I recently got to participate in a time-honored British tradition. Our friends, T & C, are getting married in December and have been busy planning all the details for the event in Reading. Before the big day, the bride and groom say farewell to their single status in the company of their friends. The groom goes off on a stag do and the bridge goes off on a hen do (known as bachelor party and bachelorette party in the US, respectively). Wikipedia emphasizes that for the bride, this is a normal party “in the style that is common to that social circle”. I haven’t quite figured out what our social circle is, but the events of last weekend helped to give me an indication.
Eight of us girls drove from all directions of the island to meet in the Bath/Bristol area to spend the weekend in a chapel and schoolhouse that was converted to holiday accommodations. The main event of the weekend was shooting. Yes, I said shooting. Our hen, T, requested an outing that was related to hunting, and after spotting the fox, climbing on our horses, sounding the horn, and releasing a pack of beagles, we were on our way. Okay, not quite. We actually ended up driving to a lodge outside Lacock (appropriate for a hen weekend) and practiced clay pigeon shooting and air rifle target shooting. Having never held a gun or rifle in my life, I am glad that my first time was in the company of women and not the former VP. The rifles were very heavy and hitting the target accurately was no easy feat. I can’t say that I was a natural at this sport because of two incidents 1) instead of pulling the trigger, sometimes I would pull the metal part immediately behind the trigger which resulted in absolutely nothing happening and 2) we were each given 6 pellets to shoot our targets with and when my target came back, it had 5 holes in it while next to me, K, had 7 holes in hers. Oops. Despite it being a cold and rainy day, we had a really good time.
Our hen, T, watching me shoot pigeons.
Ready, aim, fire!
After a cup of tea back at Ebenezer chapel, we headed into Bristol for a night out. We had a seafood dinner and then hit the clubs. I don’t know how representative the club we went to was, but I was very impressed. First, they pump air through the vents so that you are actually slightly chilly. The sweaty BO smell from many people dancing in a small space is therefore diminished. Second, there was an impressive number of bouncers around who were circulating to make sure everything was going smoothly. They did everything from direct us to the coat check to making sure drinks were kept off the dance floor (so no spillage would happen, not anything to do with breakage b/c drinks were served in glass-like plastic cups). I was also surprised at the amount of dancing that was actually done by men here. In the US, the men often stay around the perimeter and do the head-nod dance with their hands in their pockets. But men, whether in a group or by themselves, were actually on the dance floor, making fools of themselves like the rest of us.
Everyone getting on the dance floor
Another tradition for hen dos and stag dos is dressing up. Our group did not, but we saw lots of other groups who did. One stag party made their stag wear a patient’s dressing gown while the other men were dressed as doctors. We saw a hen group that had some sort of super-hero theme to it. And flying in the face of all reason, another hen group was dressed up like grannies. Instead of choosing to wear sexy, revealing outfits, this group of ladies donned baggy dresses and gray wigs for their night out. Only in Britain!
Why dress 10 years younger than your age when you can dress 40 years older?
The next morning, we recovered from our festivities with a relaxing time at the spa. Bath Spa, historically renowned for its spas with healing power, has actually only one spa in town, Therme. We hired out the Cross Bath exclusively for our use and soaked ourselves until we were pruney. Then we headed into Bath centre for brunch at the Pump Room which is home to the old Roman baths. It was a very elegant finish to the weekend.
Our private spa in the original Georgian setting
All in all, I had a fun time. There were definitely lots of British-isms that I experienced first hand (I am still not used to the awkwardness of meeting people for the first time), and I think T received an appropriate send-off into marital bliss. Looking forward to the wedding in a few weeks!
We dined under chandeliers and accompanied by a pianist
