to think the current trend of hen and stag dos is ridiculous?

[FRETGNIKCUF]

Seriously.

Hen dos in Spain for a week?

Stags away to somewhere in Europe or Las Vegas for a weekend?

What happened to gathering with friends and getting drunk the weekend before you get married?

Why does this generation of narcissists, who cannot afford mortgages, think their guests should spend a fortune of forced fun for a weekend, abroad?

I hate this trend.

Here- it's mostly the stag dos that are abroad. Hen do's often tend to be spa weekends or weekends in a cottage. Which can be just as expensive but at least don't involve planes.
I think it's all madness but then I had a night out with my mates- male and female and we all got fabulously drunk and ended up in a cheap club we wouldn't normally have been senn dead in. Much fun was had- cheaply.

YANBU - they have IMO got completely out of hand , and it's been going on for years.
Must be at least 15 years ago when a boyfriend of a dd turned down a stag do consisting of 4 or 5 days in Boston at a cost of £500 just for flights and accommodation. He was best man and felt bad, but simply could not afford it.

Personally I think it's very selfish and entitled to expect friends to spend so much AND give up precious days of their annual leave, when just the costs of attending a wedding - travel, accommodation, present, etc. - can be more than enough for many.

I think it's each to their own.

It's ridiculous to even consider it though, if you know you have friends where money is tight.
However, if people are flush & everyone is in agreement, I see no problem

It is madness so no YANBU.

I had afternoon tea at the Dorchester for my Hen. I don't really drink and it meant that my mum and MIL could also come and feel comfortable. Almost all of my friends were able to attend and we had a lovely day. I would not have been offended in any way if anyone had not been able to come.

It is a bit galling when they have all-singing-all-dancing hen/stag breaks somewhere inconvenient that you are expected to pay through the nose for, and then, for a wedding present, they demand cash from everyone towards the cost of their globetrotting tropical honeymoon.

Definitely not a current trend, though I do think it's getting more common to do a week in Marbella where perhaps 10 years ago it might have been a weekend city break in UK/Ireland or possibly Prague. Also increasingly common for big birthdays in my experience.

I have been invited on a couple of weekend ones and haven't gone - I can't even remember what my excuse was but in one case I wasn't going to the wedding either so I didn't feel guilty. Actually I never would feel guilty anyway as I think it is ridiculous the amount that people are expected to fork out for hen/stag parties in addition to the huge cost of weddings. I also don't really want to spend my precious holiday time with someone else's choice of holiday companion. I might feel differently if it were, say, my sister's wedding and it was just family members and one or two very close friends, but they often seem to involve wider groups than that. If brides/grooms want to spend shitloads of money on a "last hurrah" or whatever they're meant to be, then off you go, but I do think they need to consider the pressure it's putting on some people, both financially and mentally.

But then I see the Facebook threads or hear the stories about the amazing girlie spa weekends/40th birthday week/hen holiday and I think I must be a right boring cow as it sounds like hell! I totally am a boring cow

Going against the grain here a bit but YABU

• Don't go if you don't want to
• Don't have a hen/stag do like this if you don't want to
• What does it have to do with anyone else how someone else wishes to celebrate their stag/hen do?

Hens and stags are getting a bit ridiculous. Another thing that I've noticed is that there will be a big, expensive do somewhere, and then a SECOND one a bit cheaper/closer to home so that those who can't make the main one can still 'celebrate' - yet there's still an expectation everyone else will come too. Then there's the 'work hen do' and other dubious sub-events.

I think it's a bit of a leap to suggest the reason 'this generation' can't afford mortgages though is because they're going on too many hen and stag dos!

Brides get a lot of bad press on here. As someone who is getting married next year we thought it would all be rather simple. A quick yes, followed by a piss up and a disco and Mr and Mrs colonel are happy.

We very quickly became masters of saying no, everyone and his dog chips in with 'helpful' suggestions usually a sentence starting with the phrase ' I don't want to interfere but... '

The thing is, we only know very lovely helpful people who's hearts are in the right place and it's very difficult when somone is offering something that is heartfelt (like the endless offers to make wedding favours - that are mostly chutney) to say no thank you.

Same goes for our stag and hen do's. My best friend wants us to going skiing for a week. Of course I would love to go skiing, who wouldn't and if be really touched that people wanted to come with me. I'm sure that if I'd left it to her to organise as a surprise she would have roped people in who would have gone and moaned about how expensive it is behind my back. I havent let her organise it because id be mortified that my friends paid out loads of cash that they need for other things. Another friend wants to go to do something in London which would end up quite expensive too, another thing that I would really enjoy but for the same reason I'd rather just keep it simple.

It's not always the bride's fault, a lot of anger around weddings comes from trying to please people and make them feel involved but equally if you don't do that and tell everyone, no, we're doing it our way people get upset about that too. You can't win.

My point being that ' the bride is a narcissist who thinks the whole world revolves around her' is quite a nasty way a viewing things.

YANBU.

And it is a current trend. It's been going on for a few years now, but 15 years ago it was a relatively unusual thing, these days it's practically an expectation. As is a 'destination wedding.'

It seems there is no end to the competition for dreaming up more and more elaborate ways for your poor friends to spend enormous amounts of their own money celebrating your nuptials.

An old school friend of mine has a rich dad and her hen do was a Caribbean cruise! Only her family went.

Exdp is begrudging going halves on ds's school trip but has announced he's going on a stag do to.... Las Vegas

The best was recently we received an invite to a wedding in FLORIDA
With less than 6 months notice. Costing around £6000 that we don't have, no thanks.

