in what way does being married prevent you from spending hellish Smirnoff-soaked evenings at loud thumpy clubs?
Umm....
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a friend of mine from college had as his bachelor party an all-day-all-night marathon session of playing Shadowrun with his old gaming group.
I have no idea what a bachelorette party should look like, though the traditional ones look bizarrely unenjoyable. For guys, though, renting a nice place at the beach with your four or five best buddies for a weekend of excessive drinking, smoking, and low-stakes Texas Hold 'em sounds perfect to me.
Driving to Marfa with a bunch of d00dz, drinking irresponsibly, hanging out around the Judds. Who needs titties?
The strippers are the least enjoyable aspect of any bachelor/ette party.
4: Got that one. Try to be more obscure.
3: "In the hills" works as well as the beach.
I can't really imagine any of my friends having bachelor or bachelorette parties. It sounds like something that happens in a parallel universe.
What does this have to do with getting married?
Dyadic withdrawal, man, dyadic withdrawal.
Driving to Marfa with a bunch of d00dz, hanging out around the Judds.
That doesn't rhyme.
I've been to two bachelor parties. The first one consisted of playing video games, eating pizza and drinking Dr. Pepper. The groom was Mormon, so the caffeine was at least a little transgressive. Still, it didn't differ much from our usual routine. Whatever, he was young and needed Jesus's permission to have an orgasm.
The more recent friend getting married asked me to host the initial rendezvous phase (not that kind). I'd been feeling sick all day, though, so when it came time to go see oily naked women I found myself sick to my stomach and in a cold sweat only a few blocks from the house. I excused myself and went home, meaning that yet again my bachelor party experience was limited to pizza, videogames and beverage consumption (better pizza, Wii tennis, and whiskey and beer this time, thought -- so things are trending upward).
My sister-in-law threw a bachelorette party for Mrs. Ruprecht, and hired a stripper who engaged in what came close to the legal definition of a sexual assault, in front of the assembled guests
When my cluesless sister-in-law realized that the poor girl handcuffed to the chair had real tears in her eyes and really wasn't enjoying that shit, she finally had the sense to throw him out. And the jackass tried to argue with her that he wasn't done!
3 sounds good. We had a party for our out-of-town guests a few days for the weekend at our place that consisted of hanging out, eating, and drinking. It was great fun.
The party should be in the coffee-bar section of Borders, where the women sip lattes and peruse magazines for as long as they like, without having to sit in the children's section reading movie-tie-in garbage to frenetic toddlers.
13: No, that's a post-marriage party. Perhaps a birthday party for a kid--"here, wife, to celebrate the day you spent in labor, I'll take the kids to the park while you and the other moms go hang out someplace quiet. The dads will pick the kids up, and I'll feed dinner to any stragglers, so you don't have to come back until you're ready."
Bachelor/ette parties seem sort of pointless unless the marriage is going to radically change the behavior of the relevant party in some way that is obvious prior to marriage. And that seems increasingly untrue. Once upon a time, it might have been true that people thought it was OK to cheat on your girlfriend or boyfriend, but not your spouse. Or maybe it was once OK to be "wild and crazy" prior to marriage, but not afterwards. But, if ever, certainly not so much anymore.
But as an excuse to hang out, it seems great.
My 'bachelor' party consisted of meeting a few friends, male and female, for a drink in a (good) bar the night before the wedding. My wife-to-be came with us.
I have friends, though, who have done the whole insane-debauchery thing, and it just doesn't interest me in the slightest. One time in my teens, when all my mates went on a stag night, I went with the girls on their hen-night instead. My motives for that latter may not have been entirely honourable, but I'm sure I had more fun.
3 sound excellent, too.
"stag night" and "hen night" are much cooler phrases.
I remember the phrase "stag party" appearing regularly in the 1940s-1960s-era humor I read as a teenager. Is that just what we call a "bachelor party" now, or was it something different?
Also, every bachelor party should include this guy.
18: I can't make them all, Apo.
