While every bride has ostensibly met her knight in shining armour, who will rescue the poor bridesmaids from the reams of orange taffeta, shellacked hair and being propositioned by the married (and very drunk) best man?
Enter Jen Glantz, a self-styled “professional bridesmaid” who is offering her services to brides far and wide for an undisclosed fee.
Glantz, 26, already fits the bill: she’s been a bridesmaid four times in the past year alone, and has written a book entitled, ‘All My Friends Are Engaged.’
“That's 4 different chiffon dresses, 4 different bachelorette parties filled with tequila shots and guys in thong underwear twerking way too close to my face, 4 different pre-wedding pep talks to the bride about how this is the happiest day of her life and marriage, probably, is just like riding a bike: a little shaky at first but then she'll get the hang of it,” she writes in the Craigslist ad she posted just over two weeks ago.
Glantz also has a slick website where she elaborates on the services she offers, and how they differ from those of a wedding planner.
“The happiest day of your life needs one thing: A bridesmaid who will be there to lift up the 18 layers of your dress so you can pee or dance the cha-cha slide with your drunk uncle,” she writes.
She also notes, quite correctly, that not all women want to be bridesmaids, so brides-to-be should just avoid the stress of a disinterested bridal party and hire her to do jumpy claps at every dress fitting.
“On a big wedding day and the activities leading up to a wedding day, there’s going to be a lot of stress and anxiety,” Glantz told CTV’s Canada AM on Monday.
“So you need to be able to walk into a situation and handle those things. I personally like to use humour, so that would be my bridesmaid superpower.”
Her inbox has been filled with messages from women around the world who are interested in her services for various reasons, she said. Some brides-to-be have recently moved and none of their friends can travel to be part of the wedding. Others need her to corral the competing interests of a large bridal party.
She is reviewing her first batch of emails and has already spoken to a few brides on the telephone. She expects her first bridesmaid-for-hire job will be in September.
While her website does not include a price list, she told Canada AM that prices vary and she will negotiate fees based on travel or other expenses “on a bride-to-bride basis.”