Hello Hello!
Today I’m excited to share a little peak into the hen party I threw for my bestie a few weeks ago! The bride-to-be, Emily, wasn’t keen on what you might traditionally think of when planning a bachelorette party (and to be honest, that’s not really my style either) so I decided to go with an elegant and classy picnic, with delicious food and some fun games!
It was such a lovely, relaxed afternoon and I think it turned out to be a big success (if I do say so myself! haha :p)
Enjoy the photos and if you happen to be planning a hen party, particularly one that’s more on the classy side, I hope this can give you some ideas and inspiration (no strippers or penis paraphernalia in sight!)
If you’re in Perth, I have some awesome recommendations for vendors to check out to help make your party planning super easy too, in case like me, you’re a little short on time!
The Decor
I would normally have loved to source all the different pieces and create a beautiful set up like this myself, but having a newborn baby made things a little tricky, so I knew I needed some help this time!
I decided to go with Picnics By Design and could not recommend them more! I’d been following them on Instagram @picnicsbydesign for the longest time and they always had such beautiful set ups.
I gave Rowena a rough idea of the colours I was looking for and she created this magic with beautiful undone flower arrangements, a fun tee-pee for the bride at the head of the table and gorgeous touches of pink, white and blue.
My parents were kind enough to let us have the party in their backyard (which made it much easier for me to just pop inside to feed the bubby) but they will set up these picnics anywhere you like! King’s Park (or any park really) would be a fab place to have a party like this, or even somewhere like Matilda Bay would be a beautiful spot too!
They came by a few hours before the party was due to start and set everything up so it made the whole event so much easier and stress free. It was such a beautiful set up and felt really fancy and special!
The Food
Picnics by Design organised the catering for this party (again, I was just trying to make this as stress-free as possible given the fact I had a new baby!) but they also have packages that include just the set up, so you are totally free to organise your own food if that’s your jam! (You can also hire a more basic set up and do you own styling too which I think would be a lot of fun if you have more time and also a more cost effective option too!)
The caterer they used was Delectable Catering (@delectablecateringperth) and the food was excellent - I will definitely be keeping them in mind for future events! The grazing platters were such generous sizes - overflowing with beautiful fresh fruit and veggies, cheeses, prosciutto and salami, some kind of vegetarian patties?, fresh bread and delicious hummus! I was soo happy to not be pregnant so I could enjoy all the soft cheeses and cold meats! Those 9 months I had to go without have made me super appreciative of these foods now!
I also organised some cupcakes for a sweet treat. I’d met Angela (@perthcakebyangie) at Pixel Coffee (@pixelcoffee) a number of times as we’re kinda regulars there (it’s one of my fave brunch spots in Perth!) She is so lovely and I knew her cupcakes would be perfect! I chose the lemon and poppyseed flavour and they were SO good - not overly sweet as some cupcakes can be and decorated so beautifully! If you’re in need of a cake for a special occasion I’d highly recommend ordering from Angela!
For drinks I made both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of a Strawberry Grapefruit Punch using this recipe from Buzzfeed, and we had a couple of bottles of champagne.
The Games
Of course we had to play a few fun hen party games too! I kept it simple with just a few classics that included:
1) The Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Game
Split everyone into small groups of at least 3 and give each group 2 rolls of toilet paper. Then set a timer (we did 10 minutes but it can be shorter if you like) and you use the toilet paper to create a wedding dress - see below for photos of our creations! Once the time is up each group explains their inspiration for their design and a winner is selected!
(We discovered later that it’s probably best to get the bride to observe and do the judging rather than actually participate in the game as otherwise the bride’s group will almost automatically end up winning - this happened for my own hen party too (which we’d forgotten about so it happened again! Whoops! :p)
2) How Well Do You Know The Bride?
Create a list of questions about the bride, print out a quiz sheet for each guest and make sure you have enough pens for everyone too! Hand out the sheets and after about 10 minutes once everyone has answered the questions, get them to swap with the person next to them. Go through each question, asking guests to call out their answers. You can either have the bride answer the questions beforehand or on the day. The winner gets a prize (chocolates in our case!)
