In a world of crappy Tinder dates, pop up restaurants with block-length queues, dickpics substituted for charm and rising rents pushing you far into the suburbs, away from all the fit people who're meant to flock to metropolitan cities, it's nothing short of a miracle that a couple can meet, get to know each other, fall giddily (or even trudgingly) in love to announce their engagement. It is sort of sickening that adulthood has been bestowed on your friendship group via a series of save the dates for antiquated joinings of hands and hearts before a knees up under a steamed-up marquee. But it's also a very easy way of getting all your mates together. And making new ones. And the hen party is no different. Far from the bride's last hurrah before a stringent diet of air ahead of fitting into just the right dress that'll get muddy by 6pm anyway, it's a an opportunity to hang out and meet the following:
1. The occasional drinker
For this woman, her head has been totting up her weekly recommended allowance of alcohol units since the last 21st birthday she attended. It's not a health recommendation, it's a rollover. Catch her doing just that at the bottom of the vodka and soda dripping bar just as a game of Mr and Mrs kicks off. 'Mhairi's not normally like this!' The bride will say, as a bartender mops up the vomit using those industrial big blue sheets of toilet paper. Catch her at the wedding, completely unembarrassed, because as far as she's aware, she's never seen you before!
2. The older reveller
Childbirth changes women. Not only can their insides prove to spring forth with life, but they've developed an uncanny ability to sip drinks instead of gulp them, chasing every shot of alcohol with three of water. They're also patient enough to pretend they're interested when you're yammering on about what you know about kids, and will calmly yet assertively ensure everyone is having the right sort of fun.
3. The shy friend from home
She's practically mute, but remember her hearing's perfect enough to prove a barrier to you asking your mutuals why on earth she's there. Mysteriously, she will peel off at the earliest possibility, before it is revealed that she's gone off to get wasted with her local drug dealer boyfriend.
4. The bolshy friend from home
The thing is with this woman, is what she says, goes. She's got the best ideas, the biggest energy and she likes to declare that what you see is what you get. Booze has the strange effect of quietening her up, though. Either she'll end up crying in the toilets about how she's just insecure that she's not getting married OR she'll be too busy doing interpretive dance to Rihanna or funnels of WKD to make much noise.
5. The sister-in-law to be
Spending most of the night fending off gawps from those unable to process how much she looks like her brother, catch her photographing the most embarrassing moments from the hen do to show to the rest of the family. Except the bit where someone asked the bride if they fancied the sister-in-law to be because she is the exact spitting image of her brother…
6. The latecomer
She’ll breeze in for some mysterious reason, kiss each attendee (even the ones nobody really knows that well) on the cheek and charm her way around the room. That, or she’ll sneak into proceedings all flustered and nervous and seemingly on the verge of tears and then you wonder however she’ll make it through the actual wedding. Ideally, a hen party has two of these latecomers; the sad one to make you feel less angry about the tardiness of the upbeat one, and the upbeat one to stop the sad one from being so bloody miserable. It’s a hen party for god’s sake!
7. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-her
Just as hen parties and weddings come to fill up our mid to late 20s’ summer calendars, so too do other rituals; sports teams, personal challenge training (see: everyone and their mum doing a marathon or a sponsored walk or something earnest and fulfilling), going to a car boot sale. So don’t mind if one hen partier slinks off at 9.30pm; chances are they’re just doing something much more adult than the rest of us.
8. The cock-lover
A lawyer by day, come the hen party, her favourite talking topic is cock. From showing you videos of men wanking to flinging any vaguely phallic implement about while yelling ‘COCK, I LOVE COCK! WHAT! A! COCK!’, she is bound to put every single novelty shop selling penis-shaped party tricks out of business because with her about to turn everything into a cock, who needs a paltry cock straw?
9. The maid of honour
The one who thinks she brought you here via her meticulous precision in planning everything from the cabs to the party games and the sash.
10. The bride
The one who actually brought you here by actually stepping back from all the WhatsApp groups and chain emails and making you miss her so much that you wanted to share this special evening/weekend/holiday with her. The one who you certainly won’t be seeing much in the run-up to the wedding and the one who makes any of your problems with any of the above types of hen partiers worth it.
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Follow Sophie on Twitter: @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.