Your kind, funny, intelligent and naturally beautiful best friend calls you up to tell you she thinks she’s found ‘The One’.

I should’ve been thrilled, but I’ll admit it, I was nervous.

You see, my best friend, Carrie, is a one-off, a special addition…the Real Deal! She’ll be telling me to “STOP!!” as she reads this section, but Carrie, I promise it’s true!!

I think she’s pretty intimidating for most men, as dry and witty as she is beautiful, as intelligent as she is spontaneous.

Who is this ‘Cliff’ and does he know just how lucky he is?!
Will he treat her right?
Will he make her as happy as she deserves, keep his promises and look after our precious one-in-a-million friend?!

Turns out, I had nothing to worry about after all!!

I’ve never seen my girl as happy as she is today. Her face glowing, completely radiant and relaxed. So content, proud and utterly UTTERLY in love!!

You can imagine my excitement then, when the man of her dreams pops the question while holidaying in Italy. They returned, her finger newly adorned with a stunning diamond solitaire and booked their perfect Italian wedding just days later!

Yep! It’s the love story every girl wishes for one of their favourite friends. I still feel that rush of excitement when photographs of the love birds pop up on my Instagram feed (that’s Cliff’s feed, not Carrie’s, she’s pretty pants on Instagram!).

So, I was completely delighted when Carrie said I could plan her hen weekend.

Ooooh we talked about Madrid, Barcelona, Ibiza…. I was given no budget at all (my favourite) and began planning our 5 star, champagne-fuelled retreat.

Then, reality kicked in. We needed a tight budget. We also needed to meet the requirements of a variety of ages, tastes and be close enough to Cardiff for Carrie’s heavily pregnant sister to be home in a hurry.

It was peak season, July, at the weekend. Time was running out, and every property I found was either over budget, or already booked! With a full time job, a baby, a blog and a social calendar I couldn’t keep up with. I felt one thing…STRESS!!

Wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and left the task to someone with more time and creativity, I spent hours and hours at the computer, researching, emailing, enquiring.

Thankfully, it all came together in the end and I really hope we gave our girl the best send off. After living hundreds of miles apart for 4 years, it was SO good to finally meet her new friends and family, for all of us to get to know one another before the big day in Lake Como and most importantly, to celebrate our gorgeous Carrie….the Future Mrs Vanstone!

So, should you find yourself in charge of planning your Besties Hen Weekend…Here’s the blog post I wish I’d found a few weeks ago. A little “How To Hen Weekend”.

Bear in mind that Carrie is a classy bird, so this was a ‘willy-straw-free’ zone… However, there has so be a certain amount of ‘smut’…it’s a hen weekend after all and surely a right of passage…!!!

Once we knew who was coming, we agreed a budget. For us that was £200 for the whole weekend, including accommodation, spending money, travel, the lot!

Then it was to find a property in a suitable location.

We stayed at Gardeners Arms Cottage in Somerset.

Mulberry Cottages were an absolute dream to deal with, super organised and responsive. The house was just as it looked on the pictures, farm house style and cosy. The pretty garden was full of flowers as well as a lovely big hot tub. All the cooking equipment we needed, plenty of fridge and freezer space and 6 ensuite bedrooms. It’s not a super-duper high-end property, but we liked its character and those quirky little imperfections.

I sent out invitations to everyone including Carrie a month or so before the hen. These pretty ones were from Papier. Simple, understated and as always, gorgeous Papier quality.

As the weeks grew closer, I began to plan all those little touches that make for a fun and memorable weekend away.

Personalised biscuits from super talented Mama Lady Bakewell Park
These arrived at my house just a few days before the weekend and we set them out as part of her welcome table.

Sweetie Jars, scoop and gold stripe bags all from Amazon, made perfect midnight munchies and everyone took some home on the final day.

Beautiful Blooms from Bloom and Wild .
You just can’t beat them and they were waiting at the house when I arrived on Friday to set everything up. No risking an unknown florist or settling for supermarket flowers. We used the bouquet to fill jam jars and scattered them about the house and table.

I left goodie bags on everyones bed, containing a little survival kit (water, snacks, paracetamol, face mask). As well as a beautiful picture of Carrie and Cliff and a task for the hens to complete before dinner.

So how did we spend our weekend…

We kept it all very relaxed. As a group of mostly mums, a back to back agenda can be pretty stressful and we’re all a little over a mad night out I’m afraid.

Instead we enjoyed prosecco and nibbles on arrival, the sun was shining and after a week of the forecast saying ‘rain’, I was so relieved!!

Everyone contributed towards food and I did a big order Ocado to arrive at the house on the Friday.

After a seriously delicious Italian Themed dinner cooked by our super talented Italian friend Lucia (Thank you Cheech, I couldn’t have done any of it without you!!) we played a couple of hen games.

