one is pretty self explanatory. This is the bridesmaid who will lead the planning of your bridal shower. You’ll want to choose the friend or sister who actually enjoys planning logistics, contacting people and hosting/leading activities. And, hey, since we’re making our own rules here, you could even assign this role to two bridesmaids–one who likes planning logistics, but maybe doesn’t enjoy the spotlight, and one who relishes the opportunity to emcee a game of bridal bingo. For this, I chose my college best friend.

The Bachelorette Party Planner

Similar to the bridal shower planner, you’ll want to assign this role wisley since it can be pretty logistics heavy–especially if you opt for a bachelorette weekend vs. a night out. In my case, I got lucky that one of my friends LOVES planning events, so while I assigned her the role of bachelorette party planner, she jumped in with my sister on a lot of the heavy lifting for my bridal shower too.

The Bridal Attendant

This is the friend who will stand immediately next to you at the altar. Their maid of honor duties will mostly involve assisting you before and during the ceremony. This can include helping you get dressed, fixing your dress/train after you’ve walked down the aisle, safeguarding the groom’s ring, holding your bouquet during key moments of the ceremony (like exchanging rings and vows), and if they’re a really good friend, they’ll even help you with your dress during bathroom breaks–because, yes, you’ll need someone for that. Thank me later. 

The Speech Giver

When it came to who would give the maid of honor speech at my wedding, I chose to have two speeches from the bridal party: one from my oldest sister, and the other from one of my oldest friends. I thought it would be special to hear from two people who have known me most of my life, but in very different ways. I was right, this worked out beautifully. So much so, that I was brought to (happy) tears during the maid of honor toasts.

The Marriage License Signer

Don’t let this role fool you–it may seem minor or insignificant compared to some of the other maid of honor responsibilities, but I assure you it is not. The bridesmaid who signs your marriage license is the person who will be legally recognized as one of your witnesses. Not only that, their signature will forever live on as a key piece of the puzzle that made your marriage official. Signing the marriage license is one of–if not THE–most important parts of getting married, so this is a pretty important job. And, as a bonus, this moment usually calls for a special photo opp.

The best part of this plan was, no one in my wedding party felt stressed or overwhelmed by carrying all of the maid of honor duties, and I got to have all my best girls represent me as maids and matrons of honor on my wedding day. 

So, what should you do if you can’t pick a maid of honor? In short, you don’t have to choose just one; you can make the choice to pick them all and spread the love by dividing the role among them. You can even put your own spin on this and map it out however works best for you, whether that’s eliminating a role that doesn’t fit your needs, or adding a new one that does.