Support act steals the show

THIS is shaping up to be the year of the bridesmaid.

Already the US comedy Bridesmaids, starring Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne, looks set to be one of the biggest movie hits of the year. Then, of course, there is Pippa Middleton who fought an, ahem, rear-guard action to quietly steal the show during the recent royal wedding of her sister Kate to Prince William.

P-Middy isn’t the only one to up the ante for bridesmaids — Keira Knightley recently played the starring role in her brother Caleb’s wedding to fiancée Kerry Nixon.

The message seems to be: brides beware. Other members of the bridal party are emerging from under your train to share, if not outright steal, the limelight. Can weddings — and the role of the bridesmaid — ever be the same again?

“You’re always going to be at risk of being upstaged if you pick Keira Knightley as your bridesmaid,” laughs Natasha Mac a Bhaird, author of The Irish Bride’s Survival Guide. “Pippa Middleton wore white out of royal tradition, but the average bride wouldn’t go for that. There’d definitely be a chance of being upstaged then.”

Gone are the days when bridesmaids had to wear the kind of dresses that Rachel from Friends once described as “looking like something you’d drink when you’re feeling nauseous”, or giant, Quality Street-colour meringue affairs that do nobody — except, perhaps, the bride — any favours.

“A nasty bride might want to make her bridesmaid look as bad as possible so she could never outshine her, but I think a positive change has been the attitudes to dresses,” says Mac a Bhaird. “Now dresses are normally something you could wear again for a special occasion. It’s a good thing for the bridesmaids because they don’t want to go out in something they hate.”

Peter Kelly, aka Weddings By Franc, agrees. “I used to call them ‘poor bridesmaids’ because they’d be so delighted to be asked, and then they get to see the dress and they all have heart attacks,” he says. “But I think the image changed after Sex And The City, when there were three different bridesmaids dresses.

“There are never four bridesmaids with the identical same body shape, so we’d suggest not having matching style dresses to give all the ladies the chance to look their best. But I don’t think a bride is ever upstaged. If you look at the photos of a bride on her day, she always looks like she has a lightbulb on inside.”

The pre-wedding role has evolved for bridesmaids too. “It used to be that the bridesmaid didn’t have much to do except on the day itself in more of a ceremonial role,” says Mac a Bhaird. “Now weddings have become a lot more elaborate. I wouldn’t say it’s as big a job as the best man’s — they still don’t have to make a speech and if they do it’s short and snappy. But it’s a big commitment. You have to be prepared to put time into it.”

Indeed, if you aren’t willing to put in the time — or, if the woman in the veil is something of a bridezilla — then tensions can quickly boil over.

“There are some brides who are just all about themselves,” says Mac a Bhaird. “Someone I knew who was a bridesmaid became pregnant, and she was going to be six-months in at the wedding. The bride was horrified. As far as she was concerned this wasn’t a happy event, but something that was going to interfere her wedding plans and dress fittings.

“On the other side is the bridesmaid who doesn’t want to pull her weight, and just be the star who gets all the attention. Dealing with someone like that is difficult, and I advise people to think very carefully beforehand about who they want to be their bridesmaid. Is it someone you trust and are close to, and, most importantly, be straight with?

“But if nothing can be done with a lazy bridesmaid, I don’t think it’s worth getting into a massive row. Chalk it up to experience.”

Of course, the modern bride might like use some lateral thinking when it comes to picking her bridesmaids. For example, who says they have to be women at all? “My wife had a bridesman, her twin brother,” says Kelly. “Meanwhile, I had a best woman wearing a suit jacket with a skirt.

“That was back in 1996 and I remember it causing a few heads to turn.

“You should do what you want. I hate the word ‘etiquette’ when it comes to bridal parties and weddings. People should think about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. There probably aren’t as many rules as you think there are.”

* Bridesmaids opens in cinemas tomorrow