Hen do? For me, it’s hen don’t – especially if it’s abroad

A friend recently told me she doesn’t get invited to hen dos any more. “They just never ask me,” she shrugged over a couple of Aperols we’d been sipping in the Soho sunshine. “It’s been that way for the last five years; I can’t even remember what going to one feels like.”

A few years ago, a statement like that would have elicited sympathy. “Poor you!” I would’ve cooed performatively while quietly judging the woman in front of me, presuming this meant she had no friends. “Don’t worry,” I would’ve continued, conscious that she was looking for some kind of reassurance. “I’m sure you’ll get invited to some soon.”

But that wasn’t how I responded. Because in that moment, I didn’t pity my friend at all; I envied her.

It transpires that the reason she doesn’t get invited to hen dos has nothing to do with the quality of her friendships and everything to do with mutual respect, self-awareness, and emotional maturity.

“I’ve never liked hen dos,” she explained, citing the litany of financial, energetic, and logistical costs. “So slowly, over time, my close friends started to appreciate and understand that, and they kindly stopped asking me along. Honestly, it was such a relief.”

At this point, I should probably clarify that I love all of my friends whose hen dos I’ve been on, and that I don’t regret going to any of them. I’ve enjoyed them. Occasions when women are allowed to rejoice in one another’s company while being impossibly silly together are a rare and cherishable thing. Increasingly, though, I’ve realised it might not be a format that suits me.

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First off, there’s the fact that hen dos generally pull together a bunch of women who don’t know each other very well. This is the reality as I’ve moved into my thirties, anyway, when tight-knit groups from school and university have splintered and people’s friendship circles diversify, comprising colleagues, neighbours, cousins, and that influencer you met on Instagram.

Essentially, our close friends at this age tend to be people we pick up along the way. Introducing them all to one another on a hen do, and expecting them to instantly become one cohesive, harmonised, and well-balanced friendship group for the sake of the bride, is not always realistic.

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Then there’s the financial element. Most of the time, hen dos are organised by bridesmaids, who have a tendency to withhold some of the details about what you’re actually paying for in a bid to maintain the element of surprise.

It’s a cute idea until you’re asked to fork out £280 for a single day, with literally no clue where that money will go. Then you find out where the money has gone, and it doesn’t exactly fill you with joy: cocktail-making classes, life-drawing, treasure hunts, party bike tours of London... Sure, these are fun things to do, but they’re also expensive, and generally, probably not activities you’d ever choose to spend your own hard-earned cash on.

And yet, you simply have to say yes because that’s just what everyone does.

On top of this, there’s the logistical chaos that often ensues if the hen is anywhere outside of your hometown. This means overpriced train tickets, even more overpriced regional taxis, car shares with strangers, passive-aggressive requests for petrol contributions (I was once asked to pay someone £8.25 for fuel). All of it feels increasingly tedious with age.

Then there’s the saga of an overnight stay (or multiple nights). Everything will always be split equally. But, very often, overnight hen dos take place in rented homes with vast disparities. So inevitably, someone with a double bedroom and an en suite ends up paying the same amount as someone stuffed into a bunk bed with three others.

This might sound spoiled, or even a little tantrum-like. But trust me: once you’ve been sidelined to the sub-par room more than twice, it starts to grate.

Perhaps the bit I find the hardest to parse, though, is the reason why we do all this: because someone is getting married. Why is it that, in 2025, that’s the sole event that warrants such a ludicrously over-the-top celebration of a woman and her female friendships? That we go to these lengths, spending time, money, and energy without questioning any of it, purely because someone has decided to couple up till death (or divorce) do they part?

It feels wildly outdated, and out of sync with the beliefs my friends and I all subscribe to. It’s hard not to be resentful of that, especially if you’re single.

So, while I’ll still happily go along to hen dos, I’ll be doing so with the intention of making an effort to replicate that level of celebration for women elsewhere in my life, too. All of us deserve that, whether we decide to get married or not.