The smell came first. Citronella candles, Scotch eggs that had gone warm in their tub, grass mown that very morning. Then the sound — eleven voices murdering "Mr Brightside" on a Bluetooth speaker the size of a grapefruit, always one beat behind the music. Under my palms, the gingham blanket had soaked up the damp from the lawn (and someone had just knocked elderflower pressé over the corner I was holding). 8.40pm, late April, in a park in Hackney. The last stop of my best friend's hen do — the friend who'd asked me to be her maid of honour one Sunday morning in January.
That picnic cost us £10 a head, food included. The workshop earlier that afternoon had swallowed most of the kitty. And yet, when I asked her a few weeks after the wedding what she remembered most, she didn't hesitate: "The soggy blanket. All of you singing out of tune." Not the workshop. The blanket.
That's the paradox of the hen party: the budget doesn't make the memory, but it can very easily make the falling-out. Between April and June, the invitations land in WhatsApp groups — a date poll, a list of ideas, and sooner or later a message suggesting Ibiza. The ONS counted 246,897 marriages in England and Wales in 2022, and notes that the last Saturday in July or the first Saturday in September tends to be the most popular wedding day. Work backwards a few weeks and you land squarely in hen season. If you're 24, with rent, a first proper job (or an internship), you know exactly which message I mean.
So here are 30 hen party ideas sorted by budget per person, each with the group size it suits best. Then the part nobody enjoys: the kitty, the deposits, the friend who can't keep up. For the timeline and the wider maid of honour role, everything is in my complete guide to being a wedding witness, from the register to the speech. Here, we're talking ideas — and money.
Hen do budget: set a per-person cap before you choose an activity
A hen do budget gets decided before the ideas, never after. You announce a cap per person in the invitation, and everything else follows: which activities are possible, how long it lasts, where it happens. Do it the other way round and the group latches onto the most expensive idea (the one that made everyone swoon in the poll), then spends three weeks trying to squeeze it into everyone's bank account.
How do you set the cap? Not by asking "is £200 OK for everyone?" in the group chat — nobody says no in front of ten people. You ask privately, or you run an anonymous poll. My rule: the cap is whatever the most stretched friend can pay, among the friends the bride-to-be really wouldn't want to do without. Not the group average. Her.
In my version, the cap covers the activity, shared meals, decorations and the bride's share — because, unless agreed otherwise, the group treats her. Travel stays separate: between the friend who hops on the Overground and the one coming down from Edinburgh, a shared travel pot makes no sense.
My four brackets:
- Under £25 a head: no supplier, you pay for food and a train ticket.
- £25 to £70: a hosted activity — one ticket, one instructor — and a simple meal.
- £70 to £130: a rarer workshop or a private hire, with a proper dinner.
- Over £130: one or two nights, so accommodation.
These brackets are mine: they come from the hen dos I've watched come together around me, mostly in London. Prices vary a lot between cities and seasons, so always ask for a group rate — in writing — before you announce anything.
Under £25 a head: 8 hen party ideas that cost almost nothing
A hen do under £25 a head has no supplier to pay: your money goes on food, decorations and a train ticket. Preparation replaces budget — and that effort is often what moves the bride-to-be most.
1. The golden-hour picnic
A blanket, homemade food, a speaker, a game of rounders. Add a colour dress code (everyone in dusty pink, her in white) and your photos are sorted. Just check the park rules — barbecues, alcohol, closing times. Best group size: 4 to 25, the most flexible format on the list.
2. A free museum day, then afternoon tea
The most underrated budget idea in the UK: free entry to all DCMS-sponsored national museums began on 1 December 2001, and it's still the backbone of a great day out. The game that goes with it: everyone picks the artwork that most resembles the bride — and defends it over scones. Best group size: 4 to 10 (beyond that, it feels like a school trip).
3. The "Who knows the bride best?" quiz
You collect questions from her partner, her mum, her colleagues: her first gig, her worst haircut, the name of her childhood teddy. Pub-quiz rules, teams, a proper answer sheet — and gentle forfeits. Best group size: 6 to 20.
4. A treasure hunt through the places of her life
Her first flat, the café of her first date with her partner. At each stop, a riddle, a photo to recreate, a friend waiting with a clue. The longest idea to prepare — and the one most likely to make her cry (happy tears). Best group size: 8 to 20, in teams of 3 or 4.
5. A countryside walk, by train
A proper walk an hour out of town, a picnic at the top, a group nap in the grass. The only cost is the ticket — and if you're under 26, the 16-25 Railcard costs £35 a year and takes 1/3 off rail travel (there's a 26-30 Railcard too). Pick a route the least sporty friend can finish without suffering — it's a hen do, not a fell race. Best group size: 4 to 12.
