Submitted by admin on Sun, 2007-03-25 08:00. ::
AT her wedding last August in San Clemente, Calif., Diane Huliganga Parriott had eight bridal attendants. Four wore coral-tone gowns. Four wore black tuxedos with matching coral handkerchiefs and coral flowers in their lapels.
These “bridesdudes,” as some have dubbed male bridal attendants, are all friends from Ms. Parriott's college days. They helped her choose the wedding invitation and even helped her shop for her gown and peek-toe stilettos.
The opposite-sex attendants also arranged — and came along on — a whirlwind bachelorette weekend in Las Vegas that included pedicures as well as gambling and clubbing. Later the guys gave Ms. Parriott a catered wedding shower.
Gender-bending weddings, in which brides are asking male friends to stand up as attendants and bridegrooms are asking their female buddies to participate as their “best women,” are still somewhat of a novelty, but they hardly raise eyebrows anymore.
According to a survey of 1,000 brides done by Theknot.com last year, 10 percent said they were having a male as one of their bridal attendants. Another 51 percent said while they were not having opposite-sex attendants, if they had a male best friend they would.
“It is quite acceptable,” said Kathleen Murray, the Web site's deputy editor, who also noted that the trend has been rising for the past three years.
Because brides and bridegrooms are older — the average age of a bride is 27 and 29 for a bridegroom — they are more independent and “not afraid to break tradition,” Ms. Murray said. Those who have nontraditional wedding parties are also more likely to have coed bachelor and bachelorette parties and coed wedding showers.
Erin Carriere-Kretschmer, 36, passed over her four older sisters when she asked her youngest brother, Nicholas Carriere, to be her “man of honor” when she married Matthias Kretschmer in Boston in October 2004.
Mr. Carriere relished his role, from helping his sister pick out china patterns and chairs to rushing her ivory Vera Wang gown to the dry cleaners when laundry detergent accidentally spilled on it the day before the wedding.
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