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There is no requirement for any members of the traditional wedding party to be present at the wedding. The honor positions of maid of honor, bridesmaids and best man, groomsmen are customary, and not in any way to be considered as required. If you chose to have these people in your wedding party, it is a general rule that there is symmetry of the two groups.
The bride chooses the bridesmaids, sometimes with help from family, and the groom chooses the groomsmen while the bride often retains veto power over his choices! In the planning phase of the wedding ceremony and reception, the bride will also choose her gown and complementary gowns for the bridesmaids. The bride, with some limited input from the groom, can also choose the matching attire for the groomsmen as well as the groom's attire. The major exception to this rule is military weddings.
Often the selection of the wedding party participants is used as an opportunity for matchmaking by those involved. This is not necessarily a good idea, although some of those matches have been known to be more successful than the marriages at which they met!
Another optional role in the wedding party, which has become somewhat more popular recently, is the flower girl. The flower girl is almost always a very young, age 5-9, girl relative of the bride or groom, who parades down the aisle, prior to the bride, throwing flower petals on the carpet. The flower girl need not be very good at her flower petal dropping job, her real job is to be cute.
The Ring Bearer is now quite often a young male relative of the groom or bride, rather than the more traditional best man. The young fellow walks down the aisle after the flower girl carrying a fairly large decorated pillow with the wedding rings on it. For safety's sake, most often the rings are stitched to the pillow with a single stitch, to prevent them from rolling off and getting lost.
