Bonjour, Bonjour!

It's Fiona, aka Green Loving Girl here. How are you all? All has been busy here as I settle into my new role of a stay at home mum (scary!) with Siena starting at the local school. Hugo has also given me his first proper kiss which does not involve a head-butt, tongues or teeth! Seriously though, it's been manic!

Wedding wise, things have slowed down a little as my little sister is in the final few months of preparation for her wedding (eeee!) and we are waiting to hear back from our venue on food. So not much planning of late.

However I do need your help with my hen do dilemma!

There seems to be a lot of talks about hen do around me at the moment. I keep trying to figure out what I'd like, but so far, only keen coming up with ideas of things that I don't like. You might think it helps narrow things down, but it really is causing me a headache!

Several things play on my mind. First of all, I see hen dos a way to wave good bye to your old life, as you enter the new and exciting phase of becoming a wife. Not to sound terribly old fashioned, but I think the idea was to go crazy one last time before you settled down and potentially then followed to become a parent soon after.

The thing is, Barry and I became parents almost four years ago, and so our life changed then. We waved goodbye to spontaneous nights out straight after work, to weekly cinema dates, to days we could simply lie on the grass in a park and sunbathe, or go out dancing the night away. Some of our friendships changed as we simply could no longer do the things in the same way we used to. We tried to ensure Siena slotted into our lives, rather than the other way round, but even so. Life changed there and then.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change being a mum for the world. But the reality is, we "buried" our single lives a long time ago... And I don't mean this in a "please feel sorry for me" kind of way. Only as an observation. It is also interesting to note at this point that a hen do in French is called Enterrement de vie de jeune fille/garcon ... Literally: Burial of young girl/boy's life... Romantic non?

I also worry that I have never been much of "party animal". I have always been happy to sing at karaoke, dress up, wear wigs etc, but I was never one to go out until the early hours of the morning, nor was I ever a big drinker. Suffice to say that since having two bambini, I am a huge lightweight and I am usually found happily sitting in my PJs at 8pm on a Saturday night watching TV and eating popcorn... Rock On!

I know there are loads of activities a Hen can do that doesn't involve clubbing or heavy drinking. But then I don't fancy painting pottery either (Yes I know, I'm rolling my eyes at me too!).

Another thing is that we are already asking guests to come over to France to celebrate our wedding. We are very conscious that this means asking them to spend a fair amount of money in order to so. Whilst we intend on making sure that we get the best food and wine we can for them, we really wish to keep any other potential costs, such as hen dos and stag nights, to a minimum financially.

Finally, a lot of our friends are now joint friends and a mix of girls and guys alike. I have some very close friends which are guys and I am very close to my brother, and same goes for Barry in reverse. So how do we choose? And why limit attendees to girls or guys only?

The only idea I like the sound of, is having a joint do. Some good friends of ours hired out a fantastic house over a long weekend in the summer as their leaving do before they set sail for America. It was amazing! We had the kids, and admittedly would go to bed a lot earlier than some of the other guests. But between chilling in the sun, drinking Pimms, eating lots (!) of food, playing tennis etc, we had an amazing and relaxing time.

I think this is what I would like. Now just need to figure out the logistics of it. I know we can break it down... say do one fun activity all together, followed by a big BBQ, games night and brunch the next day for example. And people could join in as much or as a little as they like. But then I am worrying whether that will be too similar to our wedding? If so, does it matter? We would want to pay for as much of it ourselves so as to limit the costs to our guests, but again that might limit what we want.

All in all, I am struggling. What I do know, is that I would like a hen do of some description. So I need your help please.

What did you have for your hen do/stag do? Did you have a joint one? Would you consider celebrating together?

Please do share any advice, tips, suggestions (anything to help!) in the comments below, and I'll make sure I follow them in a further post later on!

Merci d'avance!

Fiona

Don't forget you can follow Hollie C and FIona as they plan their upcoming weddings, and you can find all the Belle Brides past and present here.