What's the max you would spend (as a guest) on attending a hen party?

[henpartybudget22]

Not sure what is a reasonable amount these days - I'm thinking £100, but concerned I'm being tight. The wedding itself is a destination one in Europe, so have already paid a fair amount on travel and hotel.

I think my best friends hen do cost me £125. That was afternoon tea, night in a hotel and the train fare. Though she was aware that alot of the people that she wanted to attend don't earn loads so went for a cheaper option, plus they paid for everyone to stay the night of the wedding (about 45 people) so we just paid for the night before.

I think it depends partly on age. When I was in my late 20s to mid 30s when loads of my friends were tying the knot there were a huge amount of suggestions to go on hens and a lot of them were pretty glitzy: weekends in Barcelona etc etc. I remember one summer attending no fewer than four weddings, all of which came with an accompanying hen and the whole thing cost an absolute bomb.

That slowed to a trickle after most people who did want to get married had done so.

I'm in my early 50s and I've been to two weddings in the past decade and only one of those had a (sort of hen). Once people are older and with kids and sometimes demanding jobs and mortgages expecting different friendship groups to spend the money and energy on this sounds pretty preposterous unless you can fund it all yourself. And of course most of the weddings I'm going to now are second marriages where people are much more realistic and less showy about it or they are people who are belatedly getting married after having been together decades for legal reasons and don't really care about the window dressing.

Yeah a hen do used to be a meal out and drinks (lots still are!)

Weddings used to be your local church and then sandwiches at the local rugby club/church hall

A honeymoon used to be a week at the seaside or lake district if you were lucky, not an all expenses included trio to Barbados for a fortnight

Christmas used to be 2 days off, ONE present and an orange not a month of festivities, Christmas rve boxes, elf on the shelf and mountain of plastic tat

Leaving school used to be walking out after an exam aged 14, not a prom, leaving ceremony etc at 16 and 18

We used to shove children up chimneys, deny women the vote and die before we could retire....times have changed! Or is it only hen do's you resent?

I agree with @fragrantandfoolish - there's a bizarre tone on these threads that going on a hen is an unwanted chore that people only do as a massive favour to the bride. If people really think like that then I can understand why they are reluctant to go or spend much. However it's a weird lack of logic - while the bride getting married might be the reason for the hen it's a holiday or night out for me that I'm paying for (occasional with a partial contribution for the hen on top) -I'm paying for a hotel room for me, for food and drinks for me. I'm not doing anyone a favour, I've chosen to attend (because it is a choice!) with the intention of enjoying myself!

The cost of going out for a nice meal, so I suppose £100-£120

Depends on the relationship with the bride! The last few I went to were around 200- 250, but those were for v close friends and my sister. A less close friend I would probably give it a miss for that cost...
When I arranged my sisters hen I tried to make sure people could dip in and out of different parts of the weekend and made sure at least one of the activities was relatively inexpensive!

It very much depends who & what the activities are - anywhere from £30-40 up to £500 ish …
Having said that, I’ve only been to one & it was split into sections so you went to the bits you wanted - an activity for about £25 in the afternoon, dinner out in the evening (about £30 pizzeria!) & because I had to travel a couple of hours I stayed overnight in a Travelodge type place for about £50. Some people just did the activity, some did just dinner, some did everything & then went for a country walk on the Sunday!

Depends on where it is and if I fancy doing it.
£300 uk break
£600-700 European break if it’s somewhere I actually wanted to go..maybe £500 if it wasn’t that fussed

I think 500-1000. My partner went on a stag do in Liverpool and ended up paying 700! Tbh I would prefer to spend that money on somewhere with sun!

@henpartybudget22 ive not ready all the replies but curious to know why you've already spent £500 on the wedding?nothing is cheap wedding related and unless I'm extremely close to the hen I try to avoid going as its always so expensive.

£100. I also wouldn't go abroad.

@latetothefisting

i honestly think those going on about it’s an obligation it’s for the bride, they wouldn’t get the money back etc sadly don’t have any close friends amd are never invited.

there is no other explanation. As it’s not I’d love to but can’t afford it. It’s I don’t want to spend money to benefit someone else.

to be in a position where you can’t even imagine having such good female friends that going away for a night or a weekend with them, irrelevant of the reason, is something you’d actively want to do , because of the enjoyment you’d get from it, it’s terribly sad.

part of me wonders if the resentful attitude and the no friends are directly correlated 😔

I've spent £500 on travel/accom because the wedding is abroad. And the bride is a v good friend, so I was always going to go.

Why is the bride not having a hen while away for the wedding. Honestly, it’s all so expensive now.

Do people honestly have £1000 to spend on a weekend for someone’s wedding??

Yes,they do.

Yeah I find it interesting that there are so many "I don't have any friends" posts on MN and also so many posters who eagerly jump on a thread to say "I would rather DIE than go to a hen party/works social/open the door if I'm not expecting someone/make friends with "school mums," (and the judgeyness towards people who do those things). Plus so many posters talking about all they need are their immediate nuclear family and they don't have time for anything else.

There's another thread ongoing about someone whose friend didn't invite her to a specific event with posters jumping on to tell her to dump the friend, call her a bitch, etc. before even getting her side of the story.

There must be some correlation with posters who hate the idea of putting themselves out in any sort of social situation to support or spend time with others and then being surprised when this is reciprocated and people don't want to be friends with them!

Its obviously ok if hen parties ust aren't your thing, although they are so wide ranging now I can't see how you can say you hate all of them, the only thing all of the ones I've been to have involved is the company of other women, so if you don't like that you could get philosophical about what that says about you....!Its fine if you can't afford it or just have things you'd prefer to spend your money on. But the insistence that just because you don't value something it's incomprehensible that anyone else could is bizarre.

You know, if someone posted saying "I need a new car, how much do you spend on your monthly finance" and I personally wasn't a fan of cars on finance I would probably just not comment on the thread!

If I did somehow feel my opinion was so worthy it NEEDED to be expressed despite not having the relevant experience or interest I might say something like "I don't have a car on finance but it seems like an expensive way of doing things. I suppose it would depend on the make, model, mileage etc. and what benefits you go from it."

I can't imagine any circumstance where I'd think it would be appropriate to say "why are you buying a car at all don't you care about the enviromemen/have better things to worry about/how can you even afford it/I'm shocked anyone can afford to lease a car/I'd rather spend that amount on feeding my children/the last time I bought a car was a reliant Robin I bought for 200quid in 1990 and it went fine, no idea why anyone would need to spend more/I'd judge anyone spending more than 50 quid, cars are just a status symbol" etc.!

I would spend lots of money going somewhere I wanted to go, with an entire group that I wanted to spend time with (i.e. not just knowing the bride and the rest being a load of virtual strangers or people I wasn't keen on).

I would spend very little money (or realistically wouldn't go) for somewhere I didn't want to be and/or not necessarily people I wanted to be with.

I think hens have spiralled and ought to just be an affordable activity for everyone like a night out or a takeaway, particularly if it is bringing together loads of random people from the brides life.

On the pricier side, I'd happily spend on a spa day, escape room and a meal. I wouldnt spend a penny on tacky t shirts or personalised commemorative shite. Any peep of that crap and I'd be out!

£50 at a push

One of my best friends - £250. A less good friend - £100