15: I think the point of the proper bachelor party is to organize friends who may live far away from one another. Marriage and adult life taken more broadly introduces obligations that make this sort of thing harder to do. So it's an excuse to hang out but also a recognition that you may not be hanging out so much any more (and not because the wife won't let you). Same for bachelorette party, I imagine.
However, this theory flies in the face of the data, which suggest that people really do relish that last opportunity to drink from penis cups/see strange plastic boobs. I blame a failure of imagination.
I agree with Apo. Such a party is best used as an opportunity to gather friends from far away and nearby and have fun. Strip clubs are too depressing.
17: In American usage at the time, "stag" just meant any all-male gathering, not specifically premarital debauchery.
It wasn't particularly planned, but I went out with my sister and some friends to a big party where I didn't know anyone, and spent the night engaged in catch-and-release flirting. Fun, although not generally my sort of thing.
My bachelor party was great. For night one, my best man rented a suite at a downtown hotel. Guests were instructed to prepare an offering of some kind in tribute to my imminent fate. My cousin didn't come, but he sent porn, which was projected before the festivities begun. My father, an attorney, was invited; he brought a medical chart that had been used by an expert witness at trial, and explained the human reproductive system to the assembled guests. There was a dramatic performance of some horrific marriage play, a couple of original and parodic songs and poems, letters from guests who couldn't attend, and readings of letters I'd sent in the past. One friend signed me up to run in the then-unfolding California gubernatorial recall election, and staged a series of embarrassing media phone calls and emails to my place of work during the day of the party (my boss was in on it, and acted pissed).
We duly schlepped out to a strip club, and it was fine, but it wasn't the highlight. (Dad left before that.)
The next day, a smaller crew piled into a suburban and drove six hours into the desert. We had dinner, hit a hot springs, and under a full moon, climbed sand dunes and slid down them naked.
Highly recommended.
However, this theory flies in the face of the data, which suggest that people really do relish that last opportunity to drink from penis cups/see strange plastic boobs.
Most people are idiots, and most of those who want to will be drinking from penis cups/seeing strange plastic boobs after marriage. At some point, people should probably realize that. Agree with you on a gathering of friends, though. It's nice to have a built-in justification for something like that, though in the best of all possible worlds, you wouldn't need it.
My bass player told me of a bachelor party he went to. They'd rented a boat and a stripper. The stripper showed up at the pier with a bodyguard, took one look at the half-dozen skinny Jews, and said to the bodyguard, "You don't have to stay."
"Knot Just Yet" is an abominable name, and doesn't really make sense.
I'm going to one in Vegas soon. A trip to a shooting range has been organized. Mercifully, no sexwork entertainments have. Any other ideas?
re: 26
You have a bass player? Does that mean you are in a band? Or do you just have one who follows you about (to provide menacing arco accompaniment to your moods)?
My bachelor party started at 8:00 AM with paintball, followed by a barbecue lunch. Then we went go-cart racing and skeet shooting. After that we all split a bushel of crabs and went to minor league baseball game. Then we went out to a bar, and another bar, and, I'm told, another bar after that. I have vague recollection of doing coke in a men's room and puking from a limo in a parking lot, somewhere.
It was pretty awesome.
(to provide menacing arco accompaniment to your moods)
I would rather have someone provide some jazzy pizzicato accompaniment.
The stripper showed up at the pier with a bodyguard, took one look at the half-dozen skinny Jews, and said to the bodyguard, "You don't have to stay."
Hilarious.
A trip to a shooting range has been organized. Mercifully, no sexwork entertainments have.
friend of mine from college had as his bachelor party an all-day-all-night marathon session of playing Shadowrun
My brother's consisted of an all-night Call of Cthulhu session, at which I got terribly drunk (and was the only one drinking) from all the tooliness. Then the bridal party showed up, and the bride and maid of honor did an S&M lap dance tandem on my brother, where he wound up whipped by a cat-o-nine-tails and forced to wear a strap-on chin dick. All in front of my soon-to-be sister-in-law's developmentally-delayed teenaged sister.
Then the maid of honor had to go to the hospital with some kind of anaphylactic shock related to a compromised immune system.
Y'know, I realy wish I had drank more that night.
climbed sand dunes and slid down them naked
Didn't that...err....hurt?
