Hen do questions

Eloise80

I have a few questions about hen dos... My best friend is having hers in December and as i've not been to one before, I thought I'd ask around on here.

What would you recommend as nice surprises or little gifts for the bride? One suggestion that I really like is to circulate a little book for people to write in, stick photos in, etc, which she can take home later. Other than that, I'm a bit flummoxed! Anything you would particularly recommend/advise against?

Out of interest, how much would you expect to spend on a hen do?

And do the hens usually club together to pay the bride's share?

Thanks in advance for any help!

hayleythedaisy

That book sounds like a lovely idea, like a guest book for the hen do!

Spending depends on who's going and what the bugdet is and if the bride has a particular request. You could chip in £10 each for a girly night at someones home with make over bits, wine and a few chick flicks, £30 each for a night on the town, £50 each for a nice dinner and drinks after, or £600 each for a week away! Really depends. Try to think of other people that are going, and especially as it's December. In the last year my OH has paid out about £700 for various stag do's - does get a bit silly.

For my sister's we took her to london for the weekend, went to leicester square for icecreams and hand print photos, stayed in a merlin apartment (£100 a night for a 4 person apartment and they were lush!) went to a medieval banquet (£30ish each including all food, drinks and entertainment - was brilliant!) Then the next day we gave her the choice of where she wanted to go (from art galleries, the london dungeons, the natural history museum etc etc)

We did the whole thing as a surprise, got some little cards and arrived at her house the night before with an invite and a list of what she needed (one of the things on the list was tea bags so she thought she was camping, and another was somethign orange). We then had more cards one she swapped for something orange with a friend who took us to the train station, then we made her swap the tea bag for one with the receptionist at the apartments which told her about the banquet (we'd got her a fancy dress costume and locked her in the bathroom while we laid that out with a blow up (male) doll.
The next day we made her choose and envelope (blind date style) to say what she was going to be doing but then gave her the other envelopes so she could pick.
Then when we got back we had got her a something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue wrapped up and gave her them over a chinese takeaway.

I'd definately go with surprises, and chip in for the brides share, make sure she doesn't end up buying drinks etc etc. What ever you do make sure it's well planned so it runs smoothly and you have a great night and do lots of things that will serve as momento's (like the cards above and we kept her something orange and tea bag and wrapped it up for her wedding present).

One idea also is to do her a big photo board of the hen do to be put up at her wedding, and if you know the best man you could get him to do one too. Then contact the venue and ask if there is a space in the lobby you could put them.

My personal recommendation is avoid getting so drunk/getting her so drunk, that people are ill. That's just me personally but I kind of think you could do that any weekend, it would be nice to have good memories of a hen do!


HTH.

Eloise80

Thanks!

The plan is pretty much sorted, although it has caused some issues. I'm not organising it (although it's starting to feel as though I am!), and the girls who are organising it don't seem to be considering the cost factor. This is doubly annoying as they asked me for suggestions and have completely ignored them all!

So far, we are doing wine tasting and cocktail making on the Saturday, followed by a meal out, drinks and clubbing, then on the Sunday half of us are going to a spa. No-one has any accommodation costs as two of us are putting most of them up, although some people have travel costs. For the activities and meal alone, we're talking about £170 before we even get onto drinks and clubbing, and they're not stopping there! (talk of a stretch limo, etc). So I'm really keen to add a more personal note to all of this (and rein them in on ideas like the stretch limo as I'd rather spend that money on covering the bride's costs).

I really like the ideas of the photo boards! We've done them for my sister's 18th before but I never thought of doing that for the wedding. I'll try to liaise with the groom, I think his do may have taken place already.

Thanks again - and any other suggestions would be very welcome!

hayleythedaisy

£170 is quite a lot of money before the "on tops" (drinks gifts etc). The limo is a nice idea but would add a fair bit of money and it needs to be borne in mind how much of a rush this could cause.

How are you arranging your spa? You could save some money there by booking through last minute on a 2 for 1 offer or something, especially if you could find a code.

It sounds like it might be getting a bit costly, why not invite the organiser(s) over to discuss it and see if you can come to some compromises?

mnorton

At my friend's hen party I asked all the guests to bring a small gift for the bride, it had to be something that reminded them of the bride, then on the last night we had a lovely dinner and the bride had to open all the gifts and guess who they were from. Very inepensive and many secrets were exposed. Was just a little game to play over dinner, but very entertaining.

Eloise80

I'm really glad you said what you did about costs, hayleythedaisy, as these are my thoughts entirely! I have had to tread carefully here as another bridesmaid and friend (who I don't know) are organising this. They originally wanted to go overseas and were estimating a very rough budget of £400 for 3 nights!! I have a mortgage and am trying to get a credit card bill down, and just don't have that amount of cash. Frankly, the bride wasn't keen either and told them to keep it to one night in the UK (London), so they started asking me for help.