I like a good hen weekend but I don't think it's compulsory to attend. I don't like bridezillas getting annoyed if I can't go. Especially if it is abroad as it is so expensive.

I think it's daft, particularly when offence is taken if someone says they can't afford it, don't have the time or just don't want to go.

It is one of those OPs. Sometimes I need to feel that my view is the broadly accepted ones.

Mn is the only place ive heard of these hen dos. My rl and fb friends go out for meals, pubs and the occasional spa day. No one does holidays. Am i unusual

My DB went on a stag do earlier this year, expensive resort in Spain. He went because he wanted to go and thought he was a good friend of the groom. £1,000 later and no invite to the wedding as they were keeping the numbers down ! That's the end of that friendship.

"Going against the grain here a bit but YABU

• Don't go if you don't want to
• Don't have a hen/stag do like this if you don't want to
• What does it have to do with anyone else how someone else wishes to celebrate their stag/hen do?"

It isn't as simple as saying 'don't go', though, loobyloo - some brides get really nasty if their bridesmaids, MOH, family and friends don't come to all the pre-wedding activities - it is very bridezilla behaviour, but if you know that, by refusing to go to the hen do, you are going to get a load of shit from the bride, that makes just saying no a lot harder.

And what does it have to do with other people, how someone chooses to celebrate their hen do/stag do? Well - lots, if how they choose to celebrate is going to end up costing these other people loads of money, using up their precious holiday days, and maybe meaning that they either have to have a major falling-out with the bride, or spend all the money and holiday that would have been a family holiday on the bride's Special Days.

If someone is making decisions that will cost me money, then of course I get to have an opinion. And if brides are planning multiple hen dos costing the attendees a fortune, then I am sorry, but I get to have an opinion on that, and it is not a good one!

I enjoy them mostly. A weekend break away with friends. Only been to one I didn't enjoy and it was my sister in laws in this country. One I went to the Bride was a total bridezilla and we just put out foot down about certain things she wanted us to do and said no we'd stay at the pool and get her after (going to the local market for fake designer stuff!)

One weekend abroad is fine. People who have multiple hens, one including a weekend away is what annoys me.

It isn't as simple as saying 'don't go', though, loobyloo - some brides get really nasty if their bridesmaids

If a bride gets really nasty about it, then I would question the friendship rather than their choice of a hen do to be quite honest

I'd question both, to be fair, loobyloo.

How is it OK for someone to choose a hen do that costs the attendees hundreds or thousands of pounds? How unaware/selfcentred do you have to be to think that it is OK to expect people to spend that much on your hen do? That's what baffles and appals me.

Agreed I've never had anyone get an arse on because I said I couldn't make it to a hen do or wedding, but then I'm not friends with twats in the first place.

The overseas stag dos (Hens started to get to being more of a 'thing' a bit later) seems to have coinsided with the cheap flight revolution. A weekend in a city in the UK will cost you about the same as a 'desination' stag/hen, bar an extra £50 for the flights and suddenly it feels more 'worth it' to have a little holiday out of it if the difference in price is going to be so little. (particularly if you can get cheap hotels and drinks/meals in the overseas location to balance out the flight costs).

STDG - if an amount is unreasonable or not really depends on your group of friends. For some, expecting people to pay for a meal in a place like Zizis followed by some drinks in the local pub would be an unreasonable expectation if their friendship group would struggle to all afford it - for others, if you have a group who all have the sort of spare income that a few hundred quid isn't a big deal and/or already have a culture within the friendship group of weekends/trips away as a group, doing one for your hen/stag isn't unreasonable (if the costs are similar to the 'norm').

EG. DH had a stag do to Paris - it was at the time of the Rugby World Cup being held in France, all but 1 of his 'stags' were regular travellers to watch England play internationals, Paris was no big deal when 4 years before most of the same group had all gone over to Sydney for the world cup there and most had travelled for 6 nations games. The weekend didn't cost more than the normal rugby weekends as DH paid for the tickets. (He wouldn't have been upset at all if the non-rugby fan hadn't wanted to go, non-rugby fan actually loved the whole 'international game' experience.)

thecolonelbumming I completely agree. I'm also getting married this year and didn't want an extravagant hen party. My bridesmaids wanted one abroad, I insisted they didn't but I don't know what they have actually done. I asked it not be too expensive but I don't know what it is! It is lovely of them to organise something for me and I hope it isn't going to cost people £500 but I don't think it's fair to call me a Narcissist either way

2 other things:

Firstly, what I hate is hypocrisy. If you had a modest hen do, moan away. But most of my hen guests are already married and all had extravagant weekend hen dos (except one). I went to them all. I don't expect moaning from these people about me having a hen party. It's fine not to like hens, but I hate the attitude I see a lot of expecting other people to do it for you but not being prepared to do it for other people.

Secondly, I cannot believe some people have been invited to hens but not the wedding! That is so rude. "Please come and spend your money to celebrate me at the hen but I don't want to spend the money inviting you to my wedding". Ugh. So entitled.

Next year, I meant next year!

Also I see a lot of people moaning about the cost of attending a wedding. Awful attitude. If you resent the cost of going, decline.

I've been to a fair few weddings and the most romantic were so the cheapest.

There's something very "reality star" as someone commented above about some celebrations.

One more expensive weddings I attended they gave out a vogue style beach photo shoot on postcards to everyone of them in swimwear.