5 Tips for Planning The Best Bachelorette Party

A bachelorette party is such a fun way to celebrate the bride before she ties the knot. While the modern bachelorette party is a newer phenomenon in the history of weddings, it is now often considered an essential part of the Maid of Honor’s planning duties. I’m here to tell you that you can have a great bachelorette party, no matter the budget or locale! Just follow these tips to make it a fantastic experience for the bride, and she will always reminisce about what a fun experience it was to spend time with her best friends before her wedding!

Ask The Bride What She Wants

My number one piece of advice for planning a bachelorette party is to listen to what the bride wants! This may seem obvious, but sometimes people get carried away with the planning without first making sure the bride is on board. Some questions to help brainstorm if the bride doesn’t know exactly what she wants: is she thinking of a destination celebration? Pool party? Going out on the town? Spa day? This should help her start thinking about what her ideal party would look like and help you make the right decisions while planning!

Before you plan anything, make sure you know what is important to the bride. If she wants everyone to be at the celebration, then you might consider a more centralized, budget friendly option. You can absolutely still have a fantastic staycation bachelorette–what are the bride’s favorite things to do in your home city? What does she love to do but not often get the chance to do, like going to a Cubs game? If she wants to be at the beach, then you might need to travel. Explore what that would look like in terms of destination, budget, and feasibility so that you can give realistic numbers to the other bridesmaids as they’re considering their expenses.

Know Your Audience

Bachelorette party invitees vary in each case–most of the time, they include the bridesmaids, but they can also include the bride’s mom, her future mother in law, close family, or other close friends who aren’t in the bridal party. It all depends on what the bride wants! Make sure you know your audience as you’re planning the event: who is in attendance, who may be offended easily, and what you need to be careful to share or not to share. Maybe the bride’s future mother in law doesn’t need to know the hilarious but slightly embarrassing college story about the bride and her husband-to-be! Try not to push people too far outside of their comfort zone–if someone is super shy, don’t put them on the spot with a revealing game. Bachelorette parties are meant to be a fun celebration of the bride’s impending nuptials, and the last thing you want to do is to make the bride, a friend, or family member uncomfortable.

Keep in mind attendees’ financial state. If most of the bridesmaids are still in college, then maybe an $800 trip to Miami isn’t in the cards. If the bridesmaids are spread out across the country, maybe you want to time the bachelorette party with another scheduled trip for a bridal shower or other wedding event. Keeping everyone’s pocketbooks in mind during an expensive time leading up to the wedding is a considerate and thoughtful way for you and the bride to let your friends know how much you appreciate what they are doing for her.

Have A Loose Plan

Whether it is the Maid of Honor or someone else planning the bachelorette party, make sure you as the planner have an approximate schedule in place! At the bachelorette party, never ask the other attendees or the bride, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” Having a loose plan so the weekend flows nicely is a great way to ensure that everyone has a good time and knows where they are expected to be when. You never know how the bride may be feeling, especially if the bachelorette party extends over an entire weekend, so make sure there’s some flexibility in the planned schedule. Just don’t make the plan so tight that everyone feels like there isn’t room for adventure! Here is a good example of a loose schedule:

4PM Check into hotel

5PM Gifts, games & cocktails

6PM Cocktails on the rooftop

7:30PM Dinner

9PM Dancing

Be Prepared

Make sure you have all the supplies you need for a successful weekend. Chances are you will be drinking for much of the party, so make sure you have lots of snacks and food breaks scheduled along with water on hand. If nothing else, bring water and snacks designated specifically for the bride! She will thank you for it later.

While you can rely on many of your planned details in advance, one thing you can’t count on is the weather. If you have any outdoor activities planned, make sure you have a rain backup plan. For example, if the catamaran tour gets canceled due to rain, then hit the winery!

By always having a backup plan in place, you’ll know exactly what to do if something doesn’t go as planned. As the planner, the bride and attendees will look to you for instruction, so make sure you’ve thought through backup plans for each aspect of the party!

Use Your Resources

As Maid of Honor, the chief responsibility of planning the bachelorette party may fall to you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t employ the help of your fellow bridesmaids! Lead the conversation with the bride about what she wants in a bachelorette party, and then work with the other bridesmaids to help execute it.

For example, if you don’t live in the city where the party is happening but another bridesmaid does, use her local knowledge to help inform your planning decisions! The bride may have told you some ideas for the party, like going to a comedy club or baseball game, but having a local bridesmaid tell you the feasibility of getting from point A to point B at the designated times (with stops for meals and snacks!) will be invaluable as you put together the schedule for the party. Local bridesmaids can also help you fill in the gaps with restaurant recommendations close to scheduled events and maybe provide insight on the bride’s favorite local haunts. Even if everyone is local, maybe the bride really enjoyed a brunch place she went to with one bridesmaid–use that knowledge to your advantage to plan the bride’s dream weekend!

This also goes for all of the other details of the weekend–are you having matching shirts or sashes (Pro Tip: Etsy has some of the best options for these)? Ask one of the bridesmaids to find some that she thinks the bride would like! Are you hoping to surprise the bride with decorations? Ask another bridesmaid to shop for those! They will be happy to be included as part of the planning for such a special celebration for the bride.

Following these tips will help everyone look back on the bachelorette party as one of the best they’ve attended. Now put on your planning cap and get to work planning your bride’s dream bachelorette!

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