6. A day at the seaside
Brighton, Margate, Whitstable, whatever's within reach: in June, it's the best memories-per-pound ratio on the list. Windbreak, cards, chips, ice cream. Best group size: no limit, as long as someone guards the bags.
7. The retro sleepover
Face masks, nail varnish, popcorn and a cult film (Mamma Mia!, unbeatable for singing out of tune). Best group size: 4 to 10 — the sofa decides.
8. Bring-a-dish brunch and a craft afternoon
Everyone brings a dish, and the afternoon goes on making something together: dried-flower crowns, friendship bracelets, painted tote bags. The materials are shared, the keepsake stays. Best group size: 6 to 15.
£25 to £70 a head: 8 hen party ideas with a hosted activity
Between £25 and £70 a head, the hen do gets a supplier (a room, an instructor, the kit) and a simple meal. It's the bracket with the most ideas — and the one where you need to read the small print on the quote.
9. An escape room, then dinner
An hour to get out of a room, two hours of debrief over pizza to establish who panicked. Rooms are designed for small teams: with a big group, book several rooms in the same slot and turn it into a competition. Best group size: 4 to 6 per team.
10. A private karaoke booth
A room hired by the hour, a microphone passed from hand to hand (from Whitney to the Spice Girls). The room is paid as a block — the bigger the group, the lighter your share. Best group size: 6 to 15.
11. A cocktail masterclass, with or without alcohol
A bartender teaches the basics, everyone leaves with a signature recipe. Ask every time for an alcohol-free version: there's always someone driving, someone who doesn't drink, or someone who'd rather not explain. Best group size: 6 to 12.
12. A dance class
Heels, burlesque, pole, salsa, K-pop — there's a style for everyone. The cleverest version: a short routine the group can bring out again at the wedding. Warn the teacher about the group's real level (usually: zero). Best group size: 6 to 15.
13. A pottery class
Hands in clay, focused silence, then fits of giggles over wonky bowls. The most calming idea on the list — perfect for a bride-to-be at the end of her tether. Ask when the pieces will be ready (they need to dry and be fired, so collection comes later). Best group size: 4 to 10.
14. Life drawing or paint and sip
The life drawing class is a British hen classic — check first that the bride would find it funny rather than mortifying. The paint-and-sip version keeps everyone's clothes on: a canvas, an artist guiding you step by step, a glass in hand. Nobody can paint — that's the point. Best group size: 6 to 15.
15. Bowling or crazy golf, then burgers
Not the most original, but the format that best absorbs a mixed group — school friends, colleagues, the sister-in-law who knows nobody. Everyone can play. Best group size: 10 to 25.
16. A candle-making workshop
Blend the scents, pour, wait. You leave with a candle that will smell of the hen do for months (yes, my obsession with scent again). Best group size: 4 to 12.
£70 to £130 a head: 7 hen party ideas with a proper highlight
Between £70 and £130 a head, the hen do still fits into one day but buys a moment you wouldn't have on an ordinary Saturday. It's also the bracket where you have to check the whole group can keep up — we're leaving treats behind and entering real spending.
17. A perfume-making workshop
My favourite, no surprise (I've worn Shalimar since I was 22). With a perfumer, you smell raw materials, learn what a top note is, and each of you composes your own bottle. The detail that changes everything: the bride creates the scent she'll wear on the day — it will take her back there for years. Best group size: 4 to 10.
18. A spa day
Robes, steam room, a treatment, a long lunch: the cocooning hen do. Places are limited, so book as soon as the date is set. Best group size: 4 to 8.
19. A self-drive boat, or a skippered narrowboat
On a canal or a river, some hire companies offer small electric boats by the hour, with a short briefing before you set off. Picnic on board. For a bigger group, a boat with a skipper saves you the manoeuvres (and the bumps against the towpath). Best group size: 6 to 12 per boat.
20. A cookery class, then dinner
You cook together in the afternoon and eat what the group made in the evening. Two activities for the price of one — and a group that relaxes. Best group size: 6 to 12.
21. A photoshoot with a photographer
In coordinated outfits, the bride leaves with real photos of her friends — not forty blurry selfies. Ask how many edited shots are included. Best group size: 4 to 10.
22. An active day: paddleboarding, kayaking or treetop trails
For the bride who can't sit still: outdoors in the morning, a proper dinner in the evening. Check everyone can swim — the question is less awkward the night before than at the water's edge. Best group size: 6 to 20.
