# Ladies, what did you do for your hen night? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 21, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520 "2013-03-21T03:38:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/21 "2013-03-22T00:39:17Z")
Not a chick (and I’ve never heard the term ‘hen night,’ so thank you for teaching me something new today), but my wife and I did a joint bachelor-bachelorette night. The guys started drinking in the backyard, the gals did their thing inside, and we all headed out together after a couple hours for dinner, a few cocktails and a bunch of laughs. So if the groom is down for it, maybe a jack and jill party would be the way to go. (We were both older too when we got married, and had no desire for the tequila and stripper route.) ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/22 "2013-03-22T03:28:06Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > I’m not married but I set up my sister’s. I bought a bunch of penis-themed party favors and we and two others went to a club and tried to make my uptight sister relax 🆒 We tried to make her order the drink “Adios Motherfucker” to no avail ☹ She can’t say that. She did wear her penis tiara and necklace though, I have to give her that. I think if I wore a penis tiara in Seoul I’d get arrested or something. I’m not even joking. 😃 > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not a lady so I can’t respond to the question. But, it’s depressing to hear > from somebody who’s young enough to be my daughter. If the generation behind me is getting old, how old does that make me? Well, I don’t think I’m old exactly, but relatively speaking I feel too old to be doing tequila shots. I might actually have two separate parties before the wedding, because I have a Korean group of friends and an English-speaking group of friends with really different schedules and lifestyles. But I suppose it’s really just an excuse to hang out and do something fun with my girls. I wouldn’t mind a jack and jill party, but I think my SO’s mates would be horrified. They’re rather old-fashioned. I think they just want to get him drunk and buy him a lap dance. To be honest I am skeeved out by the lap dance thing because there aren’t any stripper clubs here so in order to get a lap dance you pretty much have to go to a brothel. I know it’s irrational but getting a lap dance at a brothel seems sketchier than getting one at a strip club. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/23 "2013-03-22T03:52:33Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > I think if I wore a penis tiara in Seoul I’d get arrested or something. I’m not even joking. 😃 Yikes. Well, this penis tiara was surprisingly tasteful for, well, a penis tiara. It wasn’t real obvious. The glow in the dark penis necklaces I got for the rest of us were pretty gaudy though. But the penis-shaped Ring Pops were quite classy. ---
**Author:** ![Nerdessence](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/47e85d/32.png) [@Nerdessence](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nerdessence)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/24 "2013-03-22T10:34:36Z")
Since my husband and I are so unpopular, we didn’t have the appropriate pre-wedding parties. Heh. He had to scrape up a best man from his dwindling pool of childhood friends and I had to import my maid of honor from my tiny pool of friends from the internet. Amusingly, his no longer talks to him and mine no longer talks to me. Anyway, that little bit of self-decpricating humor aside, our pre-wedding night involved the four of us watching the MST3K of _Overdrawn at the Memory Bank_. Then, an early-to-bed for us. There was no alcohol at any point of our celebrations, before or after, not even for other people. I figured if we don’t drink, and it’s our wedding, we should reflect that in our reception. Yeah, we’re _nerds_. But amazingly, people still talk about how beautiful, simple, and pleasant our wedding day was, and we loved it, so there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/25 "2013-03-22T18:47:54Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Not a chick (and I’ve never heard the term ‘hen night,’ so thank you for teaching me something new today), but my wife and I did a joint bachelor-bachelorette night. The guys started drinking in the backyard, the gals did their thing inside, and we all headed out together after a couple hours for dinner, a few cocktails and a bunch of laughs. So if the groom is down for it, maybe a jack and jill party would be the way to go. > > (We were both older too when we got married, and had no desire for the tequila and stripper route.) Hen night, or according to my friend, hen do, is a British term for a girls night out. It isn’t synonymous with a bachelorette party- it could refer to any wonen-only night out (and slightly insulting IMHO as well, implying when the ladies go out they just cluck & fuss like hens ). Anyway It’s not a common term in the US, where “bachelorette party” is the term for party prior to a wedding, and “girls night out” seems to be the phrase for a gathering of close women friends. ---
**Author:** ![BrunetteAlways37](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@BrunetteAlways37](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrunetteAlways37)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/26 "2013-03-22T21:55:20Z")
I haven’t done this in a long time, but I use to get 2 friends I knew (where I used to live in Phoenix) & we go to the pool (at the apartment complex I used to live at), get some plastic cups, wine, swim, & sunbathe…(Back when I did blonde hair then! LOL! LMAO!) It was a lot of fun. Haven’t done that since. But I’ll be moving to Florida soon, I hope I can find some great ladies to do this again. That’s my idea of a great ladies day/night! ---
