Hen Night Cost

[saggyhairyarse]

Can I have your thoughts...

If you are attending a hen weekend but can only attend one night, should you have to pay for the accomodation for the whole weekend or just the night you are going?

Details are a cottage is being hired for the weekend which is being divided by the number of guests but some (not many) can't go on the Friday but have to pay the same as those staying two nights.

Is this normal practice?

(Has opened up a whole minefield of issues for me as I got married 10 years ago and had a night at a local comedy club. We are now talking activity on the Saturday, nights away, told to bring bottle of champers and what drinks you want etc etc etc....)

You can still be ME ME ME (if that's what floats your boat) and have consideration for other people as well. The 2 are not mutually exclusive.

i hate this whole hen night stagnight thing it really annoys me

my dh brother got married recently and his brother got really annoyed at him for saying he couldn't go because it was too expensive and basically blackmailed him into going.

the cost was under £100 but it was still a lot of money when we're struggling to make ends meet, then theres the must hire and pay for this suit thing which his brother insisted on as well.

when we got married we got people to wear ther own suits and provided them with a tie and made sure our hen/ stag dos were local and lots of cheaper bits so you could come just for the evening or for breakfast in the morning.
people become so selfish around their weddings and its not fair especially in this financial climate
I would offer your solution but do think you'll have to pay for your bit of the accomadation but see if the bride will listen to you a bit

If you make someone wear clothes of your choosing then you pay.

You get to be "me, me, me" when you are a toddler, and even then you should be learning manners and consideration for others.

OP if you can't afford it do one of your fish pie options. Don't put a hen night before a family holiday for your kids. Nobody would expect that.

I had this dilemma recently. I was a bridesmaid for my oldest friend who is childless and has a very good job in the city, as do her friends. I have three kids and one small p/t job.

The hen do cost me £149 flights to Italy, £50 car hire, £250 villa hire, £150 spend. Some of the girls only stayed a few days, us mugs who stayed longer had to suck up the remaining cost plus the three extra days no one was there because the villa was a week rental only and that was the one the bride wanted.

Then wedding on the over side of the country another £280 for accommodation.

Her wedding cost me a small fortune, I huffed and puffed most of the summer about the unreasonable cost and didn't enjoyed the build up as much as I should. The day was amazing, she had a fab day and I am now glad I didn't say anything about the cost at the time. What would have been the point? But unfortunatley some people can become blinkered when it comes to their hen do's.

To clarify, I am going to say to her these are my best (fish pie) options and let her choose which she would prefer.

Thanks for the support, even if I didn't get the answer I wanted to hear!

FWIW, Youth Hostels are a lot cheaper than most hotels usually but not if you are booking the whole hostel and only using half the rooms

SHA, feel sorry for you. Thoughtless hens are a real bug ber of mine. I was one of the last of my group of friends to get married and having suffered the full horrors of expensive hen WEEKENDS, I arranged my hen NIGHT, based on what I thought the lowest earner (one of my best friends so v important that she came) amongst us could afford. It was far more important to me that my friends and sisters were there having a good time than we did something flash. Why people don't think like that is beyond me!

I've always thought the whole point of having a "hen night" was to allow you to spend a fun evening with your dearest friends and have a good time. Not to financially cripple anyone. I simply do not understand this whole "me me me" thing that has shown up in the last 15 or so years where the bride feels the sun shines out her nether regions and feels that everyone else should fall in line with her requests, regardless of how unreasonable they are, simply because "it's her day." I think in all the effort and expense, people tend to forget themselves and lose consideration for others.

As Riven said, what's wrong with just going to the pub? Anything more expensive, IMO, is just showcasing and selfishly extravagant on the part of the bride. I'd never dream of asking someone to give up an entire weekend to boozing and partying or the like just for a hen weekend.

If you can't afford it, tell her and then just don't go. Just because you're a bridesmaid does not mean that you are required to participate in every bit of foolishness someone thinks up.

In the current financial climate, I am amazed that people think it's acceptable to even ask their friends and family to accept this type of additional unnecessary expense, much less expect it, as some do.

Sorry, I know I come across as a bit harsh on this, but I hate the whole "hen/stag weekend" nonsense.

