Trips around the wedding
Planning the bachelorette trip
A bachelorette trip is a group trip with one person carrying it. What goes wrong is the gap between what the group assumed and what was actually agreed. Settle the money, the dates and the list in that order and the rest is easy.
AirConxt is our trip planner. It opens in a new tab. Start a wedding plan on OurNave to keep these three trips on the same checklist as the rest of the wedding.
In order
What to decide, in order
Confirm who is running it
The maid of honor, by convention. One person decides and the rest are consulted. Do not choose the weekend by group consensus; the lead proposes two dates.
Ask the bride what she actually wants
How far, how long, how big, and anything she does not want. Ask once, early, in private, and then plan to that answer instead of guessing at it.
Set a per person figure before anything else
The number decides the destination, not the other way round. Say it out loud to the group before a single date is proposed, and make it easy for someone to opt out of the trip without opting out of the friendship.
Fix the dates
Propose two options with a deadline to answer, rather than an open question. Keep it clear of the wedding week and clear of the wedding month if you can.
Close the guest list
Once dates are set, the list stops moving. Late additions are what break the lodging count and the per person figure at the same time.
Book lodging, then travel
The place everyone sleeps sets the size of the group and the price per head. Book it, then let people book their own way there.
Say how money is handled
Who pays what up front, what is split, what each person covers for themselves, and how they settle up. Write it in the same message as the booking.
Build the itinerary last
One anchor per day is plenty. Anything you book that the whole group has to be somewhere for should be booked once the group is confirmed, not before.
Owners
Who does what
OurNave keeps each of these as a task you can assign, so the reminder reaches the person who owns it instead of the couple.
- The maid of honor
- Owns the trip. Dates, budget, list, lodging and the messages that keep everyone in step. In OurNave this is a task assigned to her, so the reminder goes to her and not to the couple.
- The bride
- Answers the questions and then steps back. She should not be booking her own bachelorette trip, and she should not be chased for opinions on every detail.
- The rest of the party
- Answer by the deadline, pay on time, and take one thing each. A group of people each holding one job is faster than one person holding all of them.
Timing
When it happens
Everything below is counted back from your wedding date, which is how the OurNave checklist schedules it.
- About five months before the wedding
- Your OurNave checklist raises Plan the bachelorette trip here. Assign it to the maid of honor and it moves to her list.
- Within a few weeks of that
- Budget, dates and the guest list settled, and lodging booked. These are the decisions that get harder the longer they wait.
- The last few weeks
- The itinerary, and the money settled up. Keep the trip clear of the weeks right before the wedding.