I gave them loads of ideas for things to do on a budget but it's as if, now we're staying in the UK, they just want a blank cheque for everyone. By the time the limo got suggested last night I was ready to tear my hair out, so sent a (very polite) email back saying that I really wasn't keen given the general mounting costs and would rather put that towards the bride's costs or towards gifts. Haven't heard back! It's difficult because with the other stuff, they've booked it, then told people they need to pay X amount, which is unfair as it guilt trips people. They've also made some quite snide remarks about people on budgets. I'm just annoyed really as I'd put aside money from overtime for this (£170) and I really thought that should cover everything! Oh well.

Unfortunately the spa has already been booked and due to one of the organisers not getting her act together, the special offer had expired... But thanks for the suggestion.

Mnorton, I really like the gift idea! That's a really nice way to jazz things up.

Yellowbug

blimey thats a lot of money

i am having 2 hen do's one for all friends and then another one closer to the wedding just for mums and bridesmaids

first one is on the 5th december, we are going to my fav restaurant for dinner and then going for a cocktail in a nice bar before going for a boogie at somewhere with suitably dodgy music
I figuire this means if you cant afford to come for the meal you can just come out afterwards and so really keep costs down, but I really dont see it being expensive for anyone, price has been so high on my mind that I have made sure everyone understands it needs to be cheap and cheerful (I dont know about anyone else but I have a wedding to pay for, cant be going crazy on a hen do too lol)


then second one will be in feb, we were talking about going to a spa but its too many pennies, so instead we are all going to my mums house for the night and getting a few people in to do manicures, hair, make up, massages etc etc
so far we have booked one girl and her assistant at a cost of £18 each (for that they will give each of us 2 treatments )
plan is to be pampered for a bit, then eat some tasty food and watch some dodgy chick flicks (like a proper slumber party)

katieh86

Hello!

Love the home spa idea! Great way of keeping costs down! For my husbands birthday I hired him a hot tub and it was pretty cheap and they can seat up to six people! You should give that a go as well! Beauty treatments, champagne and a hot tub! Perfect!!!! We used spa2hire would definitely recommend them!!!

Hope this helps!

Katie xxx

Baby_in_the_corner

At a hen do I went to, they had a mr & mrs type quiz over dinner - the Chief Bridesmaid had asked the Groom lots of questions about the Bride - some quite intimate!!! - and the Bride had to guess how he'd answered them. If I remember rightly, we turned it into a drinking game and somehow everyone else ended up trying to answer the questions... it was absolutely hysterical, and something I'm gonna drop a BIG hint about to my Bridesmaids!!! Some of the questions were also very sweet, bringing tears to the eyes... it was just a brilliant idea! Also very inexpensive and actually a very thoughtful thing to do - the CB invested time and effort rather than money with that one.
Personally, I'd want to have a big sleepover with all my girls, putting all the sofa cusions on the floor like a giant bed and watching every wedding movie/romance DVD possible and drinking lots of champagne. Unfortunately none of our houses are big enough -have been looking online to see if anyone does sleepover parties for adults but no joy as yet...

mnorton

When I was CB for my friends wedding we hired a large house that sleeps 20, we did hire it for 3 nights, but I'm sure there are lots where you could just hire for the night. Try searching for group accomodation, I found quite a few sites that would do a search for you. We spent one of those nights bumming around the house in pj's (ones that I got for everyone and had pictures of the bride printed on the back), just playing games and eating pizza.

Another inexpensive game that you could play is to take some pictures of the grooms body parts ( eeth, nipple, toe etc) then take the same pics but of other men (we just used our OH's) and the bride has to decide which she thinks is her fiance. Turned into a pretty funny drinking game, with every one she got right the hens drinking and the ones she got wrong she had to have a drink. Turned out that she knew her fiance pretty well so the hens ended up having a fair few shots. good fun though.

ClaireN75

Baby_in_the_corner wrote: »

At a hen do I went to, they had a mr & mrs type quiz over dinner...

My bridesmaids did that. It was a very funny moment (although it did also create some "aaah" moments too and I really appreciated the time and effort they'd gone to putting it together.

The photo game from mnorton sounds fantastic too.

My bridesmaids made me a photobook of the hen night and gave it to me on the wedding day. It has a bunch of photos from the day's activities and evening out, as well as the questions and husband's answers, with my answers as well. It's a lovely souvenir and you can get photobooks printed quite reasonably.

One thing that fell flat were some Anne Summers cards that someone brought along in the evening. They were full of dares like, "Get condoms from five different men and use them before the end of the night". I suppose you could make balloons out of them, but it just seems a little sleezy. Although as we'd just been to a male stripping cabaret I'm perhaps not one to talk :rotfl:Home made dare cards would probably be worth the effort if you're into that kind of thing 'cos at least then you can tailor them for the bride (I'm soooooo glad my bridesmaids didn't have this idea):rotfl:

I hope you can reign in the cost somewhat, and just keep on with your ideas for the more personal touches. As someone who was on the receiving end it's those that I remember and treasure the most, as well as the opportunity to spend time with some of my closest friends at a moment when I was feeling particularly emotional. The activities are a nice to have but in the end are only a background for what should be the concreting of friendships at an important time of the bride-to-be's life.