6 Reasons Choosing Bridesmaids Is Just As Important As Finding Your Partner

As adults, we don't often stop to tell our friends how much we love them. Aside from the obligatory Christmas card and Instagram collage on their birthdays, we don't usually declare our love for each other. We've moved past the friendship days of kindergarten, the high school survival pacts and the sororities of college.

However, asking your friend to be your bridesmaid is an incredibly clear message of love and commitment. A marriage proposal is a romantic gesture where you tell the love of your life and the world that you want to be with him or her forever. Asking your friend to be your maid of honor or bridesmaid is in many ways an equal declaration of friendship. Here are six ways picking a bridesmaid is similar picking a spouse:

1. It's emotional.

Like a marriage proposal, there are usually tears, hugs and kisses, and there's usually an element of surprise when asking your friend to be your bridesmaid. A lot of thought, consideration and planning often go into asking your friend to be your bridesmaid. There's no diamond, but there's love.

2. Once you've asked and have been accepted, you get to tell everyone.

With big smiles, you tell your family and friends that you've picked your wedding party. You let everyone know exactly how much you love your friends by bestowing them with the honor of standing by your side.

3. You'd never ask someone you didn't think will be in your life forever.

Likewise, you'd never ask someone you weren't sure you'd be friends with forever to be your bridesmaid. Engagements can last years. You should pick a friend you know you will love as much or more come the day of your wedding as you do the day you ask her to celebrate with you.

You should ask someone you can see your future kids playing with, someone you see yourself traveling with and someone you could retire in Florida with. You're not picking someone to commit to a wedding; you're asking someone to commit to a lifelong friendship.

4. Weddings take a lot of planning and demand a lot of energy.

You don't ask your partner to marry you because that person is fun, just like you don't ask someone to be a bridesmaid because she's a good time. You should pick someone who can withstand all your bridezilla moments and who is willing to help plan, organize and share in your special day. You have a lengthy checklist of qualities your friend must meet to be a bridesmaid, not unlike the list of standards a boyfriend or girlfriend must have to be spouse material.

5. Your friend is fun as f*ck.

Yes, you certainly need someone to work hard and organize, but you also need someone to pump you up and get the party going. After all, a wedding is really just a big party. Your bridesmaids help get you excited, so they must have the appropriate energy. Just like you wouldn't pick a boring bridesmaid, you wouldn't pick a boring spouse.

6. Despite all of your options, you chose this person.

You've probably had a few other serious partners, the same way you've had other best friends through your life. But, you single someone out as special and different. One of my best friends recently asked me to be her bridesmaid.

She kept me in suspense for three and a half months before asking me. But, I was honored and surprised when she did. I cried a lot. The above list goes both ways for the proposer and proposée. I would never accept a bridesmaid proposal from someone I didn't truly love. I haven't stopped smiling since.