‘I spent £1,000 on a hen party. You feel like you have to do it’

“Hey ladies, it’s that time again. Please transfer £300 by 7pm tonight for accommodation, matching outfits, and surprise gifts for the bride :)”

It’s the message lots of us in our 20s and 30s are used to getting.

That includes Hayley, 29, who says she spent more than £1,000 attending a hen party in Marbella, Spain.

“In the WhatsApp groups, it’s always initially the flights and the hotel,” Hayley says, “and then afterwards it’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to this beach club, we’re getting that T-shirt, we’re going to do that cocktail club’.

“You feel like you have to do it.”

Hen and stag dos, like weddings and baby showers, are a chance to celebrate big milestones in our friends’ lives. But what was once a night down the pub has, for many, become an entire weekend away. And for some, the costs are too much.

“Don’t mind me, just choosing whether to attend or pay my rent for the next three months *crying face emoji*,” wrote one TikTok user, in a video about expensive hen parties.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lucy, told me the rising price of friendship feels like it’s spiralling out of control.

“It’s that time of life where everyone is getting engaged, married or having kids,” Lucy says. “And the costs of celebrating all of that adds up.”

“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” adds Charles, who’s 27. “Lots of my friends work in the public sector, and it’s a struggle to keep up.”

So what are the pitfalls when organising a hen, a stag, or even a wedding? And is there a way to keep everyone happy?

One common theme is that people feel pressured into saying “yes” to attending to avoid upsetting friends, or worse, looking cheap.

“I see TikToks all the time, saying: ‘Just say no, it’s so simple,'” says Anna, who asked the BBC not to use her real name. “But it causes so much falling out, it’s ridiculous.”

The 29-year-old says her cousin chose to hold her hen party in Spain, at a cost of about £300 per person for flights and accommodation, before factoring in spending money.

Anna says she told her cousin she couldn’t afford it, but was then hit with passive aggressive messages.

“[She said] ‘Just save £20 a month for the next year,'” Anna says. “But I didn’t have that. Then she said, ‘Ask your dad’.”

Begrudgingly, Anna agreed to go – but the hen was then cancelled due to Covid.

She’s since been invited to a number of other hen parties and weddings. She feels she can’t justify the costs – but doesn’t want to be labelled as the friend who can’t afford it.

“I could imagine the comments behind [my] back,” Anna says.

Then there are the costs when you actually get to said hen, stag or wedding.

My best friend Claire got married recently and as a lifelong raver, had decided to hold her hen party in Ibiza.

As her bridesmaids, we tried to keep costs down. Hotels were prohibitively expensive, so we opted for a hostel instead. It looked decent online, but turned out to be not dissimilar to a prison cell.

With flights, accommodation and spending in bars and clubs, the whole trip set us back about £1,000 each.

Still, according to research, we did comparatively well.

According to a study from Aviva in 2023, stag and hen invitees spent an average of £779 per person in the UK, and £1,208 abroad. The average price abroad was £1,664 this year, according to a separate study by the insurer.

For Jasmine, who’s 28, it’s the unexpected costs that are the worst. She’s been to hen parties where there’s been a set price, but then additional payments of up to £100 per person were asked for.

“And you’ve already committed and you don’t want to pull out,” she says.

Jasmine, who’s engaged to be married, thinks an appropriate amount to spend should be in the region of £100-200, “as you’d spend that on a day or night out anyway”.

Then there’s the thorny question of splitting bills.

Another woman, who we’re calling Jemima, says on a recent hen weekend, she had to contribute to a central kitty for bars – even though she doesn’t drink.

“It made no sense, but you have to go along with the flow,” the 34-year-old says. “The bills kept racking up and up.”

This is not just a British problem, either. TikTok creator, Sydney Jo from New York, recently told me as she and her friends approach their 30s, bachelorettes and weddings have become a major source of drama. And that’s provided excellent content for her viral series about a girls’ group chat.

In a recent episode, set during a bachelorette trip to Costa Rica, one of the characters declares that her friend is “driving her insane”.

“The money stuff?” her friend guesses.

“Yes, THANK YOU,” the 27-year-old replies. “It’s like, refusing to order Ubers, being so annoying about the cheque at every single meal… Seriously? I’m going to lose it.”

Once you’re done with the hen and stag do, then you have to factor in the cost of going to the big day itself.

Lucy went to a friend’s wedding in Switzerland last year which she says cost her about £700. It was in a “really random town”, she says, which involved taking a train and a bus, and accommodation options were very limited which meant she had to stay in an expensive hotel, driving up costs. Food was covered, but everyone had to pay for their own drinks.

“It was a lovely day,” Lucy says. “But very expensive.”

The couple are now getting divorced. “So that was a waste of money,” she adds.

Elle got married in Cyprus when she was in her early 30s. She’s also now divorced, and says, on reflection, it wasn’t worth it.

Family and friends had flown out, and in the lead up to the wedding activities like paragliding and boat days had been booked, so the costs had really added up.

“Looking back, I wouldn’t have done a destination wedding. I know how much pressure it put people under,” Elle says. “One of my bridesmaids was upset as she couldn’t afford it and for a while she was too scared to tell me. Eventually she did, and I felt really bad.”

So how to navigate this minefield? Personal finance expert Laura Suter has the following advice:

• Discuss budgets upfront. Setting a realistic budget early helps avoid awkwardness later
• Group activities should be planned around all budgets. What feels reasonable to one person can feel excessive to another
• Ask yourself, do you really need matching outfits for each day? One fun accessory is often enough
• Don’t be afraid to say no if the trip is becoming unaffordable. Most friends would prefer honesty
• If you find yourself repeatedly under pressure, don’t be shy to rethink those friendships

Lucy, who’s getting married herself next year, says previous experience has made her conscious of costs for her guests.

Charles, who’s also planning his wedding, agrees.

“Many of my mates already have multiple weddings booked in for next year, and I want to make sure everyone can come to mine,” he says.

“Speaking to my best man, we might do my stag when the World Cup is on so we don’t have to plan activities – everyone will just go to the pub and watch the football – that will definitely save on costs.”