Right, I've seen these called Hen Dos for years and I've seen American's call them bachelorette parties for years, too, but I saw it referred to as Stags and Does the other day and I don't know where that's from but it just doesn't sit right with me, to be quite honest. I don't know what it is, but I heard it and my only thought was, ew, no thanks.
My image of a hen party has always been the 'classic' thing of Blackpool, getting drunk, wearing plaid skirts with plastic bottoms glued on (because I saw them in Blackpool once) and again it was one of those things that was like, yeah... no thanks, it's not for me. My future husband and I did consider just renting an Airbnb somewhere, having a few drinks with close friends and a bit of a games night but when we wrote out a list of people we would like to invite it started to get a little bit crazy and then get away from the idea of it being just a holiday of friends and more into typical stag or hen parties which are banned from some big houses because of the damage that previous drunken parties have done. The bigger it got, the more it felt like a mini wedding party before the wedding or we worried that there would be people we were inviting out of obligation rather than a desire for them to be there and so that went out of the window. I had thought before a spa day with just my mum or something might be nice, but even that didn't feel quite right, so it was back to the drawing board again.
In the end I thought I would do the same thing as we have done for the wedding and take an approach of it's my party and I'm going to do what I want.
One thing I did realise with it was that my ability to organise is shocking, and my ability to understand dates has got worse since having my son because I don't need to know what day or date it is most of the time, so there were a few people that I realised last minute that had I sat down and thought about it properly, I would have invited, but inviting people on the day of felt like an afterthought, which it wasn't but I think I've found the reason that the hen do is organised by your maid of honour or bridesmaids and it's because splitting focus between the wedding and the hen means you kind of do everything wrong.
I had desperately wanted to go to a certain Italian restaurant in Manchester, but when I came to book it, getting a table before 9pm wasn't possible, and we were meeting up earlier than that so I wasn't really up for going out for drinks and then going there because it was a group of neurodivergent friends and I, and we can get loud without realising it when we're sober, and I didn't want to interrupt other people's dinners, especially not there and especially not when the place was having a busy night, so instead I chose an Indian place which I love and got to introduce my super foodie friend to it. That never happens! There's also something very apt about it being a hen night and chaat bombs, because giving people warnings that they will go everywhere if you bite them. How is it that EVERY TIME someone does not heed the warning? So the night started with yoghurt everywhere and went from there.
It wasn't a traditional thing in any way shape or form, because it was me and my male friends, I hated the white dress I had been planning on wearing so grabbed something black instead (and my green Doc Martens, so got to feel so like myself that it was incredible), and instead of doing the somewhat popular activity, food, drowning your liver in your tipple of choice we started with drinking at dinner and it all escalated from there. The lads hadn't known each other at the start of the night, but one of the great things is that they will now know each other at the wedding and that makes me feel a lot calmer, because people coming on their own who don't know anyone else there makes me worry. I don't want anyone to feel left out during the wedding, so it's good that they've got someone they vaguely know and once got drunk with.
It's also not lost on me that the people who were able to make it are those who don't have children, and those who couldn't make it have, because I know that had it been someone else's night and my son was ill, or he'd been a live wire for the day and I was exhausted, I wouldn't have made it either, and even though I do bring him up in conversation quite a bit, it was nice that the hen do wasn't completely about being his mum.
The night ended with my very soon to be husband picking up three of us and driving us home whilst I was insufferably drunk, and putting up with me as he does so well, and only partly because I've promised to do the same for him after his stag do.
I don't know whether it's that the hen do has happened or by sheer proximity, but everything for the wedding is feeling a lot more real now and whilst I love that, it is making me very nervous about things arriving on time or getting everything packed and to the venue, getting last things like hair cuts and nails done (why am I suddenly a person who cares about getting my nails done!) and I have genuinely considered starting to pack suitcases of bits we need but I keep telling myself that that is a bit neurotic, but I probably won't be able to hold off that long because it's getting very close now.
I'm sure that a few people who have read this blog for a while will be glad when the wedding stuff goes off, but when it's so close and it's such a big thing in your life, it's obviously something you're going to talk about a lot of the time, and even when I don't, people ask.
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