Why Traditional Bachelor & Bachelorette Parties Need To Stop Happening

They say your college years are the best years of your life. I don’t disagree. College is an older adolescent’s playground to freely experiment with majors, dating and drugs (usually) without consequences.

As we grow out of those college and post college stages, we begin to experience a new “best years of our lives” phase. We’re at a point now where we are beginning again. Beginning again in our careers, residing in new cities, having kids of our own and getting married.

If you’re between the ages of 28–31, you are considered a “mature millennial.” You haven’t heard of that? It’s because I just made that statistic and term up.

But if you do fall under this “mature millennial” category, or you feel like you belong in it, let me give you my opinion on this age of millennials having their “last hoorah” before tying the knot.

We Are Too Old (Sophisticated?) To Refer To Ourselves as “Bride Tribe”

I recently celebrated my friend’s bachelorette party in Austin, TX.

It was a blast. We stayed in an exceptionally stylish home, explored the city, danced the nights away and laughed so hard we cried.

And while it was a blast, and was not implicative of the typical sash-and- crown-wearing-parade filled with immature games, it really made me think about how twisted the age-old bachelor/bachelorette party tradition is, whilst witnessing other bachelor/bachelorette parties happening around us.

If you’re about to get married, it typically means you’re looking forward to spending the rest of your life with the person you’re marrying. It typically means you love this person dearly and would do nothing intentional to hurt them.

Why then, are people having these very public parties that could potentially jeopardize or even ruin their marriages before they even start?

There is a vast difference between having a good time and crossing the line when it comes to bachelor and bachelorette parties. And everyone reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Maybe some bride-and-grooms-to-be have a set agreement or “free pass” to do what they please while spending their last weekend reverting back to their single, partier selves.

Even if that is the case, doesn’t that make you feel dirty? Doesn’t that make you feel like you are betraying the person you are about to say “I do” to?

What Does The Last Hoorah Mean To You?

Bachelor and bachelorette parties, by definition, are “time-honored traditions typically involving a wild night out sometime shortly before getting married.”

Some people take the “wild” part a little too literal, which is precisely the part I have a problem with. I realize not everyone feels the same. Am I uptight? I don’t think so. I’m only uptight when it comes to picking up my son by his arms. DO NOT PICK HIM UP BY HIS ARMS.

Some view this as the end of an era as it is officially marking the end of your single life. And I get it, it is a big deal. It’s like your identity that you’ve had your entire life is now about to be forever joined with another person.

But if you’re the one getting married, you’re choosing that.

Maybe society is to blame.

But just because society says it’s acceptable to have one last wild night before entering a lifetime commitment to your partner, does that mean we are supposed to adhere to the century-old standard of what constitutes “a good time” as a final-standing bachelor or bachelorette?

Even though it feels like society makes all the rules, it doesn’t. Everyone just thinks “that’s the way it is” because we were raised being told “this is” or “this isn’t” societally correct.

No matter if we blame society, blame it on the alcohol or blame it on peer pressure, it’s all an excuse.

It’s an excuse to “have a last hoorah” or a “last shebang.”

Well, you and your “last shebang” are gross and you can’t sit with us.

And while many people are beginning to forgo the strip-tease / lap dance way of bidding farewell to their single selves, and instead celebrating their bachelor and bachelorette-ness by way of the spa or some other affluent activity, the stigma of that “wild night out” still stands.

The New And Improved Bachelorette Party

Can we start a new bachelor/bachelorette trend? One that makes us feel good and alive and special instead of drunk, hungover and guilty?

Heads up to everyone, my friends in particular, IF I have a bachelorette party, it will be a luxury Malibu vacation filled with exquisite dinners at Nobu, shopping on Rodeo Drive and rooftop champagne toasts. Perhaps we will wonder over to Napa Valley for a tres chic wine tasting experience.

Doesn’t riding bikes through grapevines sound much more marital than having an intoxicated stranger sweating on you at a crowded bar? I think so.

Thanks for reading!