Today, bridesmaids are either a group of children or a hand-selected crew of your very best friends. But before the days of matching lilac dresses and hen do planning, bridesmaids were decoys deployed with a mission to protect the bride. In ancient Rome and China, this was particularly important, as it was not uncommon for a bride and her family to walk a few miles to the groom's village, often carrying a dowry. This left her vulnerable to attacks by rival suitors, thieves, and of course, evil spirits. Bridesmaids were fitted in dresses to match that of the bride in order to outwit those with less than honourable intentions (because evil spirits can only identify brides by their clothes, obviously).