Mother of the Bride Duties Explained
From wedding dress shopping and financial support to helping the bride get ready and hosting the reception, these are the all-important mother of the bride responsibilities you need to know about
When it comes to wedding roles, the mother of the bride duties are up there with some of the most important.
Though you might not be walking your daughter down the aisle or giving a wedding speech (or perhaps you are!), your role as the bride’s mother will see you support your daughter through her wedding planning journey from start to finish.
Wedding traditions around the world differ immensely, so mother of the bride responsibilities in the UK might look different to those in other countries. To ensure no task gets left off the list, we’ve created the ultimate mother of the bride duties checklist.
It’s easy to follow and covers everything from mother of the bride tasks before the wedding to mother of the bride duties on the day and beyond.
Mother of the Bride Duties Checklist: Before, During & After the Wedding
Despite the couple's best efforts, planning a wedding can be stressful, so supporting your daughter and her partner through this process is pretty much an ongoing mother of the bride task.
Aside from the emotional support and helping with general wedding planning jobs, there are also a number of fun tasks you’ll get to take on, including wedding dress shopping and even going on the hen do – should you be invited - and want to go!
Find yourself asking, what is the mother of the bride's role at the wedding? Scroll on for our top tips!
- What Are The Duties of the Mother of the Bride?
- Mother of the Bride Duties Before the Wedding
- Mother of the Bride Duties on the Wedding Day
- Mother of the Bride Duties After the Wedding
What Are The Duties of the Mother of the Bride?
Unlike the father of the bride duties, which tend to be pretty well-known, duties for mother of the bride are less ‘official’. When it comes to the bride’s mother and her tasks and duties, these are usually more led by the bride and her partner.
The more traditional duties for the mother of a bride include attending wedding dress shopping appointments, going on the hen party and getting ready with the bride on the morning of the wedding.
However, each mother of the bride’s checklist of duties will differ depending on how involved her daughter wants her to be. Some brides will want their mothers there for every milestone – from cake tasting to choosing the flowers – while others may be happy for their mum to be more hands-off during the process.
Ahead, we have listed the main mother of the bride duties and responsibilities, covering all bases. You can use this checklist as a starting point but to ensure your mother-daughter relationship stays secure during the process, encourage the bride to add and remove duties as she wishes.
Mother of the Bride Duties Before the Wedding
1. Congratulate the newly engaged couple
Before any other mother of the bride duties commence, your first task is always going to be congratulating your daughter and her partner on their engagement. It sounds like an obvious one – but we’re not just talking about buying an engagement card. How about a proper celebration?!
Celebrating doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive, it just needs to be thoughtful. You may want to plan an engagement party or just arrange some low-key drinks and dinner with immediate family and close friends, for example.
2. Discuss financial support
Talking about money and who pays for the wedding is likely to be low on the list of things you and your daughter and partner want to discuss, but being transparent about finances early on in the wedding planning will really help them to plan their wedding budget.
It’s almost impossible for them to know how much money they have to spend on their wedding if they’re unaware of what contributions they may have coming their way. You may offer to put some money behind the bar, buy the wedding dress or even pay for the whole thing! It doesn’t matter what or how much you contribute; what matters is that you make your daughter and her partner aware.
Traditionally it was expected that the bride’s parents footed the wedding bill in full but thankfully – for your bank balance, at least – times have moved on and the majority of couples now pay for their own big days.
If you are offering financial support, then you will also need to discuss what this means – are you giving the money as a gift and transferring the full amount to them? Or would you prefer the couple send invoices your way? Discuss this early on to avoid any confusion and to manage expectations.
3. Check in with your daughter
If you’ve planned a wedding before then you will be in the perfect position to give advice on where to get started. But before any planning talk takes place, check in with your daughter. Once the excitement of the engagement begins to die down, the overwhelming realisation that there's a whole wedding to plan can cause stress and anxiety.
