Man Leather Jewelry Box

Q: Despite the fact that I have never been to a wedding with a flower girl or a ring bearer, we want to include both in our wedding. However, I am not clear what they do after walking down the aisle and before the recessional. Do they stand the whole time? Should I set aside seats near the aisle for them and their parents? How & when do the rings get taken off the pillow? I don't have any attendants, so would I ask my flower girl to hold my bouquet (her basket has a flat bottom so it can be put down) ?

A:We had my husband's son as our ring bearer, and he at age 2 1/2 did a fine job. The rings were in the white leather jewelry box my husband's ring came in...there was just enough room for both rings, side-by-side. Garrett's Mom had the box of rings prior to the wedding (and we'd practiced with an empty box), and just as Garrett was to walk up the aisle, she handed him the box of rings, and he walked up the aisle, handed the box to the best man, and went and sat down with his mom . With young children, you have to take into account that something might go wrong, and we were willing to work around that. There were three possibilities that we planned on: 1) Garrett would do it exactly as planned and practiced with him (and this is what happened) 2) He might refuse to walk down the aisle alone, in which case, his Mom (who I'm good friends with) would walk with him down the aisle. 3) He might refuse entirely, in which case we weren't going to make him do it

(nothing like a screaming child to ruin a processional). If this had happened, we would just wing it...and the rings would have found their way to the front of the room somehow. The key is to let the child know ahead of time what they were supposed to do. We asked him dozens of times in the weeks ahead of the wedding: "Garrett, what are you going to do when you are the ring bearer?" "I'm going to wear a Tuxedo like Daddy's, and I'm going to walk down the aisle and hand the box to Paul." We also told him there were going to be LOTS of people watching and saying how CUTE he looked, and how they'd be smiling at him and whispering "Garrett is doing SUCH a good job!"