Hello! Me again, taking over the de Winton Paper co blog to talk all things wedding. Last time I shared how, while I love weddings, I (controversially) did not want one of my own – you can read about it here (link).
This time around I wanted to talk about, another potentially controversial topic, Hen Parties and my total and utter fear of them.
Full disclosure, I don’t have a huge ‘women squad’. It’s just another way Taylor Swift and I differ, and I do mourn this difference, along with the dazzling career, amazing New York City Brown Stone and host of rather tasty ex’s.
While I feel very privileged to have a handful of close female friends, who I know individually, and who I prefer to see one on one. I hate to say it but en masse, large groups of women scare and intimidate me. I’m a deaf, introvert who was badly bullied at school by the ‘mean girls’, what can I say?
Seriously, I break out in cold sweats, get heart palpitations, sometimes physical welts have formed, at the very idea of a Hen Party (Bachelorette party for the Americans among us).
Plus, what is the actual point of a Hen? We’re all strong, capable, independent types. No one is forcing us to marry our intended, it’s a happy occasion!
There will be nights out, dinners and cosy catch ups after the wedding, so why do we treat it like it’s the last time we will ever go out or drink fizz or eat delicious food or dance to 4am? Hen-dos (and stags for that matter) almost feel insulting to me, all that ‘last nights of freedom’ business, it’s not prison, it’s marriage!
So, you won’t be surprised that little miss “let’s just elope” me, was also rather pleased that this cunning plan would mean I would be spared any ‘Hen-do’ type shenanigans. Clever eh?
Rationally, I know that no one I am friends with, is ever going to make me stuff fivers down the g-string of a heavily oiled, chippendale type or drink a cocktail through a penis straw (unless I was doing so ironically) but still, I was quite convinced a Hen was not for me.
Yet, this post finds you a few weeks after my first overnight Hen Party. The Hen party for the owner of this very Blog, the very lovely Harriet dW.
An over night Hen-do, especially, was my idea of hell; you can’t get away, everyone gets overly ‘tired and emotional’, not one knows or likes each other – this was what I thought.
Like most of the ideas so far shared in this post, I was wrong, boy was I wrong….
What I completely forgotten of course, was this was not a stranger’s Hen party, this was for one of my very best friends. She, who is kind and cool and funny; we’re friend because of these reasons, so why would I not enjoy hanging out with her and getting to know the other important women in her life?
While I was hung up on the negative images out there, my own fears and prejudices against the ‘Hen-do”. I was practically convinced they were antifeminist!
I completely overlooked what a tribe of interesting women could be, how inspiring and thought provoking I would find it. How totally awesome it is to spend time with only women, and that’s what a Hen do should be.
Sure there’s booze, and games and maybe some drama but what it also is; is the tribe that belongs to the woman getting married. It’s a time to celebrate that person, to make bonds with her other friends. So that come the wedding day, that room (wherever it is) will be filled with love. Not only from the couple and the guests, as individuals, but also a love from a community they have formed.
Yes, for some a Hen-do is all about the drinking, the ‘L’ plates and the interestingly shaped straws – and that’s fine, who am I to say what bonds these women together. What matters is that they do bond because everyone of them has an interest in what this night represents, the start of a community who will care deeply for a couple trying their best at this thing called marriage.
Now, you might think I’m now kicking myself for not having my own Hen. However, that’s actually not the case, for I have very sneaky friends. Who, in utmost secrecy managed to pull off a retrospective Hen-day for me and jolly perfect it was too….
