Sometimes, it can be hard to know whether you are supposed to capitalize certain words or not. “Maid of Honor” is an example of a phrase where there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether it needs to be capitalized or not.
Should “Maid of Honor” be Capitalized?
Yes, “Maid of Honor” needs to be capitalized. Let me tell you the reasons for this.
“Maid of Honor” is used to refer to a woman that’s a big part of a wedding party and therefore, “Maid of Honor” is an example of a specific wedding title. A wedding title is a subcategory of the more general category of titles. There is a general rule in the English language that titles need to be capitalized at all times and thus, ‘Maid of Honor” is no exception.
The reason for this is that titles are used in formal settings such as weddings and those kinds of occasions justify the use of capitalization. However, it should be noted that “of” is the only part of the wedding title that doesn’t need to be capitalized according to the capitalization rules of the English language. Namely, “of” is an example of a preposition and it’s a general rule that prepositions are never capitalized when they are used in a title. “Maid” and “Honor” on the other hand are both nouns in the title and thus they do need to be capitalized.
To make this less abstract, I will demonstrate these general rules of capitalization in a sentence: “Mary has known Julie since they were kids and that’s why she decided to make her the Maid of Honor at her wedding.”
In this sentence, Julie is granted the prominent wedding title of “Maid of Honor” and thus, this set of words needs to be capitalized.
Should “Matron of Honor” be Capitalized?
“Matron of Honor,” a “Maid of Honor” who is married, should follow the same capitalization rules as “Maid of Honor” since it is also a wedding title.
