Your buddy is taking the plunge and it is up to you to throw him a kick butt bachelor party. Where do you start? What do you do? Those are the kinds of questions I am going to help you answer.
For starters, you shouldn’t have to do this all your own. Whether you are his brother, a close friend, the best man or whatever, you should enlist the help of other buddies close to him. You don’t have to carry all this weight yourself. Find out who all is going to be involved in the wedding and ask for their input. Ask the guys, that is. Obviously you shouldn’t even be talking about a stag party with the women. Contact the other guys in the wedding party or the groom’s brothers. Ask them for help in deciding what to do.
Grab a blank notepad and start brainstorming ideas. Write down every one you come up with. Keep adding to that list from time to time. Writing things down will help you clarify exactly what you should and should not be doing.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself when planning a bachelor party:
Who will be invited?
This is a very important early step in the party planning process. The number of people who will be attending the party will ultimately narrow down your options for things to do. If you are going to have more than a handful of guys, then you are going to have to think about possibly renting a hall or having it catered by a club or tavern. If it is only going to be two or three guys, then you can think about going on some awesome excursion that men would go on together, like maybe a trip to Vegas or something.
Something to keep in mind is the fact that a lot of people you think might come to a party like this ultimately wouldn’t really show up. It is easy to get carried away in the planning process. A common mistake is assuming that 98% of people will actually show for a party like this. Realistically it is more like 75%. One out of four people you thought would want to come won’t show up. Even though it seems like a big deal to you, it probably isn’t that big of a deal to them.
If you aren’t sure, then you are better off keeping the party smaller. That way you can count on every single person to show up. You can count on full involvement from the people who do show up. Plus you can ultimately have more fun. You don’t have anything to prove by trying to get 100 guys to come to some crazy bachelor party. That is not what it is about. It is about making the groom laugh so friggin hard that he pisses his pants.
Where will the main event take place?
Again, this is going to depend mostly on the number of people invited to the party. If you are inviting more than a handful of people, you are going to have to think about possible places to host it. An obvious place would be a strip club. If you have a few decent gentleman’s clubs in your area, chances are they cater to bachelor parties. They normally have packages depending on the number of guys. Be forewarned though that the prices for drinks and food are going to be way higher than they would be at a normal bar or restaurant. You might think about having a semi-casual party early on a Saturday afternoon. Then later on that night, grab the core group of close buddies and drag the bachelor out to the best club in town for some late night hooter shooters.
Stripper or no stripper for the stag party?
This all depends on the couple who is getting married. In the vast majority of cases, it is somewhat expected to involve a stripper of some kind. Parties that don’t involve them are usually lamer than they could be. You can have a stripper at the party without going overboard. Just because there is this misconception about all dancers also being hookers, it does not mean that the rumor is true. In fact, where I am from it isn’t true. The vast majority of dancers are legit professionals. They don’t like being propositioned for extras. They get insulted and start to fear for their safety when guys start asking about stuff like that. That is why they usually bring a bouncer with them. Sometimes guys can be real knuckleheads.
When to have the party in relation to the wedding?
Whatever you do, don’t have the party the night before the wedding. There are more important things to be done that night. A well planned party would happen a month or so before the wedding. Get it out of the way so that it doesn’t interfere with final wedding preparations. There is no need to burden the groom with unnecessary crap as the wedding day approaches. Have your fun early. Then give him time to sober up. Give the bride a chance to deal with the unwanted thoughts about the bachelor party long before the wedding day comes.
Hopefully you haven’t put this off till the last minute like a lot of guys do. A lot of unorganized guys don’t plan the party well enough in advance. Then they end up throwing a really lame party together at the last minute. If you were truly a good friend, you would set aside the time way in advance to take care of all the planning and organizing so that you aren’t adding unwanted stress to a very stressful time just before the couple gets married.
If you look around online, you will find all kinds of other ideas and advice about planning a bachelor party. Check out this long list of bachelor party ideas. Take that pad of paper and a pen. Make a long list of ideas that could work. Then narrow them down to the best ones. Do that and you are sure to plan an excellent bachelor party for your pal.