23. A vineyard tour, with lunch
English sparkling wine has become a genuine day out, from Sussex to Kent: a guided tasting, lunch on the estate. Sort out the journey home before you leave — train, minibus with a driver, or a designated driver who doesn't drink. Best group size: 6 to 15.
Over £130 a head: 7 hen weekend ideas
Beyond £130 a head, the hen do becomes a hen weekend: one or two nights, accommodation, usually a journey. The bracket of the best memories… and the most drop-outs. The longer it lasts, the more likely someone can't come (money, annual leave, childcare).
24. The cottage weekend
The great classic, for a good reason: the house is paid as a block, so it gets cheaper per head as the group grows. Cotswolds, Peak District, a hot tub if you're lucky, games night, a collective lie-in. Best group size: 8 to 20.
25. A seaside weekend, by train
A rental near the beach, bikes, fish and chips on the harbour wall. Look at weekends outside school holidays before you fix the date. Best group size: 6 to 12.
26. A European city break
Lisbon, Barcelona, Amsterdam. I have a soft spot for Lisbon (my first solo trip, the best of my life). Book early. Best group size: 4 to 10 (finding a table for fourteen on a Saturday night quickly becomes a sport).
27. A spa hotel weekend
Treatments, a pool, naps. Perfect for a bride worn out by the planning — much less so for one who wants to dance until 4am. Best group size: 4 to 8.
28. Treehouses or glamping
A night up in the trees or under a luxury bell tent, breakfast delivered in a hamper. Capacity is small: it's the hen do for tight-knit little groups. Best group size: 4 to 8.
29. A music festival
I've done around thirty festivals, and I say this from experience: it's the most intense hen do on the list. Wristbands, camping, glitter on the cheekbones. Only book it if the bride truly loves crowds — and noise. Best group size: 4 to 10.
30. A big house with a private chef
The comfiest version: a big house, a chef who comes to cook on the Saturday night, and nobody on washing-up duty. Best group size: 10 to 16.
Small group, big group: which hen party ideas suit which group size
Group size changes the price per person more than the activity itself does. There are costs that get shared (the house, the private room, the instructor) and costs that multiply (the ticket, the workshop place, the meal). The first kind falls for each person as the group grows — the second doesn't move.
For most of these ideas, the ideal group is 6 to 12 people. Below that, private hire gets expensive per head. Above it, logistics become a job in themselves.
| Group size | What works | What gets tricky | My three favourite ideas |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 to 6 people | Anything intimate. | Private hire, pricey per head. | Perfume, spa hotel, city break. |
| 7 to 12 people | Most workshops and cottages. | Matching everyone's diaries. | Pottery, karaoke booth, cottage. |
| 13 and over | Teams and the great outdoors. | Restaurants, cascading drop-outs. | Treasure hunt, bowling, giant picnic. |
With a very big group, split the day: one shared highlight for everyone (the picnic, the dinner) and activities in smaller groups in the afternoon.
The hen do kitty: how much to ask for, when, and how to keep the peace
A calm hen do kitty rests on three rules: an amount fixed before you book, the bride's share stated in black and white, and a payment deadline set before the first cost you can't get back. The rest is arithmetic (and a bit of diplomacy).
Here's a made-up example, just for the method. Ten guests, including the bride-to-be. A workshop at £35 a head (£350), dinner at £25 a head (£250), £45 for decorations and a small gift. Total: £645. Since the bride doesn't pay, you divide by nine — £71.67 each. I round up to £75, which leaves £30 for surprises (the taxi home, the forgotten bottle). Whatever's left gets refunded or added to the gift, and everyone knows that from the start.
For tools, anything works as long as one person keeps the books: a bank transfer to the organiser, a shared-expenses app, or a group pot on your banking app. My favourite set-up is a pair — one friend collects and pays, another checks.
Timing matters as much as the amount: a first payment when you book (half, say), the balance three weeks before. Anything off-programme — the third round, the souvenir bought on the day — is on each person. And after the hen do, you send a breakdown with receipts: transparency kills suspicion before it starts.
Cottage, workshop, restaurant: deposits, and what the group risks when someone drops out
Before you pay anything on the group's behalf, find two dates in the booking terms: the last day you can cancel without losing money, and the day the balance is due. Those two dates decide what the group loses if the hen do falls through.
Read what the terms say about the deposit itself — whether it's refundable, partly refundable, or gone the moment you pay. If the terms are vague, ask the supplier to confirm by email before you transfer a penny. Holiday rentals booked through a platform follow that platform's own cancellation policy — read it before you click, and note the date after which nothing comes back.
That date becomes your internal deadline. My rule, written into the invitation: until a set day, a guest can pull out and get her share back; after that, the place is paid for, unless she finds a replacement the bride-to-be approves. It's hard to write. But it stops the rest of the group from paying for a last-minute drop-out.
