When you hear bachelor party, you probably imagine something like “the Hangover”. The Vegas strip, casinos, strip clubs, and the three best friends that anyone could have! A few weekends ago I was given the honor of organizing my brother’s bachelor party, and fortunately, we woke up with all of our teeth and zero face tattoos. This article is to help out those like myself who never thought they would be in the position of planning a bachelor party.
These are the 5 steps I took to ensure I set up a bachelor party everyone could enjoy:
Know your audience
Although you are the best man and may know the other groomsman, your task is to keep everyone engaged and having fun. Whether they are the outdoorsy type, hardcore gamers, or competitive drinkers you want everyone included. Gauge the audience and pick an activity.
Brainstorm Your Activity
This is where your creativity and planning come in. Think about location, length of time, budget, and transportation. After a few brainstorming sessions, I had three ideas. I was going to put together a golf trip, hike/camping trip, or a pub crawl. Everyone in our group was spread around the US so flying somewhere was the only option.
Location
I decided that to get the most for our money, we needed to fly to a unique city with great food and nightlife. After taking a recent trip to Austin, it was a perfect fit for a pub crawl and offered an incomparable live music scene. Airbnb offered a great option right next to the university of Texas that housed seven people comfortably with air conditioning. (It was 102 degrees!)
Pub Crawl Planning
There is one place in Austin you have to attend in your 20s and that is 6th Street. It is home to one of the largest pedestrian-only streets with wall to wall bars and restaurants. And to make this pub crawl special I implemented a 9 hole pub golf bonanza to keep it competitive, including prizes and punishments. I gathered a list of my favorite/best-rated bars, chose a local drink for each hole, and created the scorecards pictured below. Here is a link if you are interested in learning more about Pub Golf!
Pub Golf Scorecards
But there was more than just planning the pub crawl that went into this weekend.
Structure & Adapt
Google docs became my best friend throughout this process as I could keep everyone in the loop on flights, budget, and the game plan. I gave everyone a timeline on flight arrival for Friday and departure times on Sunday.
We started off Friday easing into the apartment, eating at a well-known whiskey and BBQ place, and exploring Rainey St. (Another popular nightlife area).
Saturday consisted of waking up and making breakfast with mimosas, heading to Barton Springs (a river turned community pool), lunch at Torchy’s Tacos, then off to the pub crawl. From breweries and dueling piano bars to speakeasies and bar-keries(Bar Bakeries) we got an authentic taste of Austin’s nightlife.
Sunday’s main goal was ensuring the everyone made it to brunch and their flights in one piece. I’m here to tell you, we made it and had a blast!
I would love to hear your stories of how you planned a bachelor party or any awesome ones you attended (Try to keep it clean :))
Please comment below or tweet me @evbtuesdays.
Keep it casual until next Tie Tuesday!
EVB
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