Bridesmaid Blues

Bridesmaids are called "phu dau" in my country which translates to "help bride." The more I read about bridesmaids in America the more I am saddened and removed because I grew up viewing and treating them differently. First of all, there are some rules/guidelines that go into selecting your BMs:

1. she has to be single - emphasis on NOT married
2. this can not be the 4th wedding she is in

Notice that no where it says she has to be your best friend, or even a close friend. So basically any available and willing young girl will do.

Here are the considerations that the bride is obligated to do for her BMs:

1. she has to buy all the dresses (sometimes even all the accessories). This usually means TWO per girl as there is a morning ceremony dress and the evening reception dress.
2. she has to know and understand that asking these ladies to be her BMs is a HUGE inconvenience to them as they must follow her everywhere on the wedding day and help her.

So growing up with this understanding I never thought that I would have a "tough decision" to make when I needed to go find my BMs. I said find, not select. In many ways, this task became a process of elimination and I must admit there was no sappy emotional feeling that went into it. I ended up choosing a friend from medical school and months later asked my brother's gf to be my second BMs. They are both Vietnamese and I think that was an important part because the wedding is traditional. I never had to choose a gaggle of girls and fuss over which ones would "be part of the coveted wedding party." But after reading and researching wedding blogs I realized how special BMs are to the bride, what they signify and what brides agonize over concerning their selection. In some ways, because I am Asian American, I feel like my BMs do not have that much meaning in my wedding. Moreover, my FI has resorted to taking my brother and close male friend as his groomsmen because all his close male friends have sig others and we do not want these guys to leave them all alone at our wedding. So there you have it our wedding party of four will be people we respect and like but they are hardly people that we've had the most memories and bonds with.
Now I also read about the drama that goes into these I like to call "BMs Behaving Badly" and I am glad that I only have two who have caused no trouble for me. But after careful thought about the differences between our two cultures I wonder where the bad behavior stems from? I will post another entry on "BMs Behaving Badly" another time.

Do you think that the roles of BMs and brides are not clear sometimes and this leads to wedding blues? How have you disaster/drama controlled your wedding planning?