I've hated all my dresses - and other horror stories from the bridesmaid front line

At last, confirmation of what we serial bridesmaids have known all along: no one, but no one, likes their dress. It doesn't matter whether it's ethereal teal chiffon, stiff peach satin, elegant navy or 'understated' silver: if you haven't chosen it, and three other women are wearing it, there's no upside.

Now, we have proof: according to a new study, nine out of 10 bridesmaids hate their dress. And one out 10 bridesmaids is either a liar or too terrified of the bride to admit the truth, even long after the event.

The poll comes just a couple of weeks before National Bridesmaids Day, which began in 2015 and was met with much joy -at last, a day when women around the world can unite and share (or scream about) the ignominy of wearing a shade of salmon in a fabric that clings to hips and celebrates sweat.

Yes, the season of matrimonial madness is upon us. And anyone who has ever been a bridesmaid as an adult (it’s plain sailing when you’re under 10 provided you don’t mind bows, petticoats or sailor dresses), will feel more than justified in having their very own national day.

But the horror doesn't begin and end with the frock. If only. 

There will be those who still wonder why, at the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable to accept the bride’s request to wash her clammy feet (she couldn't reach with all that tulle in the way) and help her to wrench on that satin shoe.

Others are still in the red from the hen weekend. Yes, being a bridesmaid is a challenge from beginning to end - that's if you make it to the finish line.

Remember the e-mail from the bride to her 10 bridesmaids setting "ground rules", which included their mandatory attendance at every party or demanded that they pull out. NOW. No one was standing in the way of that wife-to-be getting exactly what she wanted: “If you think by affordable it's going to be a $25 Forever 21 dress, then your [sic] going to the wrong wedding”, she emailed her bridesmaids.

I’d be surprised if any of those friendships survived the course. And bravo to whoever leaked the e-mail.

Bridesmaid-ing is big business. It involves engagement celebrations; military planning for the hen do; the hen do itself; hag do (that’s when the stag and assorted male friends can come, too); endless fittings where you are bulldog-clipped into dresses; about as much make-up as you wore aged 14 to the end-of-year disco; and, of course, the big day itself when anything could - and does - happen.

Don’t forget the wedding footage, either. It’s six hours long and you’ll be getting together to watch it afterwards. Yes – your bum did look like that from the back and the side. Everyone clocked you checking out the best man. And the bride's dad.

By the time you have made it up the aisle – you will, according to figures from YouGov - be £732 poorer (and you haven't even got hitched at the end of it all).

That sounds a conservative estimate to me - and I've been a bridesmaid a dozen times, so believe my empty bank balance. The hen-do alone will set you back most of that sum. Gone are the days when dinner and cocktails was deemed acceptable. You will be now devoting a weekend to a group of people you may or may not know.

If it’s in the UK, you've got off lightly. Though that will mean self-catering, and you could be asked to bring 14 pints of milk or enough Prosecco to satisfy 21 women on a crowded Friday night commuter train.

You’ll be sharing bedrooms and intimate details of your sex life via a series of drinking games using willy-shaped straws, which were funny the first time you saw them and are less-so now they’re a regular feature of your cutlery drawer.

Then there are the activities – because you have to do something with all that time and money.

Why simply relax and enjoy the countryside cottage/city flat/bohemian beach hut you've hired for the occasion, when you could be taking part in a dance class in a sticky night club, paint-balling (ouch), chocolate making (why?), wine-tasting (better and anaesthetising), cringing over a butler in the buff (I know one woman who encountered a long-lost school friend when he was wearing leather chaps), nude life-drawing, knitting, seal-watching at 7am - you name it.

You will probably need a costume (naughty schoolgirl, Forties siren, Spice Girl) and there will have been prep.

Thought homework was a thing of the past? Not in the lead up to a friend’s wedding. Photo books, recipe books, homilies, childhood pictures, poems. There is nothing more terrifying than a round-robin e-mail from the 'Chief Hen' on a Sunday night.

Nothing good can come from it. You have to transfer funds, commit to the transfer of more (as yet undisclosed) funds and write a haiku on what the bride means to you. Oh and would you also decorate a pair of knickers themed on your friendship? (I have done this, it's a real thing. Thought about it for weeks, too).

When it comes to weddings – the stags are laughing. They go away and drink a lot. There’s a bit of ritual humiliation but not nearly as much effort.

Being a bridesmaid is like having a second job. So much so, one enterprising woman, Jen Glantz, author of the book Always a Bridesmaid (For Hire) has made it her career. She’ll master mind the whole affair – from bridesmaid boot-camps to being by your side on the big day.

The wedding gift lowdown

She posted her original ad, offering herself as a bridesmaid for hire, on Craigslist: "When all my friends started getting engaged – I decided to make new friends – but then they got engaged also and for what felt like the hundredth time, I was asked to be a bridesmaid. This year alone, I've been a bridesmaid four times.

"That's four different chiffon dresses, four different bachelorette parties filled with tequila shots and guys in thong underwear twerking way too close to my face. So let me be there for you this time if you don't have any other girlfriends except your third cousin, twice removed, who is often found sticking her tongue down an empty bottle of red wine."

I'd argue that, even if you have girlfriends, Glantz's plan is appealing. If you've hired your bridesmaids, you don't have to worry if they desert you immediately after the ceremony (as happened after the aforementioned foot-washing incident).

Either way, if you are getting married this year, spare a thought for your bridesmaids. At least let them pick their own dresses. That they need to have their own National Day in the first place, only serves to show that their 'duties' are proving to be draining.

Not to mention their bank balances.