Planning a bachelorette party

‘Tis the wedding season, and with that comes all the joys of celebrating our friends, showering them with gifts, spending all our money, and of course, throwing epic bachelorette parties.

 The idea of planning one can be daunting, especially for our non-Type A girlies. Here are a few tips and tricks to make the planning process as smooth as possible:

1.     Start Early: Talk to the bride and select the location as quickly as you can. Pick a place that’s easy to get to, nail down the invitee list, and finalize a weekend. The sooner you have the dates and location selected, the easier it will be to keep the process running smoothly.

2.     Use a spreadsheet: Excel or Google Sheets are your friend! Here’s what to do:

• Create a document with all the names, phone numbers and email addresses to start. All the contact information in one spot is so helpful.

• Create columns for who has paid and when. AirBnB usually splits the cost into two payments, so take the grand total, divide by 2 (one for each payment), then divide by the number of girls. In the column next to their name mark when Payment #1 is complete and when Payment #2 is complete.

  Don’t shy away from sending people reminders that you need them to stay on top of the money! Splitting it into two payments will also help your girlies budget, and not have an overwhelming cost at the end.

3.     Don’t over-plan: Choose a big AirBnB or a hotel with good living space. You will want downtime to hang by the pool, or relax by the fire, or play games and order pizza. You don’t have to be moving every minute of every day. Especially with a bigger group of girls, not everyone moves at the same pace, so keeping activities simple will help make sure you’re not scrambling to collect people.

4.     Streamline Payments: Pick the girl in the group who is willing to hold all the costs, and get all the credit card points (see our earlier blogs about CC points!), and have that person put her card down for the AirBnB, any restaurant reservations, deposits for activities, etc. When you’re on location, same thing, pick one person to manage the bulk of the payments, then use a Splitwise at the end to divide up the costs. This makes it easy for all the girls to pay one person each time. And it can help there be fewer Venmos flying around and people feeling like things were split unfairly.

5.     Take advantage of the location you’ve chosen: Pick one or two fun restaurants to make dinner reservations. If you’re in the mountains, pick one day for skiing. If you’re at the beach, pick one day for a boat ride. Have a few food reservations, and one main activity, then let the rest fall into place (see above #3). You can have a night in to order food, you can play games, you can be hungover and chill; you don’t need to have strict activities every day, but make sure that you’ve found a few good things to do. After all, you picked this location to be able to enjoy it.

This will help move your party in the right direction. And, when all else fails, find a friend who is a planner, and get it off your plate!

To all our brides out there - CONGRATULATIONS!

xoxo

H&E