Your daughter may be absolutely killing it and feel super calm about the whole thing, but equally, she may not. Check in to gauge how she's feeling and if she needs any support, be there to give it to her. Equally, if she needs space, that's totally fine too.
4. Offer to help with planning tasks
After you've checked in, now is the time to offer your help and assistance with wedding planning tasks, should it be needed.
It may be that your daughter wants space and a more hands-off approach, which is why it's important that this is an offer to help and not an assumption. Suggest some areas that you'd love to be involved in and then leave your daughter to decide on how much support she wants.
Practical tasks are often the best ones for the mother of the bride to help out with. You could offer to enquire about wedding venues that you know your daughter likes, or even book some dress shopping appointments.
Nearer to the wedding day itself, you might want to be the go-to contact for suppliers, such as the florist or the band. To ensure everything goes smoothly, get all contact details from your daughter as soon as possible.
5. Help with the guest list
This is a tricky one – but with our advice you can get it spot on. It's likely that there will be some relatives and old family friends who your daughter and her partner will have forgotten to invite to the wedding. To avoid missing anyone important off the list, you may want to sit down with the couple and go through their guest list to point out anyone who may have been left off by mistake.
However, we can't stress how important it is to ensure your suggestions are just that. It may be that some people have been missed off by mistake, but it could also be that some have been left off the list on purpose. Whether it's about budget and trying to keep numbers down, or the couple merely being selective with who they invite, it's important to remember it's their day.
As her mum, you’re there to advise. If there are names left off the list that you feel she should reconsider, you're there to help her think that thought process out loud. Whatever dialogue you have about the guest list, it should feel productive and helpful and ultimately, the couple should have the final say.
6. Go dress shopping
One of the most exciting things about being the mother of the bride is that more often than not, you get to go wedding dress shopping with your daughter. This will be a fun and emotional experience that you’ll likely always remember, so be on hand to offer advice, support and keep your daughter calm throughout the process.
You may also be asked to go bridesmaid dress shopping or be invited for second fittings and accessory shopping, but this isn't always the case. You can always offer your assistance and let your daughter decide if it's needed.
7. Check about traditions
Not everyone is up for following every wedding tradition, so you'll want to check in about this. If your daughter is following tradition, it is the mother of the bride’s job to source the bride her something old and something new. If there’s a family heirloom or another specific tradition you think might be nice to incorporate, it is the mother of the bride’s duty to make this happen.
There may even be family traditions that other women or couples have adopted throughout the years that your daughter doesn't know about. If this is the case, talk to her about them so she too can be a part of the family history if she wants to be.
8. Liaise with the other mother
Although it is the bride’s job to organise the bridesmaids dresses, it’s good mother of the bride etiquette to liaise with the mother of the groom or the other mother of the bride about what they’re both going to wear. You won't want to be matching, but you both want to make sure you are following the bride and her partner's lead on style and colour schemes.
The mother of the bride traditionally buys her own dress before the mother of the groom, and then contacts the mother of the groom to describe her dress. If there are two brides, or you fancy some bonding time with the mother of the groom, perhaps you could go shopping together!
This way, both mothers can ensure their outfits are complementary to each other and don’t clash, and we’re sure lunch out to gossip about the upcoming wedding wouldn't hurt either...
9. Attend the hen party
Does the mother of the bride go to the hen party? It’s one of the most frequently asked questions in wedding planning. The short answer is, it depends completely on the bride's preference, the type of hen party she's having and how many hen parties there will be.
It's fairly common for brides to have a hen party with all of her friends, where they perhaps go abroad for a week of partying or hit the town for a long weekend. This type of hen party is often followed by a more relaxed, localised hen party or bridal shower where the bride's mother and her partner's mother can both attend, along with other, older members of the family.
Having more than one hen party can seem excessive to some, but it's very common for modern couples as, let's be frank, not all mothers of the bride fancy a weekend of clubbing in Ibiza – but their daughters might!
Mother of the Bride Duties on the Wedding Day
10. Get ready with the bride
When it comes to duties for the mother of the bride, one of your main responsibilities on the day is getting ready with your daughter – and it's by far one of the most special. The time you spend with her on the morning of the wedding will be one of your most treasured mother-daughter relationship moments.
