Female friends on a stag night

[Sweetsweetgrass]

My fiance has asked if I'm OK with him inviting two female friends to his stag do. His plan is to do an activity i.e. paintballing, go-karting, during the day then rent a big house on Air BnB to do a bbq and everyone can stay over and drink. He said it won't be heavy drinking, whilst we're in our thirties some guys will be in 40s/50s. He has a list of 10 guys and 2 girls. I've briefly met each woman once during our relationship to say hello but otherwise I can't say I know them at all. He said they're friends so wants to invite them, it shouldn't matter that they're women.

Honestly, I have several issues with this.

1. I don't know these women and they aren't part of his day to day life so I'm confused why he wants to invite them now
2. I feel the group dynamics will change with women there and the other guys may not be happy with this
3. Why would a woman want to attend a stag do where she doesn't know all the guys? Personally I wouldn't want to be drinking and staying over in a house full of men when I don't know all of them (they may feel the same as he hasn't invited them yet).

I know I'm supposed to be totally cool with it and respect his friendships and show everyone how secure I am, but I'm not comfortable with it. Is this just me or would others have reservations?

Well OP you're going to marry your fiancé.
As of now you've told him that it's OK.
You need to tell your fiancé everything that you've told us!
Also that you won't accept your male friend being uninvited.

What are you scared of? Your feelings and opinions should matter to the man you're going to marry. More than what his best man thinks.

It's not even about the women's presence at a lads event.

Kicking someone out for others is a dick move.
Inviting someone to an event they won't enjoy is also a dick move - which will be your friend attending the hen.
Inviting people to hens/stags where they will be only ones not attending the wedding - ditto.

Why is he happy to do all of the above? Who in their right mind would find this behaviour acceptable?

Point 2 and 3 are none of your concern, even point 1 - it's his decision who he invites, and the female invitees can make the decision themselves about attending. You trust him or you don't! And why do the ages of the guests matter? "He said it won't be heavy drinking" yeah right... but that's what stags are for! And hens!

“I've said if he wants to meet up with them and catch up, that's fine.“

He does want to meet up with them and catch up and you said it’s fine and he wants to do that at his stag. Unless you don’t trust him there should be no issue. Even if you don’t trust the women of anything was to happen you still have to trust your finance to do right and if you can’t maybe rethink the wedding

I clearly have as much time to waste as you have 😂
Why are YOU still here?

Hot tub? 🤔

What's wrong with a hot tub? Have you never been in a hot tub with a mixed sex group of friends (or indeed strangers) before?

Honestly, this is completely weird. It's literally because the best man fancies one of them that they're being invited.

If they were both invited to the wedding then it wouldn't be nearly as weird. But they're not. I should imagine they will find it very strange to be invited to the Stag and not to any of the actual wedding celebrations?!

I think you need to just tell your Fiance that you aren't comfortable with it. You don't need to be a 'cool girl' and accept it. It's a strange situation and I really wouldn't like it. There's no problem in being straight-forward about it and please have no shame in admitting that you aren't ok with it.

Is it just me that thinks it's strange/rude to invite people to the hen/stag but not think them good/important enough for the wedding?

Dear OP,

You sound very controlling and appear not to respect your finances choices. I appreciate you have anxiety, and possibly may not have known that times have moved on ... but in the world we live in, access to all social media etc, I find your naivety alarming.

If the roles were reversed, this would be a red flag and LTB scenario.

Nope!

If I don’t make the cut for the wedding - don’t invite me to the hen. Comes across as a bride/groom just wanting to get numbers up and look cool.

“Ooh look how many friends I have that want to celebrate my hen/stag. I’m too tight to pay for a 3 course meal at my wedding though, so they can stay at home for that”.

I used to work in a very male dominated environment and went on a few stag dos.
I won a trophy for clay pigeon shooting at one of them.
I had no interest in any of the men who were there.

The best man sounds like he's using the stag do for his own ends. That's shit but it's your fiancé's job to draw boundaries there.

I think you're within your rights to point out it's bad form to (a) uninvite your male friend who will be at the wedding (and make it clear you won't be breaking the news) and (b) replace him with 2 women who aren't invited to the wedding, one of whom is there to service the best man.

But I think once you've made those points in a withering yet factual kind of way, you'll just have to let him get on with it. Natural consequences might be that the best man comes out of this badly - better than a row between you and your fiancé!

It's one night, and luckily the best man won't be in charge of organising events in future!

I've said this loads on the thread glad to see some sensible people are finally showing up... Although OP's initial post could have been better worded with all relevant facts

Im sorry your life is so sad and small.

I think it's odd as well. The OP says she doesn't know these women very well but they are her fiance's friends, so that's also odd given that they are long enough together to have children, you'd at least assume that the wife to be would know all his friends, and that they would at least be invited to the wedding but these two women aren't that close, it sounds like he barely knows them.

There are very few men who are happy to have a woman on a mens trip with two exceptions: 1 the woman in question is genuinely one of the lads and has been for many years, or 2, she's invited because someone going fancies her.

She's said the Best man has a thing for one of the women so it seems clear that he'd like the chance to take things further. But who is the other woman attending earmarked for? And why so insistent that the Bride's male friend be dropped? my cynical self would wonder if it's to avoid feeding any shenanigans back to the OP.

And lastly, do these two women have any idea that they seem to be the brought-along totty for a couple of men in the group and are they on board with that?

You seem to have a lot of internalised misogyny OP with you 'girls' and 'boys' activities and the way you talk about them, saying you don't understand why hes invited women as if that makes them something other than the male friends hes invited. You need to work on this plus your trust issues. Do you really want to start your married life telling your partner who he can and can't see?

Sorry but thats rubbish I've been on loads of stag dos and even been best man for someone, no ones bunking up, the stag just has a mixed friendship group. It is misogynistic to think women would only be there for sex.

Have you read all of the OP's posts?
Unlike PP I disagree with the strict sex division of stags and hens.
But in this case, that was what OP and her fiance had agreed. In fact she wanted a mixed do, but the activities they had In mind were different and reading between the lines he wanted a lads event.

He's now changing the parameters. For people he barely knows.

It's not the same as him inviting longstanding friends, or having a mixed event in the first place.

There IS no mixed friendship group he hasn't seen the women in years!

I'm also wondering why not many find this disgusting on behalf of the women being invited.

You're OK with the best man wanting to invite women to get with them?

Did you read any of my actual comments about my male friend and having no issue with male/female relationships and that I have never said he couldn't invite them? I find it odd that random women are being invited who are not coming to the wedding, when apparently the events scheduled are not something one of them would even want to do.

I would not be comfortable with this scenario. These girls are not part of his friendship group - they’re not even invited to the wedding!

I would also be suspicious that the best man wants to stop your friend as he doesn’t trust him not to report back to you.

If nothing else, it’s incredibly rude of your fiancé to drop your friend like this.

This.

Inviting women that are already friends is not suspicious.

Inviting new friends that are women, including one the best man wants to get with and uninvited your mutual friend is very suspicious.

You say your DF is a people pleaser, he should apply that to you and your mutual friend too, not just his friend.

How is he even trying to justify wanting to uninvite your friend?!

Don’t be so ridiculous. The bride invites her friends and the groom invites his. Sometimes that means men on a hen do or women on a stag. You have a very weird view of the world that women must be entertainment and cannot be friends.