THERE USED to be a time before the wedding when your best man or woman would take you down the local for a few. Never the night before the big day – just in case it ruined the whole thing. You’d reminisce about the good old times of freedom, drink enough to be mildly ill and then fall into bed happy that you’d been a bit naughty but still remained nice. No guilty secrets to spoil the honeymoon…
Not so now. It’s big business and it’s getting more and more raunchy each year. Last year Brits spent £430 million on stag and hen parties. No longer content with a night on the tiles down at The Red Lion, it is increasingly popular to take a long weekend and hit favourite hot spots such as Prague, Amsterdam and, of course, Ayia Napa.
According to research done by Egg insurance, one in three weddings in the UK will have parties abroad before the big day, costing between £500 and £1,000 a piece. Makes it an expensive send-off by your mates and a dangerous one: last year 14 per cent of men on stag parties abroad came home with broken bones.
A quick trawl on the web shows the number of companies now specialising in this phenomenon. ‘One’s Last Night of Freedom’, as its brochure so temptingly persuades. “If you’re going to have a stag weekend then do it properly – have it abroad. The women are fitter, the beer is cheaper, and the weather is (generally) warmer.”
So let’s look at what’s on offer for the boys. Prague and Amsterdam remain the two most popular destinations. Mainly because if you want it, you can find it, and a lot of what you can find involves sex workers.
Most brochures advertise days filled with paint-balling, bungee jumping, karting, high activity, high adrenalin blasts. As one British company advertises for its two-night, £182 package to Prague called, “Shoot and Strip” you get the chance to “shoot powerful firearms including the M16 automatic and the Glock semi-automatic – the bank robbers’ favourite”. You then get your very own love boat with two personalised strippers to shoot a more personal service.
Though hen parties tend to focus more on the pampering and partying, they too are increasingly being lured into the “you’re only young once, give it a try” schtick.
Cheap airlines are bringing the capitals of Europe within easy reach. To some extent this is the saving of Cyprus, as the cost and length of flights here start to prohibit three-day intensive breaks.
The Public Accounts Committee in the UK is recommending the British Foreign Office start to charge for its services to drunken and injured revellers as they stagger home from their stag-do. Consulates are allowed to charge £84.50 an hour for assisting Britons but this power is rarely used.
A Foreign Office spokesman said that 70 per cent of stag and hen parties now took place in cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, Prague, Dublin, Paris and Tallinn in Estonia. Of these, as many as one in four turn into horrors where a consulate is contacted directly by a stag party or by the police, usually because someone has been arrested for disorderly behaviour, got injured without adequate insurance or lost their passport and all their belongings.
The high jinks of stag nights which often involved the groom losing his trousers and being left naked in the centre of Milton Keynes, or being made to wear a chicken costume all night, or dancing with a gorilllagram, seem to have gone forever. Now we are looking at package stag and hen parties with all the pressure to outperform the last one.
The ultimate brag at the office has to be the North Pole in 24 hours, for a mere £4,999, with a champagne lunch at the Russian run Ice Station Borneo. As the brochure advertises, “Will your friends really go to the ends of the earth for you on your stag weekend?”
A bit of me thinks that this is all just good fun, letting off steam before settling down. Having a laugh with mates is fine, but there seems to be a darker side. The financial cost to pay for trips is pushing young people into debt, the pressure to pay because you don’t want to feel left out or that you’re letting someone down.
The feelings of guilt afterwards that in a foreign land you behaved in a way you would never do with friends at home and the inevitable use of prostitutes with the health risks entailed.
Nope, I think I’d still opt for the old-fashioned variety. A night down the pub with mates; a home made video of you singing karaoke – badly – in your boxers; home safely in your own bed, and a final drink-induced soppy phone-call to the one you love.
??
??
??
??
