Gender blenders
Bachelor and bachelorette parties are going coed
For Scott Brown, attending Lauren Dell'Olio's bachelorette party was as natural as attending a Red Sox game with his buddies.
Friends for 14 years, he and Dell'Olio attended the same college, trained for the Boston Marathon together, and share a tightknit circle of friends that includes both men and women. So he wasn't surprised to be included in her pre-wedding ritual, traditionally reserved for ladies only.
``It was just another ordinary night of shenanigans with my pals," Brown, 36, of Quincy said of the bachelorette party in April that featured mojitos and appetizers at a friend's house, followed by dinner and dancing at the West Street Grille in downtown Boston. ``In fact, it was sort of fun to brag at the water cooler the following Monday when asked about my weekend."
Dell'Olio's party typifies the new look of today's bachelorette and bachelor parties, which have become increasingly co ed. While co ed bachelor and bachelorette parties have been quietly happening on some level for years, interest in them skyrocketed after the notorious co ed bash thrown last fall by Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, where the couple and their friends partied with strippers.
According to wedding and party planners, the trend is driven by the fact that couples today are marrying later in life and have more friends of the opposite sex who are as close as or closer than their same-sex friends. Many of those brides - and grooms - to - be are reluctant to exclude friends from their pre-wedding parties based on their gender.
``In the past, platonic friends of the opposite sex would be invited to the gender-appropriate bachelor or bachelorette parties," said Kathleen Murray, senior editor of the Knot , a wedding planning web site. ``Today, couples are paying for their own weddings, running the shows themselves, and adapting traditions to fit their individual situations."
More are also choosing extravagance. For instance, it's not unusual for the entire wedding party to jet off to Las Vegas or Nantucket for the weekend instead of just spending a night out at the clubs, she said.
Payal Cudia of Boston said she was initially ``not enthused" about planning a co ed bachelor-bachelorette party for one of her male friends last summer but said it ended up being a great idea.
``The groom had a lot of female friends, the bride had a lot of male friends , so we all went to Foxwoods together for the weekend," she said. ``We even tried to maintain some of the more traditional activities , and it worked out wonderfully."
Nikki Grady hosted a combined bachelor-bachelorette party in Chicago earlier this year. The event started out as two separate parties, with the women having dinner and drinks downtown and the men spending the evening at ESPN Zone watching college basketball. Then, at 11:30 p.m., the parties converged at a karaoke bar, she said.
``It had always been a favorite place of the bride - and groom - to - be , and as a group we had tons of wonderful memories there," Grady said.
Chris Damianakos, owner of Soiree , a Peabody-based company that hosts bachelorette parties , said he's seen an increase in co ed parties, most often in the form of bachelor vs. bachelorette scavenger hunts. During these events, the two teams compete to find items on a list , such as a menu from the restaurant where the couple had their first date.
Like everything else, compromise is involved when planning one of these coed bachelor parties, said Jodi R.R. Smith , owner of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting in Marblehead.
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For example, if friends of the opposite sex are attending the bachelor or bachelorette party, the fiancé or fiancée should be involved, or at least be given the option to attend, she said. Also, the person who plans the party should consider the guests' comfort level for the particular activities planned, she said.
``For a bachelor party, the female could attend the round of golf and the dinner, and then graciously bow out as the males headed off" to a gentlemen's club, she said. ``For a bachelorette party, the male could go to brunch and part ways before the ladies headed off to the spa," she said.
But as co ed parties become more popular, some suggest dropping any pretense that it's a bachelor or bachelorette party and calling it just a party.
``It's not a true bachelor party if it is co ed," said Tom Haley, 32, of Somerville , who has attended several bachelorette parties but does not plan on having female friends at his bachelor party later this year. ``That's why Tom Hanks and Adrian Zmed never starred in a movie called `Bachelorette Party.' " 