Normally our parties are aimed at children but we’ve done a few adult ones in our time too and love a different challenge. This year, we have a wedding in the family and were given the role of planning a hen party in Glasgow. Since it’s a summer wedding and the bride is a bit of a party animal and loves all things music and dancing, the idea of a festival theme seemed perfect! We already run children’s Funky Festival parties so had a few ideas to get started with.
Before attending our festival, we wanted to plan some fun activities to get everyone warmed up. The bride, Aileen, who now works as a personal trainer (Aileen Goldie Personal Training, if anyone needs one!) , has an HND in professional stage dance and completed a year at London Theatre School studying Musical Theatre, so a recording session at Glasgow Music Studios was an ideal start to the day. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience from the lovely people there, we had a fabulous buffet, plenty of drinks to warm the vocal chords and our own private room to chill in between recordings. We sang Dancing Queen by Abba and Crazy in Love by Beyonce – perfect for our dancing diva! Even the non singers amongst us felt relaxed and joined in with great gusto! Big thank you to Lynne and Jacqueline for their help in organising the studio session and to Erin who did all the recording and editing on the day – she even managed to make us sound in tune! We all left the studios with our own CD and lots of laughs!
Part two of the day was a trip on a party bus. We booked Party Bus Glasgow and they didn’t disappoint! The driver was so friendly and joined in with the dancing (while the bus was stationary of course!). He made sure our youngest guest, thirteen year old Clare, was well catered for with a never ending supply of juice and Haribo!
For the final part of the day, we booked, The Stage Door, private function room in The Griffin bar on Bath Street, Glasgow. The name caught our eye with the festival theme in mind and it certainly lived up to expectations. The venue has it’s own front door and the interior is classic yet modern, with a ceiling curtain of twinkling fairy lights and screen for displaying videos. The decor is lovely in it’s own right but we loved how it was also a fairly blank canvas for transforming into Aileen’s Festival! Here’s how the venue looked before we took over…
(Photos courtesy of www.thegriffinglasgow.co.uk and www.glasgowlive.co.uk)
A lot of hen night colour schemes seem to involve either pinks or black and gold. We decided that this one would be different, bright and bold. With this in mind, our first stop was adding colour to the room. We arranged balloons through Caesars Party and Wedding and they were perfect. Large clear bubbles, filled with bright balloons and weighed down with a rainbow of colours instantly added the festival fun to the room that we were looking for.
As well as the balloons, we added a few other touches to the decor. Shredded party confetti was sprinkled on the tables (along with some other goodies which we’ll mention soon) along with streamers and bunting being dotted around the room – all in the boldest colours we could find! We also set up a tent scene at the front of the room. This added to the festival vibes, provided a focal point to the room and also doubled up as a novelty photo booth. We used a large mat of fake grass under the pop up sun tent to make it look as realistic as possible. A disco light, wellies and a camping stool were popped inside and helped to pull the whole look together.
So that was decorations sorted…now what were we going to do to entertain twenty five girls for the evening? As well some fun hen party games, a quiz about the bride and a Mr and Mrs quiz (the groom revealed his answers via video on the big screen – much to the bride’s horror!), we booked a Pimp your Prosecco Cart and Prosecco Wall from It’s the Little Things. It fitted in perfectly with the theme and had the bride to be jumping up and down in excitement when she entered the room! For those of you unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with a Pimp your Prosecco Cart, it comes with various cordials and fruit garnishes to add a little bit of oomph to your bubbly!
It wouldn’t be a festival without a bit of sparkle so we set up a makeover station to get everyone glammed up. We included – face glitter and gems, hair glitter, neon face paint, bright eyeshadows and metallic tattoos. On the tables, we left everyone a flower hair garland, glow sticks, shutter shades and lip photo props – there were a few more accessories inside the goodie bags as well! Everyone had made a great effort with their outfits too which really added to the fun.
We provided each guest with a goodie bag full of hen party and festival essentials. Each one was made up with a neon party bag and personalised label. The bags all contained:
- Personalised VIP pass
- Neon access wristband
- Bride squad badge
- Plastic poncho
- Tissues
- Hand gel
- Glow sticks
- Sherbet straws
- Neon plasters
The Griffin provided a lovely buffet to soak up some of that prosecco and let us play all our own music until midnight – when of course we all headed home to bed for a good night’s sleep.
OR NOT.
We hope this has given you some ideas if you’re planning a similar night! We’d love to help with your event, so if you have any questions or party planning requests please get in touch. For now,
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