What a Ring Bearer Carries (And How Young Is Too Young)

Your nephew is four, the pillow came in the mail this week, and you have already pictured him stopping halfway down the aisle to look at the ceiling. The ring bearer carries a prop. The rings themselves are in the best man's jacket pocket, or in the officiant's hand, and they were there before the music started. Whatever the child does between the back door and the front row, the ceremony still has its rings.

Why the rings are somewhere else

Two wedding bands tied to a pillow with a bow are two small metal objects on a moving four year old. A bow loosens on the walk, and a band that rolls under a pew is gone until after the vows.

At the exchange, the officiant asks for the rings. The child is already seated by then, and the nearest bridesmaid took the pillow from him at the front and set it on a chair.

How young is too young

Four to eight is the range that works. Give a four year old a person he knows at the end of the aisle: seat a parent or a grandparent in the front row on the aisle side, where he can see them from the back door. Eight may already feel too old for a pillow and would rather hold a box or a sign.

Three is a gamble. Some three year olds will do it and some will stand at the back door and refuse, and you find out which one you have during the processional. If the child you want is three, put him last in the processional beside an older cousin who will hold his hand. Decide before the day that if he stays with his mother, she carries the pillow down the aisle. Under three, give the child a seat and skip the pillow; a two year old walks when he decides to.

A ten year old or a teenager can do the job too, and a girl can be the ring bearer.

The pillow, the box, or nothing

The pillow is optional. A small wooden box, a dish, or empty hands all do the same work, which is to give the child a reason to be walking. Tie two fake bands to the pillow's ribbon or set them inside the box.

If you want the wedding bands to travel in a box for the photographs, buy two boxes; the child's holds the fake bands, and from the fourth row the pair are identical.

When he sits down in the aisle

Halfway down, he might sit in the aisle. Do nothing. He cannot get it wrong, because nothing in his hands is needed at the front. The music keeps going while a four year old sits in the aisle with a pillow in his lap, and the room will love it.

What to tell him

Tell him two things, at the rehearsal and again in the car: walk to grandma, and hold the pillow with both hands. Leave the word rings out of it.

Whatever your ring bearer does on the way down, let him do it.