The small things that made your hen night / wedding special

[alicethehorse]

A good friend of mine is getting married soon, and we're trying to think of some nice touches to make the hen night and wedding day special.

All the big things are arranged, we're just looking for some nice things we can do to make it extra special.

Like, for example at another friend's hen night we did a kind of photo diary of the night (some really great shots of the girls) and gave her the book.

At another friend's wedding her mum sang instead of doing a speech, and it was really moving.

What things at your wedding / hen night made it special for you (apart from the getting married bit of course - her husband to be's got that covered!)

TIA

anyone? [bugrin]

hey - it's royal wedding weekend, this is topical y'know!

Didn't anyone have a nice hen night?

oops, it's not royal wedding weekend is it

getting a bit ahead of myself there!

I had great hen night, £20 for the meal, my mother paid for wine and we ended up meeting the stags at a cafe by the beach for copious amounts of alcohol and dancing on the tables.

Op its not this weekend [buwink]

For a friends hen night years ago I did a this is your life red book for her. Got together with mum and friends, copied pictures and put captions underneath starting from baby pics to present day. Left space at the back for her to add pictures of hen night and wedding day.

We got up after the meal and presented it to her after we had read it in a this is your life style.

Don't know if this is what you are looking for

A friend got married and her chief bridesmaid bought avery single newspaper that came out on ther wedding day, and wrapped them up in a bow.

She also kept reciepts, menus of all the places they had been when shopping for the wedding and put them in a scrap book.

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, thanks [busmile]

We're doing a photo book of the hen night already.

The newspapers are a lovely idea, I'd love that personally. I wonder if she would or not? It depends if you like keeping things as keepsakes or see them as clutter (I know a couple who would! - unromantic people!) i'll have a think about that one.

I did think of doing notices in the local paper but reads like Crimewatch so maybe not something you'd want to keep!

Nearly getting carted off by the army. And not in a good way.

But maybe that's not what you're thinking of

Goodness! How did that (nearly) happen?!

For my hen night the most important thing to me was that all my girlfriends were there. Unfortunately the friend who organised it made it too expensive so several couldn't come. But another friend organised a pre hen night at my house with everyone there who could't do the night away - was so much fun. The people you love being there make the whole thing a great experience more than anything else.

Same for my wedding - good friends, booze and fun. Nothing else mattered :)

My closest university friends were from the music stuff I did, rather than my course or halls. Several of them sang at my wedding - my best friend (who was bridesmaid) sang during the service, and another friend played the piano to accompany her, then two of them sang at the end of the service, and some sang jazz stuff at the reception. When another friend from the same group got married a couple of years later, we did another cabaret thing at the reception. The singing isn't necessarily the point - more the fact that we used the reason we had become friend (ie musical theatre society at university) to contribute to each other's days - it felt really special when it was my wedding that my friends wanted to be involved, and similarly, I loved returning the favour at my friend's wedding. Is there anything like that you could add in?

Our friends wrote new words to "I did it my way" and sang it to us between courses of the meal. What made it really special was that they printed out the chorus and distributed it to all the guests so suddenly everyone burst into song for the chorus! It was really cool. They did a number of awesome things but that was the best.

Actually, no, the best thing was that our friends organised a balloon release with every guest writing a note attached to each balloon. Unfortunately we only got a few back but it was a really cool idea and the red balloons disappearing into a clear blue sky is one of my favourite pictures from the wedding.

The Best Man's speech was a video combining photos of us through the years with captions, music and silly photos of memorable news items relevant to us.
They also asked all the guests to provide a short "guides" to their favourite places and made that into a book.
My lovely oldest friend made a video of my hen night (complete with appropriate music) - we went to one of those tree climbing things so it wasn't too rude!
DH's parents made him a newspaper of his life.

I've probably just massively outed myself but I don't care, my bridesmaids were the best ever and our friends are absolutely bloody amazing

My friends and I all contributed photos of the hen through the ages (along with her family) so that her sister could do a book of her. It looks great (professionally printed). We also did a quiz on her husband to be and she had to drink if she got it wrong and open a ribbon on her present if she got it right.

Apart from that the dancing was the best part of the night!

For my own I've just said to my bridesmaids to keep it affordable!

My friend decorated the table at her house with food, balloons, glitter etc and had made food and cocktails and arranged for someone to do hair and make up. She left some little, thoughtful presents in a pile too.
We had planned to go to her house for drinks before the night out but she did all that as a surprise.

Probably doesn't seem like much to people who like huge gestures and have lots of money but I could cry every time I think about it as its so sweet and kind of her to do that.

I had to participate in a quiz. Subject: DF (and sometimes me). eg The dog is staring at you. What do you do? Because I had called him at work to say that the dog was staring at me. I had to name his cousins (25 of them!), fav colour etc.