On the morning of her wedding, it's likely your daughter will be feeling excited and nervous and the number-one thing she'll probably want is her mum. Whether you are there to help her get into her dress, wipe her tears away or pour the champagne, just make sure you are present on the morning of the wedding.
To ensure the morning is all about your daughter, as the bride's mother, you should aim to get ready early so that in the hour or two before the ceremony you are there to help in any way that you can.
11. Share some words of wisdom
Whether it's about marriage, life itself or you just want to tell your daughter how beautiful she looks, those moments before the ceremony mark the perfect time for the mother of the bride to share some special words with her daughter.
12. Take your place at the ceremony
Traditionally, the bride travels to the wedding with her father, but this isn't the case for some. Some brides choose to travel to the wedding with the mother of the bride, both parents or none at all. If you are not part of that commute, your next task on the wedding day is to take your place in the wedding ceremony.
You may have a few moments to greet some of the guests at the venue, but this is ultimately the usher's wedding job. During the ceremony itself, the mother of the bride traditionally doesn’t have any tasks, however, for couples looking to break tradition, you may be asked to do a reading, witness the couple signing or even walk your daughter down the aisle.
"At my sister's wedding, the mother of the bride escorted the three year old flower girl down the aisle," explains Hitched editor Zoe Burke. "This helped to keep the flower girl calm and gave the mother of the bride a bit more of a role in the ceremony."
If you’re not walking the bride down the aisle, it is one of the usher’s roles to seat the mother of the bride in the first row directly before the ceremony.
13. Stand in the receiving line
Once the ceremony is over, you and the bride’s father will be two of the first to leave the room. If your daughter and her partner have chosen to have a receiving line on the way into the wedding breakfast, it’s one of the mother of the bride duties to stand and greet guests as they take their seats.
14. Sit at the top table
Most wedding table plans will include a top table. If your daughter's wedding day involves this style of seating, it's tradition for the mother of the bride to sit at this table. This is something that will be planned way in advance of the day itself, so ahead of the wedding, you'll know if she's having a top table and where you will be seated.
Though this is tradition, the arrangements might differ slightly if the couple are having to seat divorced or separated parents.
15. Host the reception
At your daughter's wedding, the happy couple will of course be the main focus, but they might struggle to chat with everyone, and this is where their parents can really help. A key mother of the bride responsibility on the day of the wedding is to host the reception alongside the other parents.
Take the time to chat to guests, thank them for coming, ensure everything is happening as it should be and just generally make sure the day is running smoothly. In this moment, you should be working the room and ensuring everyone has been welcomed and is having a great time.
16. Check in with the other parents
No matter how long you've had to plan this wedding with your children, nothing can fully prepare you for the day your son or daughter gets married – and there's only one other pair who will feel the same as you in this moment.
Take the time to check in with the other parents. They are likely to be feeling emotional as well and maybe even a little overwhelmed. The day whizzes by in a flash but if you can, take a moment to raise a toast with them to the fact you're now 'officially' family!
17. Take part in the second dance
After the happy couple have had their first dance, it’s time for the bride's mother and the other mother to take a spin on the dancefloor. Not only is this your time to shine, it’s also your chance to get the party started!
Of all the duties for the mother of the bride, this has got to be one of the most fun!
Mother of the Bride Duties After the Wedding
18. Help with thank you cards
After the fun of the wedding is over, it's up to you and the other parents to help the couple write their wedding thank you cards. Ever heard the saying, 'It takes a village to write wedding thank you cards?' No? Well, us neither – but it should be one because this is no small task!
You and the bride’s father, along with the other parents, should offer to fill in any gaps and you may even sign or address the cards if you were officially hosting the wedding.
Now you’re clued up on the mother of the bride duties, why not take a look at our step-by-step wedding planning guide? It’s full of pearls of wisdom which you may be able to pass on.
