It took myself and the other bridesmaid a good few weeks of brainstorming, cafe discussions and googling to come up with a Hen's Night party plan that would suit our outdoorsy, competitive, energetic Bride-to-be.
I'm documenting this so that anyone who wants to can copy what we came up with - which resulted in an amazing afternoon and evening that flew by and suited everyone with 2 working legs.
The bride-to-be wanted more than just an evening of fun, so we began our schedule at 2pm. Here's the breakdown:
Part 1: "Tea" Party (1 hour)
We figured that since not everyone knew each other, we would do something to get people in a fun mood and break the ice. How did we accomplish this?
1: Sugar
2: Punch
There is nothing like a sugar-high and some fancy teapots flowing with punch...
The chocolate cupcakes were snaffled up pronto - I'd worried about the large size of the cupcakes and thought these girls would all be too figure-conscious to enjoy them all, but luckily we all knew how to splurge. A lot.
I didn't get time to dip these heart cookies in chocolate on one side, but they got munched away anyhow. This is my grandma's famous (and ridiculously easy - 3 ingredients, 1 bowl) shortbread recipe that I will share soon.
If you are interested, here are our Tame Games. If not, skip this bit.:
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Tame Game #1: We had each person write an Acrostic "poem" using the letters of the bride's name. Everyone tried hard to think of things specific to the bride...we then passed the pieces of paper to the bride and had her read the comments out loud (including her own, which was funny. None of the papers were named.). It wasn't long before the room was a hive of giggles as words like "bossy" and "busty" sprouted out from amoungst the usual positive adjectives.
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Tame Game #2: To develop a team spirit - ( since the next part of the day would involve team challenges) - we split into teams of 6 and gave each team a different coloured piece of bright sequined fabric. Their job was to come up with a team name and decide how to wear the fabric - ripping it into pieces and having a piece each. Our team opted to make headbands.
Part 2 - the Scavenger Hunt (1 hour)
At this stage it was only 3pm, but fueled with sugar and punch, people were excited about the challenge ahead.
We began by giving each team a canvas bag with
1) a sheet of paper listing the items on the scavenger hunt and how many points for each thing
2) a vivid marker, to tick things off.
The meeting point was at the LazerForce centre in exactly one hours time.
Our scavenger hunt included Photos that had to be taken, strange items to collect, and actions that would be proven by photographic evidence. Each task has a certain number of points allocated - the team with the most points wins.
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| This guy actually gave us his sock! |
It was hilarious to see how daring some people could become when in a group. Everyone loosened up and got involved. Some of our dares which much more risque than others - I won't go into detail.
Part 4 - Lazer Force
You could do any kind of team activity here - bowling, clay-bird shooting, go-kart racing... since our bride was such an active, non-spa type of person, running around in a dark maze shooting each other with Lazer guns suited us just fine.
Part 5 - Cocktail Party
Tired and hot, we wandered
back to the apartment; the guests took a seat and were happy to sit and look over photos and exchange stories from our bizarre scavenger hunt. (You know - who did you get to kiss your cheek? - did you manage to get someone's sock? - where did you get your cup of sand from?... that sort of thing) while we measured out cocktails into martini glasses.
We were all hungry for some "real food" so we served some savoury hot snacks here - mini spring rolls and samosas with dipping sauce.
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Naughty games: It was now about 7pm and, as the name would suggest, these games were not the "tame games" - I
won't mention all of them.
One that we did was the groom-quizz (to see how well the bride knows the groom, by asking things that she couldn't possibly know :).
Another one that we played was:
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Pass the Parcel: Dressups
No bride can go about her Hen's Night without the proper paraphenalia. I decided to get creative and wrap each item (lipstick, a feather boa, stickers, etc) in a layer of paper. We played a song and whoever it stopped on had to open the layer. The rule was that whatever you opened, you were allowed to apply to the bride in any way you liked. That's how she ended up with a lipstick-heart on her chest.
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| (the wrapping paper got nicer at each layer) |
The final item in the parcel, was a piece of card that folded out to reveal a list of dares for the bride to complete throughout the night ahead. We took full (evil) advantage of her competitive nature...
Part 6: Dinner
Now that the bride was all dressed up and fancified,
we headed out to our dinner at a restaurant booked about a month earlier. It was nothing fancy, but everyone had a great time at our huge long table, and there was confetti being thrown around like crazy. (I'm pretty sure the restaurant staff hated us, although we had asked permission beforehand to decorate the table).
To keep the restaurant visit entertaining, every girl had to carry her own balloon from the house. When we were all seated, the instruction was given to pop your balloon.
Did I mention the restaurant staff hated us?
I got several pointed fingers in my direction. I don't even know what I did. Was it jabbing a fork violently into my balloon, squealing when it popped, hollering over the bellow of high-pitched girl's jabbering, or tapping a carafe with my knife to try to get everyone's attention? (which hopelessly failed, by the way. 16 way too excited girls and a truck-load of confetti + balloons = insane.)
Anyway, in each balloon was a little dare for each person. Surprise. And they had all though the bride was the only who had to get involved.
My personal favourite was when the bride, who had "rap for your dinner" on her list of tasks, scribbled down this "rap" on a napkin.
Does it look familiar?!
The night went on from there, with much dancing and hilarity for the girls who stayed on later, and the bride completed all her dares/challenges throughout the night and ticked them off her list.
Somehow all that planning paid off, as we got to run a 12-hour party (literally) with no boring bits and without a hitch.
Has anyone had to plan one of these before?
:)
- Amyshka
