Hen Party Planning
Due to my inbox I can tell it’s Hen Party planning season again. We always wonder if lots of people propose over Christmas and get planning straight away, or the New Year is the time to start planning with everything for the big day. Either way we love a Hen Do and are always happy to help you plan the perfect one!
However, based on experience and many long chats with the brides bestie (who has been put in charge of planning the day), they can be a little stressful!!! But that is what we are here to help with.
When it come to organising the bachelorette party, there are so many variables and so many hen party ideas to take into consideration, and someone has to be in charge of creating a plan that everyone approves of. Which is just possibly easier said than done!
For starters the bride often knows you from different stages of her life and it may vary how well you all know each other, and what common interest you all have. Also to consider, everyone will be coming in from different locations and you need to find something central that everyone can get to with a certain amount of ease. Then there is the mother of the bride, and of course you mustn’t forget the mother of the Groom (who are always the most fun), but it is fair to say different generations and age groups will find different things interesting and lend themselves better towards certain types of activities. The other big one is budget, everyone has a different budget and finding something suitable for everyone’s budget isn’t always easy. Oh, and a date that everyone can make!!!!!
It sounds like a palaver, so why would you do it, she’s your best friend of course!
Having observed from the side lines these are some of the important things we’ve learnt along the way on how to make the perfect hen party!
- Budget- everyone’s budget is different and their availability to commit to a date. I’d recommend finding two or three options (that the bride approves of, of course), with a selection of dates for availability and put it out to a democratic vote. The most popular wins.
- Another thing that works well is to have different elements to the Hen party as a whole. For example, you might go away for the weekend, have a day trip within that, followed by an evening meal. Give guests the option to join for the whole weekend, or just a day or even just the evening meal. This helps with different budgets and commitment to time.
- Have a theme – it may seem silly, but trust us it really does bring everyone together and gives you a talking point from the moment you arrive. It doesn’t have to be extreme, anything from picking a colour and everyone wearing something red, to dressing like your Brides favourite movie star it all adds to the fun. Hands down my favourite theme ever, was when everyone arrived for their wine tour wearing a wig and moustache the same as the brides fiancé!
- Bringing everyone together – Occasionally in a hen party you’ve all been life long friends and everyone knows everyone, but most of the time there are a lot of people who have only met once or twice and the main thing you have in common is the bride. It’s important to find away to bring everyone together and get to know each other. The key thing we find is to have a focus and activities that you can all join in together, which will start the conversation flowing and allow everyone to get to know each other naturally (obviously a few samples of wine really help with this equation).
Book with someone you can trust – this may sound obvious but there is nothing worse than being the responsible organiser, having collected everyone’s money and handed it over, then panicking as to whether the company that you booked with will show up on the day! I’m not suggesting only work with big companies (I’m a micro company on all accounts so I’d never say that), but check out reviews, spend some time Googling and pick-up the phone and talk to someone at the company, and often your intuition will tell you if they are right for you or
So how can we help!?
The whole idea with a wine tasting hen party is you organise your group to be at the pick-up point at the right time, on the right date and we will take care of everything else!
Not everyone, but most people enjoy wine at some level which gives you your focus for the day and a common theme that can get the conversation started. However every English Wine Tour comes with your very own tour guide, and their specialism is getting bringing everyone together. They will tell you all about English wine, and wine in general, they will answer your questions and if you don’t have any, they will ask you questions instead! Their core function along will keeping you on track, is to make sure that everyone is happy and everyone is having fun which means you the organiser doesn’t have to worry about it!
Our main focus is obviously English Wine, but we also work with a number of Gin Distilleries, Craft Beer Brewers and just recently we have started working with a chocolatery who offer a chocolate making workshop!
If our English Wine Tours sound like a hen party idea you and team hen might be interested in, then get in touch and we can provide you with details to share with the group and answer any questions anyone may have.
Have a look at our private tours page to gain inspiration, but the best thing to do is drop me an email or give me a call and tell me about your group and I can put forward some suggestions.