A company I used to have dealings with was the sponsor of the World Sand Ski Championship held on this (artificial) mountain.
Abrasion injuries from falling down were a serious concern.
29: Sorry, I should have been more specific. The bass player in 26 is in my band. The bass player who follows me around is kind of useless. Only plays waltzes, which sound dumb on a bass and are no good for entrances.
Re: 36. This picture makes the point I was making even more clearly, if you can make out what's on the sign.
36: Softest sand in the world. Sings when you slide on it, too.
Wrongshore has a calmer delivery than I do.
Awhile back I stopped in a tavern which was occupied by two different bridal parties. About 40-60 youngish women travelling from bar to bar in a schoolbus, but no stripper.
I did explain the no-relationship policy to one of the brides, and she laughed quite pleasantly.
40: Hey, I've been there. It is indeed awesomely awesome.
I was once dragged to a wedding-eve party &mdash I'm not sure if it was the official bitchelorette party &mdash where the bride-to-be flirted with me as aggressively as any woman ever has. Scruples prevented me from responding in kind, and she met her terrible fate as scheduled the next day.
Pan Am's expert witness, psychiatrist and bestselling author Eric Berne, testified that effeminate male flight attendants would make a male passenger "uneasy" because they "might arouse feelings in him he would rather not have aroused." Berne went on to opine that the airlines should cater to "standard American prejudices" against men who were associated with femininity -- in short, who might seem gay.
Hen nights in Scottish pubs can be quite wild. You'll sometimes see guys slinking out the back way when they see one come in.
A friend of mine from school always seemed to get targeted by them [presumably because he was quite good-looking but in a slightly geeky Richard-Marx-bouffant-hair way].
There's a drag show here that always draws at least half a dozen bachelorette parties. (Drag queens, mind you.) It is the weirdest scene. I don't quite get it.
At the very end, the emcee tells all the brides-to-be that someday, if they find women's panties in their son's underwear drawer, they should think back to this night and not freak out. Awkward silence from the crowd.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_7512.html#636560
Was the result of a hen night [although I didn't actually know the girls aggressively flirting with me were a hen night].
My hen-night-gone-spectacularly-wrong story (second hand, but told by a credible witness):
Danish girl is going out on her hen night with friends in Copenhagen, and they take the bus to the pub. Friends have pre-arranged that, at every bus stop along the way, one the bride-to-be's ex-boyfriends gets on the bus. In the course of the evening, she hooks up with one of her exes and calls off the wedding.
50.---So, nobody foresaw the possibility of this idea going awry?
Man, if I ever have a bachelorette party, it's going to involve contract bridge and champagne, and that's about all.
Come on, it's your last night as a single woman. Why not go wild and play duplicate?
Hen nights in Scottish pubs can be quite wild. You'll sometimes see guys slinking out the back way when they see one come in.
After the first thirty or so you experience, they mostly become annoying. The typical hen night had all the participants dressed according to a theme. The most popular themes seemed to be policewomen and she-devils, although just generally slutty was common too, but hard to distinguish from "normal" club wear (a good indication of how tough Scottish women are was how common it was to see them wearing at most maybe seven ounces of clothing, in the freezing wet Scottish winter, while standing in long queues to get into the clubs). All the resulting theme-related jokes and pratfalls got old pretty fast, as, depending on the venue, you'd often encounter several hen parties a night.
And often the participants would engage in contests like seeing how many pairs of underwear each could persuade men in the club to give them. The first time I encountered this I had no idea that when they said "pants" they meant "underwear", not the jeans I was wearing. After being corrected on this point, me resorting to the seemingly-clever ploy of "Oh, pants? I'm not wearing any" lead my assailant to challenge me to prove it. Menacingly. "Sorry, I'm not drunk enough yet. But maybe you could help me out with that" never went down too well either.
We often joked about bringing several extra pairs of "pants" along when we went out so that we could just immediately give them to any costumed she-reveler who approached and avoid all the wheedling, the threats, the tired jokes.
M/lls, you catty cross-dressing she-devil.
