Tip #21: Gag Gifts

Have you ever found yourself wondering whether or not you should take some sort of gift to a bachelorette party? It’s a good question. On one hand, it’s a party, so you naturally think you should, but on the other, it’s not like it’s a birthday party or Christmas or anything. What kind of gift would you even get? Well, it’s always been my policy, when I’m going to a friend’s bachelorette party, to get her a gag gift. Something that’s not at all serious (and admittedly doesn’t serve much practical use) but will get a good laugh out of everybody. Of course, a lot of the time these have to do with penises or sex, so it’s hard to find one if the bachelorette isn’t a fan of those kinds of jokes. But if she is, there are no shortage of options out there. If you’re interested in getting a gag gift but don’t really know what, I thought I’d give some examples here. Here are some that I’ve gotten for my friends before that I was able to find online.

This first one’s a blowjob kit which comes with gloves, an apron, and a hairnet - supposedly to be worn while giving a blowjob, to save the bachelorette from, well, making a mess, or being covered in one. I’m not a huge fan of this gift, but it’s good for a bachelorette who you have some joke with about blowjobs - that was the case when I gave it to my girlfriend. It seems like a gift that not a lot of people might want to give, but I might be wrong. Anyways, Here’s a more generic sex-themed one:

Yes, you read that right. That’s a thong that says “You may now fuck the bride.” It is, admittedly, a bit on the crude side, but that’s part of the charm. That’s what makes it so funny, I think. I laughed at this thong, and so did everyone at the party when I presented it to my friend the bachelorette. So I would definitely recommend that one, but not as much as this last one. This is by far my favorite gag gift I’ve ever gotten for anyone:

“Fundies.” Yep, that’s right. Underwear for two. These things are just absolutely hilarious. I got this for a friend once, and everybody at the party was asking where they could get a pair. They were a real hit. If there’s one gift I would recommend, it’s these. If you’ve got a sense of humor like mine (which you might not, mine is pretty weird) you’re already laughing at these, but if you’re not, trust me, you will be at the party.

I’m sure I can find more gag gifts online, so I’ll keep looking and post more next time. But in the mean time, hopefully these will tide you over and give you a good idea of what kind of gifts to get the bride-to-be.

See you next time,
Carly

Tip #20: The Price is Right!

No, no, I don’t mean the game show. Although I guess if the bride to be is a big fan of that you could watch that too. I just thought it would be a clever title for this post, because this post is about rightest price you can get: free! Bachelorette parties can be expensive. Believe me, I know. It helps if you get everyone coming (except the bride!) to chip in some money to buy things, but often times the majority of the financial burden is on the party planner. So I bet if you’re anything like I was, you can use every tip for cutting costs that you can get. So I thought I’d share some with you. I found a couple of free things online that I think could be of some use to all the thrifty party planners out there.
First, I found some free invitations in case you don’t want to spring for fancy ones like I talked about last time.

They’re not as high quality, and you have to print them out yourself, but you get what you pay for. They don’t look too bad for the price and the cop theme on the front is pretty funny. All in all, not a bad way to cut some costs, however little.

The other thing I found a way to do for free is entertainment. I’ve shared several games with you that have worked for me, and I’m sure you’ve found even more on your own. But those all, of course, cost money, and for most of them, it’s no small amount. Well, I found some free alternatives for those, too. I found a free scavenger hunt and a marriage word scramble. There’s also those two versions of bingo I posted about way back in tip #11. These all look like fun, if a little basic, games. Sure, they’re not flashy or creative like some others out there, but they’re a pretty good free alternative.

Okay, that’s all for now. If any of you have any more tips for how to cut costs for parties, I’d love to hear them and I’m sure the other readers would too.

See you next time,
Carly

Tip #19: Invitations

Whenever you’re throwing any kind of party at all, what’s the first thing you have to do? Send out invitations, of course. You have to let people know to save the date, and find out how many people are able to come. Even though it comes way before the party itself, it’s one of the most important parts of the party. Bachelorette parties are obviously no exception to this rule. Sending out an invitation to all your girlfriends is very important if you want to stay organized. You could send out any old invitations, but like with everything else you might need for a bachelorette party, there are some special types out there designed specifically for the occasion. There are quite a few varieties to choose from, actually. Here are some of my favorites that I’ve used before.

