What the best man has to pay for?

Richard has been asked to be the best man in his best friend's wedding, possibly to occur next year or early the year after that (he's looking at rings right now).
Anyway, I know this is going to be expensive and it's stressing me out, because we're buying a place and we have two other weddings to go to next year.
What exactly does the best man have to pay for? I already know he has to pay for his own suit or tux rental, and some portion of the bachelor party (don't even get me started on that.) What else?

[Heather]

I think that's about it, except for a gift for the bride and groom...

ETA: if there's any travel (flight, hotel) involved, he would pay for that himself.

Excellent. The wedding will be here in Vancouver, so yay for no travel or hotel.
I'm slightly less worried now though, since I was having visions of thousands of dollars worth of stuff.

[Heather]

Nah, that's reserved for the bridesmaids.

[feb-bride]

Originally Posted by Ciarrai

I'm slightly less worried now though, since I was having visions of thousands of dollars worth of stuff.

It should never cost that much to be a best man. Even if they rented top-of-the-line tuxes, it would never cost even close to thousands of dollars, especially since the wedding is local.

I am perhaps slightly more paranoid than I'd like to admit .

[jc22]

It depends on if the groom is going to pay for the tux rental (I paid for my groomsmen tuxes) and how extravagant the bachelor party is. Even then, if you can invite more people to the bachelor party and split the costs amongst everyone, it shouldn't be too bad.

[ValerieSunLover]

I think you got it covered...the tux rental and the bachelor party should be about right!

In our wedding, all the best man paid for was his clothes (we did khakis and shirts, not tuxes).

I think that the best man usually heads up the bacholor party planning - so if money is tight, your fiance should be in a good position to plan something that takes that into consideration and isn't out of range with what you guys can afford - but is still fun. I'm sure the other groomsmen would appreciate that too.

This isn't something he has to pay for obviously, but I've been reading Emily Post (a gift from my mother) and it says that one of the duties of the best man is to dance with all the single female guests.

Um, no. He's my fiance and I'm not going to sit in the corner all night while he dances with everyone else.

Is this etiquette still followed? I may need to resign myself to it if so.

[davidandbrittany09]

Originally Posted by Ciarrai

This isn't something he has to pay for obviously, but I've been reading Emily Post (a gift from my mother) and it says that one of the duties of the best man is to dance with all the single female guests.

Um, no. He's my fiance and I'm not going to sit in the corner all night while he dances with everyone else.

Is this etiquette still followed? I may need to resign myself to it if so.

I have never, in my entire life, heard of that tradition! If it was my FI, I wouldn't sit around and watch him dance with a bunch of single girls, either.

[wynelle]

Actually, formally that is an additional responsibility of the best man. He is serving as a proxy of the groom, to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves.

It used to be sort of the "wall-flowers" or the maiden aunts/sisters, who might not have escorts. so the best man would dance with them so they didn't feel like wallflowers.

And it would be very inappropriate for him to leave you sitting in the corner all evening. But you would win points with every little old lady there, if you directed your boyfriend to the occasional wallflower or elderly aunt and suggested he take her out for a quick spin.

I will certainly send him over then! I was just confused by it, so I'm glad to hear it's not completely followed any more. The wedding is four months before ours; he better get his dancing practice in!