**Author:** ![BrunetteAlways37](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@BrunetteAlways37](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrunetteAlways37)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/27 "2013-03-22T21:58:51Z")
> [@Nerdessence](#): > > Since my husband and I are so unpopular, we didn’t have the appropriate pre-wedding parties. Heh. He had to scrape up a best man from his dwindling pool of childhood friends and I had to import my maid of honor from my tiny pool of friends from the internet. Amusingly, his no longer talks to him and mine no longer talks to me. > > Anyway, that little bit of self-decpricating humor aside, our pre-wedding night involved the four of us watching the MST3K of _Overdrawn at the Memory Bank_. Then, an early-to-bed for us. > > There was no alcohol at any point of our celebrations, before or after, not even for other people. I figured if we don’t drink, and it’s our wedding, we should reflect that in our reception. > > Yeah, we’re _nerds_. > > But amazingly, people still talk about how beautiful, simple, and pleasant our wedding day was, and we loved it, so there. 😃 You’re not alone! My husband & I too don’t have friends or that many friends either. They are all just acquaintenances, who we never do anything with!!😉 But we are cool with that! We are more of the “private-our own little world” types…😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/28 "2013-03-22T22:15:24Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Hen night, or according to my friend, hen do, is a British term for a girls night out. It isn’t synonymous with a bachelorette party- it could refer to any wonen-only night out (and slightly insulting IMHO as well, implying when the ladies go out they just cluck & fuss like hens ). > > Anyway It’s not a common term in the US, where “bachelorette party” is the term for party prior to a wedding, and “girls night out” seems to be the phrase for a gathering of close women friends. In Australia, “bachelorette party” is unused and “hens night” or “hens do” is synonymous only with the pre wedding party (not any girls night out). I never had one. Had I been inclined to do something like that, I’d probably have gone with a kitchen tea (much more my speed than drinking cocktails through penis straws). ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/29 "2013-03-23T02:36:05Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Hen night, or according to my friend, hen do, is a British term for a girls night out. It isn’t synonymous with a bachelorette party- it could refer to any wonen-only night out (and slightly insulting IMHO as well, implying when the ladies go out they just cluck & fuss like hens ). Really? I picked the term up from my SO (Irish), who says he’s only ever heard it in connection with a bachelorette party. Anyhoo. I don’t have a huge group of friends that will be available for my wedding - a lot of them are scattered around the world. Luckily two of my closest friends who aren’t in Seoul at the moment will be here in time for my wedding, so I’m super excited about that. [QUOTE=Nerdessence] There was no alcohol at any point of our celebrations, before or after, not even for other people. I figured if we don’t drink, and it’s our wedding, we should reflect that in our reception. Yeah, we’re nerds. [/quote] I don’t think not drinking alcohol has anything to do with being a nerd. A lot of my friends would qualify as “nerds” in that they enjoy typically nerdy things (fantasy novels, Japanese animation, Star Wars, Joss Whedon, etc etc) but most of them also enjoy their drink. My best friend, bless her, is the nerdiest girl I know and she’d drink most people under the table. Everything else in your post was very nerdy, though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/30 "2013-03-23T02:50:04Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > In Australia, “bachelorette party” is unused and “hens night” or “hens do” is synonymous only with the pre wedding party (not any girls night out). My was-British-now-Australian friend has used it for a girls night out, on facebook, regularly. I don’t know, maybe its just a thing she says! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/31 "2013-03-23T17:56:06Z")
I think it’s just her. I’ve only ever heard it in the context of a pre-wedding girls’ do. The male equivalent is a stag night. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/32 "2013-03-23T18:09:14Z")
Strippers and penis accessories aren’t my thing, either. Our lives were pretty chaotic in multiple ways around the time we got married, so our top priority was making everything wedding-related as stress-free as possible. For my hen night I got together with half a dozen of my best friends (mainly women, one guy - no, he’s not gay) and we went for good Lebanese food and then a few good cocktails. After that we were planning to go to a karaoke-booth place, except it was booked out, so we were going to go to an 80s night at a club - only there was a queue and it was raining and one of the women was pregnant, so I wasn’t going to make her stand in the rain. (And I couldn’t say, ‘Hey, listen, feel free to go home, I won’t be offended’ because we weren’t supposed to know she was pregnant yet, except it was obvious.) So we just hooked up with my husband’s stag party and went to the pub for the rest of the night. Most of our friends overlap anyway. It was a really nice night - it wasn’t OMG the best night of my life!!!, but it wasn’t supposed to be - and it was in fact basically stress-free. I think if you’re not into the strippers-and-tequila kind of night, then the focus should probably be on doing something you’d love to do with all of your best mates and may never get another chance to do, because it’s hard to coordinate a bunch of people’s schedules. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520/33 "2013-03-24T19:17:25Z")
For mine we had a full weekend of chocolate-themed fun! We started with dinner on Friday at a chocolate themed restaurant (they serve normal food too but the dessert menu is about 3 times as long as the dinner menu and it is all chocolate-based) and on Saturday we did a chocolate walking tour of NYC. Then on Sunday we went for mani/pedis where they worked cocoa into the process so you smelled deliciously chocolatey when they were done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ladies-what-did-you-do-for-your-hen-night/653520.md?page=1)