Apparently there are professional bridesmaids,
who get paid to serve as bridesmaids at weddings, and
apparently it's a lucrative side hustle if you're interested.
Now a woman by the name of Jen Glantz wrote a piece for
insider about her business and it's called bridesmaid for hire.
She divulges what exactly she does as a bridesmaid for
hire in the video you're about to watch.
So let's take a look at this video about Jen and her business.
>> I was a bridesmaid so many times for
my own friends that my roommate nicknamed me the professional bridesmaid.
So I posted it out on craigslist, offering my services as a bridesmaid to strangers.
And within 24 hours, I got hundreds of responses from brides all over the world
and that's when I decided, I need to be a professional bridesmaid.
A professional bridesmaid is not a wedding planner.
What I do goes way beyond that.
So I help the bride and
the bridal party with any kind of situation that they get themselves into.
I'm often the bride's on call, therapist, her personal assistant,
the social director and even the peacekeeper.
>> She charges quite a bit of money and weddings are already expensive.
So people hire bridesmaids for all sorts of reasons these days.
I charge at least $2,000 per wedding,
at least, some brides don't have close friends and others have friends, but
need a little extra help with the organizational side of the wedding.
Sometimes the brides keep it a secret that I'm hired and other times they don't.
Okay, so let me address a few things number one,
as someone who got married, had a wedding and had bridesmaids.
The one thing I would have changed about my wedding, is the bridesmaids,
meaning I wouldn't have them at all.
I would have had my maid of honor, my best friend Lauren and that's it.
You don't need bridesmaids, you just don't, they don't really do anything,
like by the way.
No hay to the people who served as brides served as bridesmaids for my wedding.
But like it just, it was an added annoying detail that I actually had to organize and
didn't wanna organize.
>> I'm the exact opposite, you know how many groomsmen I had in my room?
>> Probably a billion, how many?
12, [LAUGH] I got a lot of friends, okay we grew up together.
Anyways what I didn't need was to pay $2,000 for the 13th 1.
Well you have friends, like I feel bad if like you're a bride and you don't have
friends, you feel pressure to like, give the illusion that you have friends.
So you buy like but don't do that, why do you need to do that, don't do that?
Be yours, >> Yeah so
there's there's a whole bunch of things here.
So number one, yeah, I do feel bad for those folks and
I don't wanna make fun of them, but why do you have to pick a bridesmaid, why?
Like if you need, because she says like, from her description,
it sounds like 80% of it is administrative work, right?
Like I ran in heels to go get the ring or
the friends who were drunk on the golf course and it's and
the address for the mom, you can just hire somebody to do that.
They don't have to pretend to be a bridesmaid, so weird, right?
And they don't have to be in heels, I mean I just don't get it.
And then she said though there's another reason why they are,
she said sometimes the bride is worried that their bridesmaids
are too boring, and so >> Maybe you don't deserve friends,
that's terrible.
>> I know of course, right?
And so for then then she's worried that the bachelorette party isn't gonna be that
much fun, for those brides I would say, you're also at the bachelor.
>> Yeah, I know, yeah >> You could make it fun,
[LAUGH] Like at my bachelor party, I didn't need to hire someone,
to get me to have fun, it's called beer.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah what do you do for bachelor party?
>> We do these ridiculous bachelor parties where we go or
we used to when we were younger, go away for like a week.
And so me and another friend had a wedding that we're very close to each other.
So we went to Honduras, and so yeah we went and played like soccer on the beach.
We did like so we don't do this stupid stuff like yeah,
don't get girls go to strip club, because you could do that on Tuesday.
It's not like we're against it and we're like moral to moral for it or anything,
but it's not that interesting or special.
So we went out of our ways so that's we're not a normal case.
But in back to this lady, like I did feel bad when she like,
because people are really hiring her to to create fun at their wedding.
Yeah, and look she does provide a service and she's a hustler.
She's getting that paper, so I'm not hating on her, right?
She saw an opportunity she seized on that opportunity.
She seems to be having a lot of fun, and
it's not like she's forcing anyone to hire her.
I'm just trying to discourage people from hiring her, right?
Like I'm trying to encourage people to take that $2,000 plus, dollars,
put it in your pocket, okay?
And then proceed to enjoy your life, like spend that money on a trip.
Don't spend it on someone to pretend to be your bridesmaid.
>> Yeah, so that gets me to my most important point.
Just, what the real promise, the pressure and the expectations from the wedding.
>> Yes.
>> Okay, so if you really wanna have fun at your wedding, just trash those, right?
>> Yeah, get rid of the traditions, and do what you wanna do.
>> Yeah, do whatever the hell you wanna do it.
>> Yes.
>> Like you wanna get dressed up great, get dressed up.
You don't wanna get dressed up, don't do it, right?
You wanna have a fancy dinner, great.
If you don't wanna have a fancy dude, don't do it.
You wanna have fun again, it's called martinis.
It's called whiskey, it's called bourbon or we'd write,
give everybody at the party, we'd it'll cost you less than $2,000.
Okay, put an edible in the wedding cake.
Okay, don't do that.
Okay, cuz that's, you got to make sure you might have two different cakes,
that's a different thing, right?
But my point is, allow yourself permission to have fun.
You don't have to hire someone,
to force you to have fun because of all the other annoying parts of your wedding.
You can make your wedding anyway you want >> Final thing,
because this is the most important thing to know, going into your wedding day.
The actual best part of your wedding that never gets talked about and
you don't realize it until you're there or even after your wedding.
It's one of the, only times and it is literally the happiest time,
that everyone you actually love, everyone that you want in your life
is together in the same area celebrating you and your loved one.
The person that you're gonna spend hopefully the rest of your life with,
savor that and get rid of all the other pressures.
Cuz all the other pressures are just arbitrary nonsense like rules that you
don't need to apply to your wedding >> 100%.
>> Yeah, >> But if you didn't do need a groomsman,
I only charge $20,000, but I am super fun.
>> He is fun, you should see how he was dancing at my wedding.
>> Yeah, she's a professional, she's like, I never get drunk during the weddings.
My job is to stay there, but still facilitate fun.
No, I will get drunk at your wedding, and I will dance in very ridiculous ways,
just ask her >> Very true
>> [LAUGH]