This Woman Actually Gets Paid To Be A Bridesmaid

Step aside, Kevin Hart! There's a real-life professional "wedding ringer" in town. And she wants brides everywhere to know she'll be their bridesmaid — for a price. In a new essay for Cosmopolitan, Jen Glantz writes about her life as a "bridesmaid for hire." That means she shows up to strangers' weddings to be their support system, bouquet holder, and touch-up artist — and dance with their drunk uncle to keep things from getting super-awkward. Glantz admits that after being a regular, free bridesmaid for friends, she quickly realized that she's "the MVP bridesmaid" and loved doing tasks that other friends loathed. So why not get paid for her services? "I decided to test my idea out on Craigslist and offered my services to strangers who may need a professional bridesmaid," Glantz writes. "Within days, I had hundreds of emails from brides around the world. People wanted to know if this was real and, if it was real, how much it cost. It wasn't just brides that wanted to hire me. I had mothers who wanted to give this service as a gift to their daughters." So far, this bridesmaid for hire has worked with more than 40 brides, doing every crazy, awful, and weird task imaginable to help them have the perfect "I do" moment. "I've taken off my bra right before walking down the aisle because the mother of the bride suddenly remembered she'd forgotten hers," Glantz writes. "Once, I even had to scoop animal droppings from the aisle of an outdoor wedding with my bare hands so the bride wouldn't walk down and stain the edges of her silk off-white dress with poop." Being a bridesmaid has always been labor-intensive, but this was one woman smart enough to get paid for the work. You can read more about Glantz's life as a bridesmaid for hire on Cosmopolitan.com.