51: I have a shrewd idea that one person foresaw it.
You'll have to give me your pants now, ogged.
Caution to the winds! Duplicate and whisky!
After the first thirty or so you experience, they mostly become annoying.
Kinda like dealing with guys on the make, then.
Whatever you do, don't go here, it's already the case that I can't get home Thursday-Saturday night without dodging through the crowds of bachelorette parties outside.
Like a few others, I find this all so foreign (and not in the Scottish way) and off-putting. My closest friends are both men and women. Why would I want to have a night-before-the-wedding party (or wedding or baby shower for that matter) without the men? And why would I want to ditch my intended the night before the wedding? That ranks up there with the "he can't see me in my dress" bullshit.
Girls' or boys' nights out sometimes I can see, but not for the life-changing events.
Bitch's or ttaM's kind of party is the way to go.
The one time I went to a bachelorette party (I was a bridesman) it was mainly gift bags of skin cream and watching movies and drinking wine. I rather enjoyed it. That shaving cream was simply the best I've ever gotten.
Kinda like dealing with guys on the make, then.
No, I mostly just ignore guys on the make, or laugh and point.
63: And very fun! Dress it up in all the gay you like but it beats being asked for my "pants."
So with hen nights, Slut-O-Ween comes more than once a year!
I know it's officially wrong and everything, but gawd I love Slut-O-Ween. Can't we keep that one? I'm willing to trade for more state supported babysitters or whatever.
Also, every bachelor party should include this guy.
I hope he's not expecting a pain-free childbirth. And shouldn't they have induced by now?
Give me your pants and I'll shave you with fantastic shaving cream, Robust.
There's a drag show here that always draws at least half a dozen bachelorette parties. (Drag queens, mind you.) It is the weirdest scene. I don't quite get it.
When is the Jacques meetup, anyhow? I really want to check out one of the new lesbian drag variety nights.
So I know I've mentioned the relatively traditional party I arranged my for friend before here. Relatively traditional, but everybody (bride and groom, male and female, straight and gay) was there, it wasn't the night before the wedding, and it wasn't, you know, awful. It was a ton of fun, actually.
Also, every bachelor party should include this guy.
Note that that's a Shiner Bock he's balancing on his belly. So probably he's from Texas. Maybe it's macmanus?
A. Best bachelor party I've been to so far was a LAN party (Quake 3 mostly).
B. Second best was a combined bachelor/bachelorette party with a stripper. At one point the bride and groom were lying side by side on the floor each with a lollipop held firmly in their teeth while the stripper, uh, well. You get the idea.
C. After attending event B, my then-bride-to-be and I decided that our bachelor/bachelorette party should just be the two of us and a stripper. We didn't go through with it, but maybe for an anniversary night one of these days...
70: Oh, apo, you're going to make teo jealous.
72: The URL shows that the photo is sitting in a folder called "dallasissweet".
75: I'm taking that as conclusive proof.
The only good bachelor party experience I've ever had was my brother-in-law's: essentially a friendly card game, with some strikingly heartfelt and revealing conversations.
The idea of such traditional rituals would never have occurred to my wife and I when we got married in the early eighties. We thought that stuff was finished for all time and good riddance.
good indication of how tough Scottish women are was how common it was to see them wearing at most maybe seven ounces of clothing, in the freezing wet Scottish winter, while standing in long queues to get into the clubs
I've seen this in every cold-weather place I've ever lived. It takes extremely low temperatures to get club-going women to cover up -- got to be well below 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Even during the day on college campuses, miniskirt weather seems to start around 50 degrees F.
The desire for mating display is strong.
In Lake Wobegon club girls show up barefoot in bikinis at 30 below zero.
Lake Wobegon girls are naturally well-insulated.
When is the Jacques meetup, anyhow?
I don't think I realized you're still here, Sifu. I'm totally up for a lesbian drag variety show. What night of the week is it?
I once ended up in the middle of a middle-aged bachelorette party in a bar 20 miles outside of Grand Junction, Colorado.
During a Bush-Kerry debate.
I proceeded to get schnockered with the off-duty bartender and pass out in my van.