When a friend can't afford the hen do: solutions without the awkwardness
A friend who can't afford it is handled privately, never in the group. One individual message, a real question ("is this amount a problem for you?"), and a solution offered before she has to ask. A hen do without one of the bride's closest friends isn't a successful hen do — however nice the venue.
The solutions that work, in order of preference:
- The short option: she comes to the activity and dinner, not the overnight stay.
- Paying in three instalments, timed around her paydays.
- Contributing in kind: she makes the cake, the playlist or the quiz, and her share drops accordingly.
- A lower cap for everyone: if two or three guests are in the same boat, the cap was too high.
And if you're the one who can't afford it? Let me be blunt: saying no to an overpriced weekend isn't abandoning your friend. It's sparing her the discovery, three months later, that your overdraft paid for her hen do. Say it early, privately, to the organiser — and offer what you can do instead.
Drink, driving, photos: the rules for a hen do that ends well
A good hen do is one everybody gets home from in one piece, with no regrettable photo online. Three things to sort out beforehand: alcohol, the journey home, and social media.
On drink, the NHS page on the risks of drinking too much warns that drinking too much too quickly on a single occasion raises the risk of accidents, misjudging risky situations and losing self-control. Its advice is simple — drink more slowly, drink with food, alternate with water or soft drinks. If a friend is in a bad way, the NHS guidance on alcohol poisoning is clear: call 999 if you think someone has alcohol poisoning, stay with them because they could choke on their own sick, and put them in the recovery position if they've passed out. No more alcohol, no coffee.
Behind the wheel, the GOV.UK page on the drink drive limit sets it at 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 50 in Scotland — and adds that "it's impossible to say exactly how many drinks this equals". The simplest answer for whoever's driving is not to drink at all. Pick the designated driver before the first toast, not at 1am (and her share of the kitty can be trimmed as a thank-you).
As for photos, before posting the bride-to-be in a tulle veil with her head in an ice bucket, ask her. A yes to having a photo taken isn't a yes to having it online — and a hen do lives on in group chats long after the weekend. Costumes and forfeits should start from what she enjoys, not from a hen-do checklist: if she hates being the centre of attention, L-plates and a printed sash on the high street will be torture. Ask her first — or ask her partner. And in a rented house, turn the music down at a reasonable hour (the neighbours weren't invited).
What the bride-to-be will actually remember
What a bride remembers is rarely the paid-for activity — it's the moment she felt surrounded. At every hen do I've been to, the most-quoted memory comes down to a detail (a song, a letter, a soggy blanket), almost never the price of the day.
What makes the difference is the personal touches: the soundtrack of her life (one song for every year since she was 15), the letters, the group photo taken at the right moment. Slip one or two into any bracket and your hen do moves up a category.
If you set a colour dress code, keep white for her — the same rule as on the day, which I cover in the rules for wedding guest outfits. And jot down the anecdotes as the day goes on: they'll feed a wedding speech that gets laughs without humiliating anyone.
My advice to get started, tonight: before you reply to the poll suggesting Ibiza, write down the three things the bride loves most in the world. Then pick, in the bracket your group can genuinely afford, the idea that ticks at least two of them.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a hen do cost?
Allow under £25 a head for a day with no supplier (picnic, quiz), £25 to £70 with a hosted activity, £70 to £130 with a real highlight and a proper dinner, and over £130 for a weekend with a night away. Set the cap on what the most stretched friend among the bride's closest can afford.
Does the bride pay for her own hen do?
No, in most groups: her share is split between everyone else. Say so in the invitation so everyone can work out their share. If the bride insists on paying her own travel or room, that's her call.
How many people should you invite to a hen do?
The bride decides the guest list, not the organiser. For most activities, a group of 6 to 12 is the easiest to manage. Beyond 13, favour team activities, the outdoors and a restaurant used to big tables.
What happens if a guest cancels after paying?
It depends on the supplier's terms and on the rule set out in the invitation. If a drop-out deadline was agreed, it applies. Otherwise, the simplest fix is a replacement approved by the bride, who takes over the place and the share.
What hen party ideas work if the bride doesn't drink?
Pottery, perfume-making, dance, a photoshoot, a treasure hunt, a boat, a museum: plenty of choice, and cocktail masterclasses come alcohol-free too. Her reasons are her business — adapt the plan without asking questions.
Can you split a hen do in two when friends live far apart?
Yes. One shared highlight in the bride's city, and a long-distance contribution for those who can't come: a letter for the book, a video, a song on the playlist. Nobody is left out.