This one has got to be my absolute favorite I’ve ever found. It’s just so funny, your guests won’t be able to help but laugh when they open it up in the mail. One girl actually got mad at me because she opened it up and started laughing out loud at the dinner table, then had to explain to her kids why she was laughing! I assume she didn’t tell them the real reason, because as you can see it’s a little inappropriate. So if you’re throwing a classier party, where there won’t be any penis-themed decorations or anything, this might not be the right card for you. For everyone else, though, it’s priceless, and so will your girlfriends’ reactions be. But if you want something a little more family-appropriate, I really like this one, too:

This one doesn’t have any penises or “coming” jokes on it but it’s still a fun invitation. It’s not boring like the invites that try to be elegant and classy: it shows that even if it won’t be a raunchy party you can still have some fun. It’s very colorful and exciting and your girlfriends won’t be able to ignore getting it in the mail, that’s for sure.

If you don’t like either of these, hey, there’s tons more options out there. You just have to go look for them, because this is all I’ve got to show you for now. If you find any others that you like, though, share some links in comments on this post! I’d love to see some more cool-looking invitations, because I know there’s lots out there.

-Carly

Tip #18: Holiday-Themed Parties

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a happy holidays. We spent it with both my parents and my in-laws, like we have for the past couple of years, and it was a very fun couple of days. I’m lucky enough to have in-laws who get along with my family, thank god!
Anyways, Christmas passing by got me thinking about an idea for a blog post. Now, this is something I’ve never done before, but bear with me, because I think it’s a good idea. If your friend’s bachelorette party falls near a major holiday, don’t you think it would be fun to have a holiday-themed party? Like I said, I’ve never hosted one of those before because it never occurred to me or the parties never fell near holidays or whatever, but it seems like a great idea! Here are some pros I can think of:
-It would make searching for decorations a lot easier. You could just use normal decorations for that holiday, or you could mix those with bachelorette party decorations.
-You wouldn’t have to worry about matching outfits because you could dress for the holiday. Halloween is the most obvious example here, but other holidays work too - for Christmas you could all go out as sexy Santa’s helpers, for Valentine’s day you could be cupids or Victoria’s Secret angels, for St. Patrick’s Day you could all dress in green, there’s lots of possibilities!
-You could do holiday themed drinks and games, too, if it’s at home. Green beer and Irish carbombs at a St. Patty’s day party or spiked eggnog around Christmas time would sound great! And of course, for New Years you’ve got to have Champagne!
Basically, you’d get the best of both worlds, a holiday party and a bachelorette party all rolled into one. I’m sorry that because of my lack of experience in throwing this particular type of party, I can’t be more help about this topic or give you more specific ideas, but think of it as a springboard for you to use your imagination! I wish I had thought of this back while I was still hosting parties all the time! Maybe if someone asks for one in the next year or so... there’s still hope! Hopefully some of you reading this will get a good idea, at least. Let me know if you do!

-Carly

Tip #17: A Couple More Games

You girls are probably surprised I haven’t run out of games to talk about yet, huh? Well, believe me, I have plenty I’ve played to talk about what’s worked and what hasn’t. I could probably make this blog just about games and go on forever. But I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll make this my last post about games, at least for a while, and we’ll get back to other tips next time. I just remembered a couple of games that I really wanted to post about before we moved on.

The first one is one of my all-time favorite bar games, hands down. A little disclaimer, these aren’t just regular card or coin games I’m going to be talking about in this post, but I think this one is well worth the money. It’s only $10, after all. It’s called the Male Stereotypes Game.

I’ll try to explain it as best I can without giving too much away, because you really have to play this game to understand what’s so great about it. There are 36 cards in the game set, each depicting a stereotypical male - from the geek to the frat boy to the metrosexual. You give each girl a card (or more, if you want to play multiple rounds) and give them an hour to find the stereotype on their card. Bars aren’t the best place for this, because some stereotypes are much more common there than others, but if you’re out in a popular downtown area you should give your girls free reign to look all over the area for their targets (just make sure they don’t get lost!) Each card has some questions for the girls to ask their man, and dares to perform with him, and they get points based on what they do. Then, when time is up, the girls who have the most points win! It might not sound too spectacular, but trust me, I know from personal experience that running around looking for a tree hugger or a sports fanatic and asking him to do some of the crazy things on that sheet is super fun. This is one game I would suggest you do before the girls are too tipsy, though, so they don’t get lost, or worse, leave the party to be with one of the more desirable stereotypical males...