If you google this game there are a tonne of example questions to give you ideas, so you can choose ones that best suit the bride, but these are the questions we used (thank you Niki for sorting out this game!)
1) What is (bride’s) middle name?
2) Where did (bride) meet (groom)?
3) What was (bride’s) first job?
4) What is (bride’s) favourite movie?
5) What is the name of (bride & groom’s) cat?
6) Name three celebrities that (bride) would invite to dinner
7) What was (bride’s) favourite subject in school?
8) Which subject does (bride) now teach in school?
9) When did (bride) first read Harry Potter
10) What is (bride) and (groom’s) pet name for each other?
11) What is (bride’s) favourite activity to do on a day off?
Does (bride) prefer - circle one:
1) Instagram or Facebook
2) Italian food or Indian Food
3) Tea or Coffee
4) Morning or Evening
5) Summer or Winter
6) Being too warm or too cold
7) Books or Movies
8) Flowers or Succulents
9) Beach or Mountains
3) Ask The Groom (video)
This one requires a little more preparation but is a lot of fun! Put together a list of questions about the bride and film the groom giving his answers. Then edit it into a short video.
On the day, set up the video and read out each question to the bride. Ask her to answer the questions and then play the video to see if the grooms answers match up! This is always such an amusing game!
If you don’t have time to film the groom, you can just get him to write down his answers but it’s always more fun to watch his responses!
These were the questions we used:
1) What physical feature of yours does (bride) like best?
2) What is (bride’s) favourite food?
3) Where in the world would (bride) most like to visit?
4) If (bride) wins $1 million what is the first thing she would spend it on?
5) What is the one item of (brides) that she thinks you would love to get rid of?
6) What habit of (bride’s) is most annoying?
7) What habit of (grooms) is most annoying?
8) What did you do on your first date?
9) What is the first thing (bride) gave you?
10) What is (bride’s) biggest pet peeve?
11) Complete the following sentence: The perfect wife is one who…
12) Who is (bride’s) favourite band?
13) What is the one thing apart from you the (bride) would save in a fire?
14) Where did you first meet?
15) What is (bride’s) favourite movie?
16) What are you most likely to argue about?
17) Who is (bride’s) Disney crush?
18) Who wears the pants in the relationship?
19) Who fell in love first?
20) What is your favourite thing about (bride)?
21) What is (bride’s) favourite thing about you?
22) What three words would you use to describe (bride)
23) What three words would (bride) use to describe you?
24) What are your pet names for each other?
25) What is the most romantic thing (bride) has done for you?
Extra Touches:
The Dress Code:
While it’s not essential I always think a special dress code can add a bit of extra fun (and adds to the overall vibe and aesthetics of the party!) I know for my surprise Baby Shower I really enjoyed that everyone was dressed in white and pink! It made it so special when I walked in!)
For this party I asked everyone to wear white. Normally the bride would be the one in white, but I know my best friend Emi never wears it (her wedding dress was actually a beautiful pale pink!) so I thought it would be fun for all of us to be in white while she wore a brighter floral dress!
A sash or tiara for the bride is also a bit of fun (but something I just totally forgot about for this party!! I’m going to blame it on baby brain which is actually a real thing :p)
The Music:
Of course every party needs a good soundtrack! Make sure to fill it with the brides favourite tunes! Thank you to my friend Kerryn for organising this and taking it off my plate!
I hope you enjoyed this post and that it can be helpful if you have a party to plan too!
If you know someone who might find it useful, I’d love for you to share it!
As always, leave me a comment below with any thoughts, or come say hi on Insta @laurennatalia.co :)
If you’d like some more hen party ideas you can check out this blog post and video of my own hen’s that my bridesmaids threw for me a few years ago! (They did an amazing job so I’d highly recommend taking a look at the post for more inspiration!)
Lots of Love
Lauren
xxx