If in a hotel you can just pay for the nights you stay.
If in a cottage, unless someone else is going to be in your bed the night you are not then you need to pay for both nights OR get a smaller cottage and kip on the floor/sofa and ask to pay a reduced rate.

i think hen nights are a complete nonsense however and avoid them like the plague - and hen weekends - no way would I attend one of these

Hen/Stag do's are also one of the things that really makes me mad.

When I got married I had a night out in my home town which is where everyone who was invited also lived. My DH had a night out in a town not too far from us and hired a bus to take everyone. They each paid £10 for travel and then spends for the night out. They didn't stay over.

Now DH has been invited for a stag do next summer (I don't know the bride that well) and they are going overseas for 4 days. That means lots of cash for travel, hotel, spending and 2 days holiday from work. I told DH that I wasn't happy with him going as it was going to cost enough to go to the wedding and get outfits for us and our 2 DC's. He said that as it was next summer then we could save up. I still wasn't happy about that as that money could go towards a holiday for the family. My DH works long hours at work and for him to use 2 days of his annual leave to go boozing with his mates, really annoys me. He is now going seperately with another of his friends for 2 nights.

Unfortunately, OP, I think you will have to go along with it but I do think that brides are so interested in outshining everybody else that they forget about their friends. It is possible to have a hen night that is all about the bride, but do it cheaply.

Pay for both nights but don't get them a gift.

I think that the exclusive booking thing means that everyone 'should' pay for 2 nights but I'm another one who thinks that hen nights/ weekends have gone completely OTT!

Sorry, but if you're the bridesmaid, haven't you had some imput in the planning? Or have you ignored this bridesmaid task then not happy with what the (probably stressed) bride has arranged? If it's not confirmed, can you take over and find cheaper alternatives? Or just don't go.

And susiey - it is beyond cheap to insist on someone wearing a particular outfit and make them pay for it! I wouldn't have dreamed on having any of the blokes pay to hire their own suits, it's provided or you wear your own choice of outfit. mrsjammi - £700 on a hen do and no wedding invite, why why why would anyone say yes to that??? Yuck - you lot know some horrid people.

I think it's ridiculous myself. But then I only went out for lunch for my hen do and find the whole "weekend away" thing excessive.

i can't believe that so many people are so grumpy about spending time with their best friends for their wedding.

if it's a normal wedding you wont get five minutes with the couple as they'll be 'entertaining' a hundred people.

unless you all live where you grew up then a weekend away is the only way to spend some time together.

and if you're bridesmaid then surely the bride is one of your closest two or three friends??

p.s. not directed at OP but at others who have complained on this thread. and obvious exceptions for those who really really can't afford.

p.p.s btw. i am planning my wedding and not having a hen do but i do like spending time with my best friends when they have hen dos or weddings.

Here here fluffles - agree totally.

I think its slightly different now everyone I know has children and I have ended up declining invitations to hen weekends over the last 3-4 years because of having small children.

But when I got married hardly anyone had children. My sister arranged my hen weekend and I had no input. However what I did say to her expressly was that I didn't want anyone not coming for financial reasons. that I would rather do something cheap if what she wanted to do cost too much for even 1 person. clearly I was happy for people to decline for any reason they wanted but i didn't want it to be so expensive that money was a reason.

I don't think this kind of weekend is being selfish and 'me me me' at all. Like fluffles says it is a lovely excuse to see and spend quality time with good friends. Its only selfish if you have a big diva strop about someone not wanting to spend hundreds of pounds and days of annual leave, and THATS only selfish if people really can't afford it - clearly in some groups of friends this is not a problem

i really, really dislike the very idea of a 'hen night'. if i ever get married i most certainly will not be having anything that the term would generally apply to, much less a 'hen weekend'. a few drinks / a meal with friends is fine but anything else strikes me as a nightmare.

DP and I are going to a wedding between christmas and new year (what brilliant timing for a wedding!). one of his friends from school is getting married. they spent ages deciding on what to do for the stag weekend. my DP lobbied for a single night out in london (which would've cost enough as it is) while the rest seemed to be keen on a weekend abroad. they've settled for a weekend in cardiff doing stereotypical stag weekend stuff (no idea why) just before christmas. DP wants to go because he likes the people who're going but he's not happy about the cost (nor is he delighted about the insistence that they have to go to a lapdancing club). luckily i don't know the bride so i don't have to go to any hen weekend thing.