A game that gets more fun when you’re drunk, though, is this next one - Bachelorette Mad Libs.

I saw a mad libs book at the book store the other day when I was doing some last-minute christmas shopping and it made me remember when I played this at a friend’s bachelorette party and so I had to include it in this post. I don’t think I need to explain what mad libs is, everyone loves them. So really all I have to tell you is that some of the ones in here are especially good for girls thinking the way we always are at bachelorette parties. A great thing about this, now that I’m thinking about it, is that it’s versatile, you could have a fun time with it even if you keep things clean. But if you don’t, well, you can imagine all the hilarious possibilities.

Alright, like I said, that’s it for games now. Unless some really good idea comes up in my head between now and next time, the next post will be about something else, I promise.

-Carly

Tip #16: Coin Games

Like I said last time, I think I’ll continue with the drinking games theme again. This time it’ll be another simple type of game you can play with stuff you probably already have, but this is even easier to get ahold of than cards or dice. There are plenty of fun coin-based drinking games, too. And someone should certainly have a few coins on them, especially if you’re going out for the evening. Here are a couple fun coin games you can play whether you’re at home or at a bar. Well, they’re basically the same type of game, but a little different.

Okay, the first one is one I bet you’ve heard of before. It’s called quarters. This one’s really popular with guys at the bars or college kids but girls can have fun with it too. You all sit in a circle around a tall glass (usually a beer pitcher is used but you can use any big glass) on a hard surface like a table. You take turns trying to bounce a quarter off of the table and into the glass. If you get it in, you get to tell any of the other girls to drink and then you get to try again. If you miss, it’s the next girl’s turn. If you make three in a row, you get to make up a rule - anything you want. Be creative. I listed a couple possible rules in my post about the card game Waterfall. So that’s all there is to quarters. It’s simple, fun, and all you need is a coin and a glass, which you should have access to whether you’re at home or at a bar. Just make sure if you’re at a bar that you drink everything in the pitcher first or ask for a clean one, because you don’t want to have to reach into beer to retrieve the quarter after your success!

The other game I want to suggest is a variation of quarters which I think is even more fun. It’s called Ice Tray Quarters. Instead of a beer pitcher or glass, you use an icecube tray. Each different slot in the tray means something different if you land a quarter in. When it’s your turn, make sure the tray is facing you longways - so if it’s a 2 by 6 tray, there should be 2 columns and 6 rows. If you get your quarter in the right column, that’s the give side - you tell another girl to drink. But if you land it in the left column, that’s the take side - you have to take drinks, and then your turn is over as if you had missed it. But wait, there’s more! The number of drinks you give or take corresponds to how close the quarter is. If you get it in the closest row, that’s only one drink. But every row further back is more drinks. So if you get it in the furthest row, you’re giving or taking 6 drinks! Now I bet you see why I like this version better than regular quarters. You can get tipsy much faster this way! But no matter which version you and your girlfriends want to play, if you want to play a fun drinking game and don’t have anything on you but the change in your purses, quarters is a good bet.

See you next time,
Carly

Tip #15: Dice Games

You know, there are lots of fun games for bachelorette parties that I can think of, so I think I’ll continue with that theme for a while more. This time, I’m going to talk about another kind of drinking game, but instead of cards, it’ll be dice this time. Here’s a simple dice game called sixes.
First, you line up six empty party cups in a straight line and decide which end will be ‘1’ and which end will be ‘6’. Then you take turns rolling a die. The number you roll corresponds to one of the six cups. If it’s empty, you can fill it up with as much beer (or other beverage the players have agreed upon) as you want. If it’s already got booze in it, you have to drink what’s in it, then roll again. To keep the game flowing quickly, you should probably chug, but if you know you’re playing with girls who can’t chug, be careful not to fill the cups too much or the game will take quite a while.
In addition to that simple game you can play with ordinary dice, I wanted to share these special bachelorette party drinking dice I found.

You’ve probably seen pairs of novelty dice like this for all kinds of things, not just drinking games - sex positions is a popular one too. Anyways, this is fairly self explanatory. Whoever the first dice indicates drinks whatever the second dice indicates. This is a good, cheap game which I can tell just by looking at it will get everybody drunk pretty damn quickly, if you ask me.
This post seems kind of short, but that’s all I really have to say about drinking dice. I’m sure there are other fun dice games out there, so if you know one, post it as a comment here! I’m sure other readers will appreciate your ideas just as much as mine.

See you next time,
Carly