I’ve said before, my ‘Maids were an absolute dream to share our wedding with. I know this isn’t the case for every bride, and you have my sympathies if you’re ready to wallop them over the head with their designer bridesmaid shoes at this point in your planning journey. If you’re asked to be part of someone’s wedding, you better be ready to say ‘I DO’ to everything they ask of you, and more! It’s their day after all, why does it matter if you don’t like your hair style, or if the dress isn’t to your taste? Sod off, then.
I met with A and H for dinner to discuss what I would and wouldn’t like for a Hen Do. This wasn’t to be a Bridezilla, but as I said before, I’m fussy! I knew I wouldn’t be able to let it go if my girls didn’t get it right, if they didn’t prove that they were the best people who knew me the most in all the world. And that’s exactly what a best friend should be!
Personally, I’m not a willy person. Phallus-shaped straws and whistles are not my thing, nor are L-plated deely-boppers or feather boas. I said I didn’t want the cutesy thing that was the “norm” for a hen do – not a spa or an afternoon tea in sight, please! I’m loud, and I like risk and adrenaline. I like rock concerts and laughing ‘til my belly hurts. So, with this in mind, I said a few things that could be different:
- A theme park – Alton Towers/Thorpe Park etc.
- It’s a Knockout-style obstacle course
- A festival – Glasto or Isle of Wight would have been amazing!
- Anything adrenalin-filled... zip-wiring, zorbing, bungee jumping, hell – I'd jump out of a plane if I wanted to on my hen do!
I’m a realist though, and knew that not all of these things would appeal to my bevvy of best girls, work colleagues, and select family members. I believe from this point on, I said A and H should take the reigns – they knew what I liked and how much I’d like to spend (not much, you know I love a bargain!). Set these details out first, so you know what criteria you’d like to meet. This came in very handy when it came to planning A’s hen do a couple years later... More on that in a future post!
I would say I won’t bore you with all the details, but actually it’s the little details that made my hen weekend the Best. Weekend. Ever...
At our engagement party, A handed me a present, which actually turned out to be the invitation for my hen do! It was Taylor Swift’s 1989 album, with a note attached saying that we’d be going to Hyde Park’s British Summer Time (BST) festival to see her live! As a secret Swiftie, I was totally freaking out with excitement!
She’d booked a nice hotel in Kensington for one night, and when we arrived in London we quickly made our way to Sticky Finger’s for lunch. If you’ve never heard of it before, it’s like a rustic Hard Rock Café (which I love and slowly growing my collection of tees) and is owned by the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman! I love me some ribs, so I was like the cat that got the cream at this restaurant! Like the brilliant MoH that she was, A then produced goodie bags for me and my girls. A slowly up-and-coming trend for hen do’s (at the time, this blog is 4 years in the making remember!), this is a nice way to say thank you to the guests that have given up their weekend, annual leave, and of course money to attend any 21st century bride’s hen! She had included various necessities such as sweets, plasters, painkillers for the expected hangovers, plastic champagne flutes, and my favourite – personalised sunglasses for the day ahead! What a babe she is!
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| Personalised sunglasses for an afternoon in Hyde Park watching Taylor Swift? Uh - YES PLEASE. |
After lunch we headed to Hyde Park via the tube, and since the girls hadn’t let me pay for anything so far I at least bought my hens their tube passes! At £12 each, it was the least I could do for them agreeing to come to the Big Smoke for my hen weekend! The Park had been transformed – food stalls and fairground rides had been set up everywhere, with bars aplenty, too! BST is great in the sense that it’s like a mini day festival, so there was live music playing all day. Ellie Goulding and John Newman were also there, and it was so cool to just spread out on the grass drinking cocktails while best-selling musicians were playing nearby!
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| My Hens in all their Rock Chic finery! |
And then there was Taylor. Sigh. She played an absolutely incredible performance, well over 2.5 hours long. She played her 1989 album in its entirety, plus her other hit songs such as Love Song, I Knew You Were Trouble and We Are Never Getting Back Together. You may remember this as the tour where she famously brought out celebrities at each performance? Well ours brought down the house. In the middle of ‘Style,’ a whole range of beautiful ladies such as Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and Serena Williams descended onto the stage for their very own catwalk! Then came one of my idols... Kendall Jenner! One of my best friends L and I are completely obsessed with all things Kardashian-Jenner related, and we promptly screamed like 8-year-old fangirls! Finally, Taylor introduced “one of our own” - Miss Cara Delevigne, waving a giant Union Jack flag as she popped out of the floor as the grand finale! I’ve literally got goosebumps as I write this – I can just feel the atmosphere of that night even now!
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| We were far back, but hey you listen with your ears, not your eyes! :P |
After a good night’s sleep, we had breakfast at Bill’s in Westfield shopping centre and had a quick Supermarket-Sweep style browse around the shops for a couple of hours. After this, I found my last surprise – A and H had made up a fabulous treasure hunt for me, complete with bespoke clues so that we could go sightseeing! It was brilliant, and albeit a little rushed after we spent too much time shopping but was so lovely to see Buckingham Palace and Westminster with my girls! The final clue led me to our last destination before we headed back home... dinner at Hard Rock Café London! My weekend was made. I genuinely believe that all the girls that made the effort to come to my hen were not let down. A and H had done a fab job of co-ordinating transport, accommodation, ticket sales and an itinerary, and I know this task was not without it’s share of stresses! For this, I thank you profusely, girls.
On a slight side note, I’m just going to make a point about your Hen Do guest list. Do not, under any circumstances, feel obliged to invite people, just because. I ended up wanting anyone and everyone I knew to come, and unfortunately because of budget and people’s tastes, the guest list dwindled quite considerably – which I took quite personally. Equally, just take into consideration when inviting the mums, grans and aunties... Some people are obviously extremely close to their family matriarchs, but just consider them if you’re going to do something like go to a concert and spend the rest of the weekend traipsing around one of the busiest cities in the world! Unfortunately for my poor mum, I think it kinda overwhelmed her, and so she sat out of the concert and the treasure hunt and just mooched around London by herself. I was completely gutted, not because I was being a Bridezilla, but because the thought of her not enjoying herself on my hen do just tore me up. (Also, you can find the ah – more mature ladies – want to take over sometimes, too... which can be infuriating for the very capable ladies that have taken a lot of time and effort to plan a spectacular ‘Do for you!)
KEB x
KEB x
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