I don't think it's remotely grumpy to complain about the fact that hen nights have mutated into whole weekends away. I might be able to afford to spend £200 on it but I don't want to.

Actually I think it's insufferably rude of people to expect you to pay that amount of money for a weekend away with their mates. In actual fact, I don't blame the brides - it's usually the bridesmaids who organise it.

alicet and fluffles (as you are the voices of dissent but I know you have said that you're not having pricey hen weekends) - can you honestly say that everyone that was invited to your hen weekends were really good mates with everyone else that was there? If I think about every hen weekend I've ever been to, I've known a maximum of 4 people out of the 16 or so women that have been there.

I am going to the pub for the evening if I ever get married.

this is exactly why I didn't bother to have a hen night (apart from an impromptu "proper" one the night before the wedding, at home with a few girls and a bottle or 2 of fizz)

I think it is a bit harsh to have to pay the full whack but can see that others would resent having to pay extra for your non-attendance - so you either have to suck it up or not go. I wouldn't go.

Scary I get where you are coming from about how many of my friends knew each other. The majority did but there was a significant minority that was made up of friends from different friendship groups. They all seemed to have fun though and if any of them hadn't wanted to come they certainly wouldn't have been made to feel bad about it.

I can understand why some of you are anti the idea of weekends like this and definately get why some people would prefer a more low key approach.

All I was trying to say is that these weekends needn't be made out to be self indulgent bridezilla fests - it is perfectly possible to arrange a weekend like this sensitively and to try and take into account what would work for most of the people who are coming and not just make it all about you. Equally there are plenty of occasions when the bride is very selfish about this and those are the weekends that give hen weekends in general a bad name - they are not all like that though! I would have been mortified if anyone on my hen weekend was there in sufferance and felt forced into it. I would also be very very surprised as the atmosphere was relaxed low key and fun and everyone seemed to have a good time.

As another point the weddings i have most enjoyed have often been ones where I have been to hen weekends in advance of the wedding and as a result got to know friends of the bride that I didn't know before. Then when the wedding comes along its much more fun when there are more people there that you know. thats just my view though.

I'm constantly staggered at the cost of hen do's. My mates came to mine for the weekend and kipped in sleeping bags after drawing lots for the 2 spare beds. We went to the zoo for the day and shared a bottle of fizz in a picnic shelter in the pouring rain then watched videos and drank in the evening. People paid for their own entrance to the zoo and I bought the evening booze and stuff for fry-ups etc. as they'd had the cost of travelling.

I'm only talking about 8 years ago, but it seems so outdated now .

I'm afraid that unless the bride has said upfront that you won't have to pay the full whack then you'll have to grin and bear it.

"not wanting to spend hundreds of pounds and days of annual leave, and THATS only selfish if people really can't afford it "

Erm, well for quite a lot of people annual leave is an extremely precious commodity and to end up having to spend potentially 2 days of it for someone you may not be that good friends with may not be high on your priorities so I think it's very unfair to call people selfish if they don't want to - I could, theoretically, afford to spend 2 days of annual leave on a friend's hen do plus all the money involved, but frankly I've got better things to do with £250 and a long weekend. Why is it necessary to spend so much to show affection for someone ? I would much rather spend the time with my husband and soon to be baby and I would expect anyone else to feel the same.

I think it's far more selfish of the bride or people organising the hen do to expect people to shell out a week's net wages when they also have the expense of attending the wedding.

One of my best friends' hen dos ended up costing us nearly £250 each for the weekend (and we didn't even stay in a hotel - we camped on her floor) because the self appointment Matron of Honour got so carried away with the planning that she booked the most ridiculously expensive things and we didn't have timeto enjoy them as we were just on, on, on to the next expense. It caused a lot of resentment.

Just because I may have the money to spend on something, don't mean I want to

scary i'm not having a hen weekend or night at all

BUT i am having an all-weekend wedding in Scotland... i can't help it really as Scotland is where i live - but a lot of my friends are being asked to travel from london and the SE as i used to live there... we've had similar comments from strangers about the egotism of whole weekend weddings and cost etc.

but i honestly believe our friends want to come and want to spend the weeekend with us (certainly all have rsvp'd yes) and i've felt the same way about genuine friend's hen weekends and weddings - it's been a rare occassion to spend quality time with old friends.