i won’t lie. i’m not the biggest fan of bachelor parties.  The idea of dressing a good friend up and then making them feel like a tit is beyond me.

Hey friend, you are about to have one of the most important celebrations of your life and start a whole new way of living as a married man with the woman you have chosen to be with… let’s celebrate that by embarrassing you, making you feel as awkward as possible and in some cases hurting you.

 

THE BACHELOR PARTY

Yesterday, i spent half the day at a bachelor party for a good friend of mine who is getting married next week. We started the day with some early morning Ultimate Frisbee and then moved on to someone’s house for a quick swim and a few hours of board games. i left the party for a few hours while they went off and had what sounds like a really fun time of Paintball and then joined them again for dinner in the evening. Which was followed by a time of speaking encouragement and praying for our friend.

ultimate frisbee

Pretty rough, huh? No, it wasn’t rough. It was amazing. At no point during the whole day did Duncan feel like a tit [i don’t believe]. There was one moment of less-than-idealness [from my perspective] when he had to down three raw eggs for some questions he got wrong, but in a 14 hour period of bachelor-partyness, that was really a blip. And they still gave him an out on that but he decided he wanted to do it.

Codenames pictures

A CULTURE THAT COULD USE SOME CHANGE 

“But that’s the way it’s always been done” has to be one of the lamest reasons for doing something ever. But i think this is why bachelor’s parties tend to look like they do. A lot of guys getting married will tell you that they want to do the traditional embarrassment/awkward/cringeworthy/pain-inflictment vibes simply because that’s all they know.

In many cases the bachelor party is set up to be that ‘last taste of freedom’ for the guy before he gets married. Think for a second how messed up that is. We are going to celebrate your upcoming weekend as your friends [you know, people who love, admire and respect you] by getting you to do stuff that your fiancé would not be super stoked by. The logic is awful. It makes me so mad.

And i imagine it makes a lot of people reading this think that i’m a killjoy.

Except that i’m not.

Because he had an incredible time.

He got to spend some good time with some of the people he really loves spending time with.

He got to do a bunch of the activities he really loves doing.

He received support, encouragement, advice and prayer from a group of men who really dig him.

i cannot think of a more joy-filled occasion.

We had a complete vibe and i absolutely loved it.

#NOTONOURWATCH

i speak about #NotOnOurWatch a lot with regards to race vibes. But here is another area we can make a difference.

i remember a mate’s bachelor’s a few years ago where someone showed me the program and part of the day was going to be a kissing booth on the beach where he had to get kisses from strangers. i thought, ‘That is not great at all when it comes to honouring his future bride’ and so i said something and they changed it. With this bachelor party we just celebrated there was part of the programme that felt a bit more ‘make-him-feel-like-a-tit’ than i felt comfortable with. i asked the question and the guys in charge changed it super quickly to something a lot more uplifting but still fun.

There is a space in this for us to speak out and to change the culture and create spaces where people feel built up, loved and celebrated. Ask the question, challenge the programme and if necessary choose to opt out if it doesn’t feel wholesome.

For my bachelors and two of my best men’s, we went on a weekend away trip with some good mates. No feeling like a tit, but still a lot of fun and silly and bonding and encouraging and above all, uplifting.

When you get married, things change and often one of those things is that [initially at least] you don’t always have the same time and freedom that you used to. So you don’t always get to hang out with mates as much.

So creating one last fun group memory of a day spent doing the things you love and having life spoken into you feels like just about the best thing i can imagine.

How about you? What is the best Bachelor Party you went to and what was it about it that stood out for you?