In the not-so-distant past, hen-dos were an opportunity for a bride and her entourage to let loose. Think ill-advised cocktails, stumbling out of clubs, bedecked (bedicked?) in penis-shaped everything, from straws to confetti. Basically, the brief was to behave terribly in the name of having a lovely time – one’s hen-do was never their finest moment, but that was sort of the point.
Things have gotten so bad that, according to a recent survey by wedding planning site Hitched, only eight per cent of brides today want a classic party vibe for their send off, with the rest preferring spa days or cosy crafting followed by a sensible dinner and presumably being tucked up in bed in time for Newsnight.
This is by no means an uncompromising defence of hens as they have been. As someone who is allergic to both organised fun and fancy dress, there’s a lot that I don’t like about the traditional model. Over the years, hen-do creep means it has become de rigueur to plan a bash spanning multiple days and costing hundreds of pounds per person – something that should be recognised as the huge ask it is, rather than run of the mill.
square LUCY MANGAN
Hen dos in your forties are just indecentRead More
The gender divide isn’t my favourite either – if I know and love both halves of a couple, I end up feeling like half the party is missing without the groom there to celebrate too. But for all its faults, this rite of passage shouldn’t be underestimated. Blowing off steam is important at the best of times, but there’s arguably no more transgressive moment for a heterosexual woman to behave badly than when she’s getting married.
Asking the father of the bride for his daughter’s hand and to “give her away” on the day; women feverishly dieting and wearing virginal white before taking their husband’s last name; all of these are still totally normal in 2025, even if the ideas underpinning them would make us retch in any other context.
A juice cleanse or exercise class might be done in the name of healthiness or self-care, but it also makes you smaller, more palatable, in a power structure designed to usher its women in precisely those directions. The average wedding is sexist and infantilising enough without turning hens into diligent fitness club attendees who head to bed at 9pm like good little girls. In an already problematic landscape, nixing hen-dos’ role as bastions of female rebellion would be a tragedy.
Take our matching outfits, our ice-breaker games, our karaoke (no, really, please, I hate those bits). But you can pry hen-do hedonism from my cold, drunk hands. What is bad for your body can be very, very good for your soul, especially when it’s preparing to take on patriarchy’s most stubborn ghosts in front of everyone you’ve ever met. Pass the penis-coladas.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( My hen-do era is over – wellness has killed the fun )
Also on site :