I am looking for some advice on the Who?, What?, and Where? of a bachelor party. Here's the situation: A college roommate of mine whom I lived with for a while is getting married. I am not the best man, but offered to consult the best man with regards to his duties (including the b-party).

First, Who?

Who is supposed to be invited? All men invited to the wedding? Just the wedding party? The WP + other close friends? Are the dad's invited? Under 21 brothers?

What?

Are stippers or strip clubs a must? I don't think he's really into that scene, but it is the traditional thing to do...

Where?

He lives in Colorado along with half of the wedding party. I'm in PA. Best man is in NYC. Wedding is in Chicago. So we have the option of going to CO or doing it a couple days before the wedding in Chi-town or all flying to Vegas.

I've thrown a couple successful b-parties before and neither included nudity or anyone from outside the wedding party. Although I wondered if I was leaving something to be desired.

So, what's the real etiquette?

 

Vegas is cool... has a good variety of odd stuff to do and T&A.

Ask the groom who to invite... sometime inviting siblings can be weird.
Sometimes the guy doens't want strippers/clubs but hitting up at least one is the norm(even if it is just for the humiliation of it).

Vegas has a shooting range to hit up(guns...mmmm), an indoor skydiving thing, some sports stuff, and the usual, decent variety of places to eat(Joes Crab Shack for some humiliation as well)

No cameras, no recording devices, no discussions about it afterwards.

I'm a big fan of leaving some of the guidelines up to the groom, and you should have a pretty good idea, and at the same time, there should be some tolerance on his part for some things as well.

 

99% of it should be what the groom wants.

I've been to one's that ranged from camping trips with a keg and to a high evening of steaks, cigars, and cognac to Vegas weekends where we nearly got arrested to

1. Make sure the groom is happy.
2. If the bride-to-be says, "Don't ____" and the groom says, "I wanna _____" You WILL _____, just have the fewest number of witnesses.
3. Don't do it the night before the wedding.
4. Have the numbers for cabbies and lawyers BEFORE you go out.
5. Prep the hangover cure from www.soyouwanna.com BEFORE you go out.
6. With #4, having some hangover helper food ready is always a bonus.

 

couple of the best bachelor parties i have gone to include:

- South Florida!!!!!! South Beach to be exact.
- get a hotel in south beach, its ok to do it a month or so before the wedding. round up some cash and hit up their clubs. i did really well with the south florida women for some reason thats why i keep going back there.
- only 1 person of the 20 of us was from south florida. so where people live shouldn't matter on where you have the party. most were from chicago, i was from california and some were from new york.
- IT IS BEST TO VIP whereever you go so, be ready to have the party spring some cash.

2. Las Vegas
- Sounds so regular to have it there, but people have it there for a reason.
- Lots of girls everywhere
- Gambling
- good strip clubs and great strippers that fly in from all over the usa.
- great mega clubs if you are into that too.
- again SET UP VIP so round up the cash.

oh, and invite everyone who is going to the wedding or at least invited to it. it makes everyone feel better and give them a purpose to the party. inviting someone to the bachelor party who isn't invited to the wedding causes a negative energy IMO.

 

Well, the wedding is going to be fairly large (~250 people, mostly on her side of the family). So if you assume a 1:1 guy/girl ratio, then say 3/4 of them are over 21, you'd have ~100 guys to invite. If we end up doing a resort style B-party to South Beach or Vegas, it could end up costing around $1k per. Which I doubt many would be able to or want to spend.

The top choice now is a classy night of cigar smoking and whiskey drinking in Chicago on the Thursday before the Saturday wedding. Although the wedding is in Chicago in October, I'm not how many hot chicks in tight clothes will be out and about for us to prey on

 

ya, we spend about $700-$2k per trip.

Chicago is a great place to have a bachelor party. there will be girls out in October. i grew up there but visit frequently. i went to this schaumburg club in October one time and the girls there were bangin hotttttttttttt.

oh, and you don't have to invite everyone, just the close people. the weddings i go to are usually about 250+ people we end up with a bachelor party of about 20 or so. just don't invite anyone not invited to the wedding, cuz thats kinda borderline downer(unless its a friend of a friend who really wants to tag along and has money to do so). splitting costs and collecting money seems to be the hardest part of these partys, but we have never had a problem.

 

Coincidently I just got back from my bachelor party yesterday.
My best man and another friend organized while I provided guidelines.

I decided who was getting invited, for the most part it was only my very good friends and those who would have had a good time considering the environment.

I think the guestlist started at approx 30 and we ended up having 8 total.

Part of the effect in headcount was location, as mentioned above, this party/weekend was in Las Vegas. There's a little of everything out there, you can get it as crazy/tame as you or the bachelor wants.

We had ppl from Honolulu, Chicago, Phoenix, SF, LA, and Cleveland. And w/o going into too many details, it was an unbelievable trip.

I think in the end it matters not where you are but who you're with.

 

As for the What?, I'll pose another question....what is the purpose of the B-party? My idea is that it is a "last night out as a single man". It should be a celebratory event, not necessarily involving debauchery, right?

I am still not sure about the Who? If we went to a titty bar, I'm not sure how comfortable the groom would be with his father-in-law watching him get spanked by "Chastity". A lot of guys at this wedding are into different things, so the dilemma is...do something more conservative but fun that everyone would enjoy or get risky and do something you know the groom would love at the expensive of the nerds sitting in the corner.

The Where? is looking like Chicago. It makes a lot of sense since we are all spending a good chunk of $$ already to get out there.

Thanks for all the advice so far.

 

[QUOTE=tinkfist,Aug 28 2006, 01:18 PM]The top choice now is a classy night of cigar smoking and whiskey drinking in Chicago on the Thursday before the Saturday wedding.

 

me and my buddies are planning the b-party for my friend paul. the 4 of us are all in the wedding party. he is getting married in may and we are going to vegas in april. i know paul will have no problem with going to a strip club out there and neither will we it's just going to be an "in excess" weekend and it's vegas so once we leave our "venture capitalists" group will also leave