Qualities of a good matron of honour

Woe unto a bride who doesn’t have a good matron of honour as the days leading to the wedding tend to be stressful, writes NIKKO TANUI

Simply put, a maid of honour can make or break a bride, because in essence, she is supposed to be at her beck and call.

Her duties include; helping the bride shop for a gown and dresses for the bridesmaids, plan the bachelorette party and lead the bridesmaid troupe during the wedding. She also holds the bride’s bouquet of flowers while the couple exchanges vows, sign the marriage certificate as a witness and dances. with the best man during the formal first-dance among other duties.

This is why when it comes to choosing a maid of honour, not every girlfriend, sister, cousin or any other women in a would-be-bride’s life fits the bill.

The question then is, what qualities and characteristics should a good maid of honour posses?

Enthusiastic

A good maid of honour should be genuinely happy and enthusiastic over the fact that her girlfriend, sister or cousin is finally jumping the broom.

You see, the cold fact is, women are naturally jealous of each other and the beginning of a disaster is to pick someone who deep inside is jealous. Such a woman will drag her feet during the entire wedding ceremony leaving you reeling with anger.

Has time to spare

Gone are the days when one would find a woman just laying around doing nothing. These days, every woman is a hustler and hardly have time to spare on other pursuits that are not personal or adding money to her purse.

Therefore, much as a would-be-bride wishes for a particular girlfriend, sister, cousin to be her maid of honour, she will be setting herself to stress if the person in question has a tight schedule  to have enough time to spare during the planning of the wedding.

Know her responsibilities

Whenever a woman gets a marriage proposal, every woman in her life will want to be picked as a maid of honour.

Believe it or not, I have heard about women who wanted so bad to be maids of honour that they ended up hating a bride when they were by-passed.

But woe on a bride who picks someone who doesn’t have a good idea of what is expected of her as a maid of honour. She will definitely disappoint a lot of people involved in the planning of the wedding.

Like-minded

There is nothing worse than a bride picking a maid of honour she literally has nothing in common with.

For instance, while the bride will think this or that colour will be perfect for the bridesmaids dresses, such a woman will beg to differ and offer her opinions as if it was her wedding.

Therefore, for a bride to avoid unnecessary arguments over this or that with her maid of honour, she should be the type of a woman whom she shares in taste, respects the decisions and choices of the bride-to-be.

Slow to anger

The stress of planning a wedding can see an impatient and hot-tempered maid of honour lose her cool over issues or persons.

Therefore, a good maid of honour should be the kind of person who keeps her cool and offer the bride the much needed emotional support.

Sense of humour

Any couple who managed to pull off a fabulous wedding will tell you that it was preceded with tears and stress. There will be occasions during planning when everything will seem to go wrong.

During such stressful moments, the maid of honour’s sense of humour comes in handy to cheer up the bride and the team on her side. Sense of humour here doesn’t mean the ability to crack silly jokes, but to be humorous at the appropriate time.

Can keep secrets

By virture of being a maid of honour, she will get to know deep secrets about the bride and groom. And who wants a person who during the wedding preparation and afterwards will not think twice, but spill the beans on the nasty things she heard about or witnessed about the couple and their relatives?

Won’t steal the show

Come wedding day, all eyes should be on no other person other than the bride because afterall, isn’t a wedding all about her?

Therefore, the maid of honour should not steal the limelight from the bride lest people start wondering where the groom was looking in the first place!