How to make the best bachelor party

Our group of friends makes the best bachelor parties. Yes, yes some have your typical gentleman’s club aspect but most are much more and quite memorable! Here’s how we do it.

Some Basic Rules (I take no credit for them)

  1. Bachelor Party is for the friends not the bachelor
  2. Both the bachelor & future partner gets 3 rules we won’t break
  3. Bachelor provides list of names of potential attendees
  4. Best man with wedding party organises
  5. Activities are linked by a theme/story
  6. Bachelor does not know when it is happening
  7. Costs are split between wedding party and attendees

With these in mind we used the following themes so far (will look at writing up some details on them soon):

  1. Zombie Apocalypse
  2. Explorer of new worlds (1700s)
  3. Star Trek
  4. Survivorman
  5. Car Rallye
  6. James Bond
  7. Video Gamer

The rules in more details:

Bachelor Party is for the friends not the bachelor

That’s right, the party is time to make the bachelor uncomfortable, get him into situations that are hilarious and make everyone laugh. By that I mean it’s not the time to torture them or get them into trouble or permanent issues, you should know the person well enough to find something that everyone will enjoy, won’t be too far out there/dangerous but will be outside the comfort zone.

Both the bachelor & future partner gets 3 rules we won’t break

Here is a bit of a judgment call. The bachelor/partner may be completely against a certain activity and you want to respect that. Some are completely against going to Gentleman’s clubs (jealousy issues, comfort, religion etc.) and you don’t want to break a marriage before it begins. Maybe there is history or something else going on in their lives and you don’t want to create permanent issues so respect that. On the other hand, if the requests (of the Bachelor) are really restrictive for no good reason perhaps bend that one a bit but make sure you know why they asked that rule beforehand. We had one bachelor ask:

  • No getting arrested
  • No permanent damage
  • No chance to ruin security clearance

Of course these were all reasonable requests (we would not do any of those anyways) but we did try and get him “mock” arrested just because :).

Bachelor provides list of names of potential attendees

Alright so you want to know how many potential attendees you need to plan for and who should be there. Not inviting someone can cause drama but inviting the wrong person can be worse. Make sure the bachelor provides the list of who he wants to attend and contact everyone to see if they are interested/available.

Best man with wedding party organises

The best man is the person who should take the lead to organise, you were picked as best man so you should know the bachelor best. Wedding party should assist as much as possible. Good planning takes time but not all that much. Start brainstorming about a year in advance, delegate tasks to the rest of the party, come up with ideas, check dates etc. Make a meeting every month or so to check on progress and more frequent meetings when you get closer to the date to make sure all the details are ironed out. The worst thing you can do is wing it, things are unavailable, people can’t attend and it just becomes a crappy event.

Activities are linked by a theme/story

If you rope all the things together and add progress or a goal or a consistent theme of some sort it makes it much more interesting. Disjointed activities are fine, but linking them together gets people (and the bachelor) into it a little bit more.

This does not mean all the activities need to be the same, get some excuse to fit them in. Look at some of our themes and descriptions to see how it sort of worked.

Bachelor does not know when it is happening

This one is important. If the bachelor knows when it is happening it’s not as fun. Kidnappings, friends taking him away from work or showing up randomly makes the “uh oh, this is happening NOW” juices flowing. The bachelor may even be a bit paranoid in the weeks leading up to it.

Some things to remember though, make sure the future partner knows when it is so things don’t happen at a horrible time. If you need to take a day/partial day off work, clear it with their boss ahead of time so there are no surprises.

You can also create “fake” or “mock” bachelor parties to hide the real one. (We did this 2x, see details of them). Bachelor thinks he is in the clear and already had the party BANG suprise him with the real one.

Make sure the bachelor party is at least 1 week before the wedding. You don’t want a bachelor who is hung over and can barely make it through his wedding, that won’t start things off on the right foot!

Costs are split between wedding party and attendees

The Bachelor should not have to pay for anything, it’s not his party anyways :P. Make sure costs are clear ahead of time and that the wedding party pays a higher share than other attendees. When there are multiple activities make sure to be clear how much each one costs (incl overhead for the bachelor). Some people may not be able to attend the entire time or may want to skip out on certain activities so make that a possibility. Collect $ in advance if possible so there are no surprises and you don’t end up massively shortchanged when cousin Willy does all the activities but bails before paying.

Exception to the rule above. If this is a 2nd (3rd, 4th or more) wedding, the bachelor pays for everyone. We paid the first time so the next ones are on you :).


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