How to plan a bachelorette party

Most brides have an opinion about the city and one thing they either want or refuse, so you should ask those two questions and stop there. After that, the planning is the gift, and running every decision past her turns the weekend into another item on her list.

Nashville, Charleston, and Palm Springs keep showing up because the houses, dinners, and nights out sit close together. A worked Nashville weekend is a decent starting shape if nobody in the group has planned one of these before.

Post the estimated per-person total before deposits go down, because a bridesmaid dropping out over a cost she was never asked about is the standard failure here. Splitting by category keeps it from becoming a spreadsheet war in the group chat at eleven at night.

Build the weekend around one anchor a day and keep Sunday light, because brunch, an afternoon activity, and a night out is already a full Saturday. Add a fourth thing and something gets cut on the day, usually the thing the bride wanted.

Ten people is where restaurants stop being casual, since above eight most places want a set menu or a private room, and a walk-in Saturday night for a group that size does not happen. Call ahead and ask what they do with parties of ten, and then put the shy friend next to somebody she knows.

Friday: land, house, dinner in the neighborhood, nothing heroic. Saturday: one daytime activity that took a deposit, a boat or a class or a tour, then a real gap, and then the night out. Sunday: late breakfast, something walkable, early flights for whoever booked them. That is a full weekend, because a second daytime activity on Saturday is how the night out begins tired.

Charleston, Palm Springs, and Nashville all fit that shape because the good parts sit close together. A Charleston weekend or a Palm Springs weekend is a starting map, so you should change any of it that does not suit your group.

The house, the Saturday night table, and anything that takes a deposit go first, while everything else lives on a maybe list. People will keep adding bars until the list is unreadable, so pick the neighborhood for Saturday night and let the rest flex around it.

Send one link, because side chats with a second itinerary are how half the group turns up at last week's restaurant. Sharing a live plan is the entire communication strategy, and it fits on a phone.

Decide early whether this is a big-night weekend or a slow one, because both are good on their own. Mixing them is how you end up with four people on a rooftop at midnight and two asleep by ten, while everybody pays the same share.

The maid of honor books three things and then defends the gap on Saturday afternoon. That gap is where the naps, the swim, and the part where everyone gets on with each other happen. It looks like slack in the schedule, which is why it gets cut, and it is the reason the night works.