Bridal Parties: The shoe is on the other foot
January 8, 2012
PiC’s part of a old friend’s wedding party scheduled for this spring and it’s now time for him to don the planning gloves.
There are 6 groomsmen plus a potential guest list of almost 20 names for the bachelor party. All told, we’re looking at 25 possible attendees. (I say we because I’ve done the planning thing many times and PiC …1? None? So I’m helping. But I don’t get to go. Because, he says, I don’t know which strippers they want. Neither does he, I say. Har har, we’re a riot.)
There’s only the stag party for the men unlike for the women with both a bridal shower and a bachelorette party, but PiC’s still looking at spending a pretty penny. At their age (mid thirties and up) and with everyone in far-flung locations, whoever is going to travel will be wanting to do a weekend or at least an overnight, not just an afternoon or a day trip. And los hombres, they like doing interesting things so the list of adventures, well …..
The groom’s very outdoorsy so we brainstormed:
- Driving (on tracks, travel required)
- Hiking (mountains preferred to … anything else?)
- Skiing/Snowboarding/Snow-type stuff (out of state travel required for everyone)
- Fishing
- Biking (Utah?)
- Rock Climbing
Happily, Vegas was vetoed early on. While it’s logistically easy, drunken debauchery just wasn’t the weekend either of us cared to coordinate, and especially not with that many people.
He’s starting coordination with the core group of the groomsmen. He wondered where he should set the budget for the activity and I advised him to aim to keep as low as possible because he can’t control the additional costs of airfare, hotel, food and drink for all. At least a few of them like to eat and drink really well (read: expensively) which frightens me/the budget.
So once he’s got a location, I can start researching travel options. I’ll be looking out for a good sale to keep the round trip airfare below $200, and then we have the hotel to deal with. Unless we get a great package deal and sales on everything else, I suspect this will total in the neighborhood of $800-1000. One of the fellas has a connection to one of places they may go, and I’ll be whipping out my bargaining voice once they make a decision.
The time commitment isn’t as heavy; there won’t be multiple weekends of shopping or crafting or whatnot. But at a certain point, being a groomsmen can become just as expensive for men as it is for women. Good-o.
After this, tuxes, speeches, and the wedding itself! (Add: Cost of airfare for two, rental car, and gifts.)
Ugh I can relate- I somehow ended up int he maid of honor role in a wedding where I sort of dislike the bride and don’t know the groom. I had to plan the bridal shower, and attend of course attend the wedding ($1000 in air fare!) plus I will need to buy my dress and gifts? Kill me now.
If they pick a hiking-fishing type trip they can always rent a house, which would come out cheaper. Ah, weddings! If I ever marry, I’m eloping like you did. 😉
My future brother in law went on a whitewater rafting thing for his stag party. It was fun coz all they did was camp out, drank, went rafting and drank some more. It’s in Virginia and that was in May I think. No strippers (coz his fiancee would flip out) but they did have a great time.
UGH–Is all this pre-stuff absolutely required? Shouldn’t the wedding be enough?
I am about to embark on this myself. I am best “man” to my best friend and I am dreading putting it into my budget by continuing to pretend it’s not happening!
Cheers! You’ve been pinged: http://bit.ly/yhJE31
This seems like a lot of money and time. Is that really the norm among your friends? I have never heard of such a thing as a whole bachelor’s trip before; I thought they were entirely the imagination of hollywood screenwriters.
@Robin: Yoinks. That, I would totally back out of. There is no way I’d serve in a wedding where I wasn’t good friends with at least one of the two, if not both!
@Kris: That’d be a cool trip and much more affordable. But I suspect half the groomsmen aren’t really outdoorsy.
@Tazz: Yeah, the strippers are a big joke, I can guarantee that not a single one of them wouldn’t be anything but uncomfortable with hanging out with their friends and strippers.
@frugalscholar: Required? Ehhh. He feels obligated. This couple is more high activity/adventure than we are so PiC rather wants to do something nice to send him off. It’s frivolous and a bit much but I don’t really begrudge them this once when I consider the other times he’s come through for us on any number of trips, favors, and other help with or without being asked.
They rarely spend real time together anymore and if they do it’s just for a meal, sometimes hurried for the sake of catching up.
@Debt-Free: Good luck! But I would probably put it in the budget! 🙂
@The Lost Goat: We don’t have any norm among the friends – I didn’t have anything at all, one girlfriend had three bridal showers AND a bachelorette party (so if we want to discuss excessive…..) Another just had a small group gathering for gifts and a night out.
These fellas have been friends for nearly 20 years now and haven’t traveled together in over ten or so. They always tried to “meet in the middle” for meals so as they’re all scattered across the country, this is kind of that same attempt writ large.
I can’t really find it in me condemn it as I don’t see why it’s more acceptable (I don’t think it is so much) for brides to have up to several parties.