Loo Roll Wedding Dresses
Split into teams of 4/5. Each team is given 4 rolls of toilet paper and roll of cello-tape. They have 20 mins to create a couture wedding dress on a member of their team. You can decide if teams are allowed to use props or not (we did) and then one spokes person from each team is to present the dress to the judge. I have to say I was soooo impressed with both our teams. Amazing what you can do with a bit of Loo roll!!

Make Your Own Manhood
This was hilarious! After several glasses of prosecco, each team was given a slab of modelling clay (or you could use play dough) and asked to create their own ‘manhood’ and present it back. I’ve spared you the pictures of the glorious artist impressions that these girls created but needless to say we were all in stitches. The…ummm…’ornaments‘…even took pride of place on our breakfast table the following morning!!

Tie-breaker Sack Race
What’s a quick way to choose a winning team when there’s a tie….with a sack race of course! Standard!
I’d got some traditional sacks from gorgeous little online store Paper Cotton They’re a bit of a summer must-have. Each team nominated their fittest, most competitive team member to race across the garden in the dark. This ended with carries sister Annie (not the pregnant one!) launching herself into the hedge. Very Funny!

Saturday morning was a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, avocado, pastries and fruit, all washed down with Bucks Fizz and Coffee.

With Bath and Bristol less than 30mins away there was plenty of options for Saturday activity. But most of us didn’t even manage a stroll through the countryside, instead we relaxed in the hot tub, pampered ourselves with face masks and read magazines before dressing up for dinner.

Bloom and Wild Flower Crown
One thing we did manage to do on Saturday however, is make Carrie a head piece for her night out. She’s far too classy for a plastic veil, so we opted for a pretty flower crown made with fresh flowers.

I used the Charlie bouquet for it’s lovely wild and fine steams.
We simply made a hoop with some floristry wire and one by one attached the stems using floristry tape. It looked so beautiful on her and I’m hoping it will dry wonderfully as a souvenir of her weekend away too.

Saturday night we headed out to dinner, but not before some lovely pre-dinner cocktails prepared by Aimee and Dawn who were our mixologists for the weekend.

One of the main reasons I eventually booked the house in Somerset was its proximity to the ever-so-lovely Ethicurian. A beauty of a restaurant, situated inside a gorgeous walled garden. The chef prepares the seasonal menu daily, depending on what produce is at its best. We booked the private dining room at no extra cost and I arranged prosecco on arrival.

The restaurant team dressed the table beautifully with fresh flowers and herbs from the garden and plenty of candles. It was a gorgeous evening, sat chatting and eating under the stars. Fabulous service. I would highly recommend it!

Guess who said that…
This was my favourite game of the weekend, an idea give to me by Lyn, Carrie’s future mother-in-law.
Each persons goodie bag (left on their bed) contained two pieces of paper, each with a question on.
…”What do you love most about Carrie?”…
…”What should Carrie not say to her new husband on their wedding night?”…
As well as some instructions to complete these anonymously and hand back to me before our dinner out on the Saturday night.

At dinner, I shared out the answers and each guest read someone else’s answer for Our Bride-to-be to guess who said it. Not only were the answers really sweet and funny, but amazingly…Carrie guessed almost every single one correctly!!

After dinner, when we arrived back at the house (it’s only £10 in a cab) we changed into our comfy clothes and played a couple more games before those of us who could keep our eyes open, jumped in the hot tub!

Mr & Mrs
A classic Hen Party game. I sent Cliff a list of questions a week or so before the weekend for him to answers mmmmm secretly and send back to me. Cliff went one step further and actually filmed himself being asked the questions and answering. We all watched on my laptop as he nervously and emotionally answered the questions. Thank you Cliff for all your help!

Bridal Shower
Not so much a game, but a lovely way to end our Saturday night. I asked each guest to bring a gift for Carrie on the weekend with them. There was no price limit, but also no pressure for it to be anything large or expensive. She had so many lovely gifts, from Spa Vouchers, to a photograph from her childhood. Glamorous lingerie to an empty bottle to store sand from their honeymoon. It was really lovely to present her with all the gifts and to explain why each one was chosen.

I got Carrie a lovely framed verse and photograph from the beautiful Sarah and Bendrix. It was stunning, I was so pleased!!

Sunday morning we grabbed some breakfast and plenty of coffee. There was the option of staying back for a walk and Sunday lunch, but as I said, a house full of Mums, we couldn’t wait to get back and see our littles.

Carrie, Thank you for allowing me to organise your final single-girl weekend away my love. I hope you had the very best time, because you truly deserve it!! 

Now to see my girl get hitched to the man of her dreams!! 🙂

All my love,