I am at the point in my life where a lot of my friends are starting to get married. When one of my friends asked me to be her Maid of Honor last year I was SO excited! She was the first of my close friends to get engaged and to my single eyes engagement meant an epic bachelorette party was in the future!
But how do you even begin planning? Since I went through this process blindly (and with a little help from Google and Pinterest), I thought I would share some tips on how to plan an amazing weekend for the bride to be!
Step 1: Decide on a Date
Depending on the location of the wedding will determine how far in advance you want to have the bachelorette party. For the party that I planned, I decided to have it two months before so everyone’s budgets could recover before the wedding which is in Hilton Head South Carolina.
I recommend sending out a doodle survey (online scheduling tool) to figure out which dates work best for each girl.
Step 2: Determine what is most important to the bride
Before you begin ANY of the planning you need to think about what is most important to the bride for the weekend. For some brides it is important to have a destination weekend (where maybe a few people won’t be able to attend), for other brides it doesn’t matter where the bachelorette party is as long as all of her besties are together. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it was one of the biggest issues I dealt with while planning.
Step 3: Pick your location
Once you figure out what is most important to your bride you need to decide on a location for the party. If you are staying in the hometown of the bride try to think outside the box when you are planning the activities. For the bachelorette party I threw we stayed in Chicago (where most of us are from), so I tried to choose activities the bride had never done before. Make sure it doesn’t feel like just any ordinary weekend.
If you are going out of town I recommend checking with friends, colleagues or family that may have been to your destination. Before we decided to stay in Chicago we were planning on having the weekend in Nashville. I have a few friends who went to school in Nashville and were able to give me a list of restaurants and fun things to do. Googling ideas will also work, but it’s always good to get recommendations from people you trust and know what you like.
Step 4: Activities, Games and Party Accessories
Searching for party accessories was my favorite part of the party planning process. I found a majority of my things on Etsy. There is so much great stuff on that site! Each bride will have their own style but below are some things that helped make my weekend a success:
- Groom on a stick:
- I went to FedEx and printed big pictures of the grooms face and then taped them to rulers that I bought at Target. These were a huge hit and looked hilarious in photos.
- Party Props:
- One of my friends is super artsy and made some amazing photo booth props, however there are plenty of places to buy these if you don’t want to DIY.
- Custom T-Shirts:
- These “Drunk in Love” and “Just Drunk” shirts were great quality! The glitter did not come off in the washer like I expected it to
- Custom Tumblers: (or you could do koozies)
- Party Pins: (or sash if your bride prefers)
- Temporary Tattoos:
- Balloons:
- We wrote on regular balloons with sharpies to save money but you can also buy funny balloons on multiple sites. I also love the big gold letter balloons (don’t forget it will cost extra money to fill them with helium and make them float)
- Dance Class
- Most cities have some kind of flirty work out studio. Our group did a video vixen dance class at Flirty Girl Fitness and had a ball!
- Blow Outs:
- We got our hair done at DryBar. There are a ton of places to get this done, and it’s so worth it to have fabulous hair all night! Also most of the places are BYOB so you can have a little champagne while you get pampered.
- Party Games
- Ladies night – card game where each card has a statement on it (ex. most likely to be a hand model). As a group you choose who best fits the statement on the card. We turned it into a drinking game where if you received a card you had to drink. You can also play alcohol free.
- Guess what the Groom said – a few weeks before the bachelorette party I asked the groom 20 questions. At the party I asked the bride what she thought the groom answered. Once again this can be played as a drinking game or not.
- Drop your Panties – each girl brings one pair of underwear. You drop the underwear into a box and have the bride try to pick who brought each pair.
Step 5: Send out logistics / price information
As the maid of honor (or anyone planning the bachelorette) you need to make sure that the entire group is aware of what the activities are and the prices for each activity. To stay organized I created a google doc which I shared with all the attendees (minus the bride). In the google doc I put each activity, the cost for the activity and then a total amount that each girl would owe for the weekend.
I recommend booking everything and sending out this information as soon as you can. This way everyone can budget accordingly and not have to worry about any surprise expenses at the end of the weekend.
I did not send out the spreadsheet to the bride because as a group we decided we would pick up the cost of her activities. I think this is a nice gift that helps makes the weekend worry free for the bride. We also did not tell her about any of the activities we were doing until right before. As one activity ended during the day we would tell her the next. This route might stress some brides out, but it was a fun way for my group to keep the excitement since we were partying in our hometown.
last but not least….ENJOY THE WEEKEND and don’t stress!!
If all of your girls are together there is no way it won’t be an amazing time!
Xoxo,
Kirsten