“I’ve spent a minimum of $20,000 on bachelorette parties so far in my life.”
Spend 10 minutes on Instagram and you’ll likely come across pictures of someone’s bachelorette party. More often than not, it looks like an event that could cost a small fortune — and that’s because it actually did.
In the last decade, bachelorette parties have turned into bachelorette weekends, and beyond. Gone are the days of a lively little get-together the night before the wedding. Now, a bride ships out to Palm Springs or Miami or Glacier National Park or the Hamptons along with 20 of her friends. And domestic destinations are considered quite tame — all-inclusive getaways in Mexico or transatlantic journeys aren’t unheard of. Each attendee is usually expected to spend about half their month’s paycheck on food, travel, decor, male strippers, photo ops, and floating pool toys that look like engagement rings. It’s a party that reaches the proportions of some people’s actual weddings, only in this scenario, all the guests are footing the bill. Sounds fun, right?
One of the main questions people tend to ask about this phenomenon is why it’s happening. But an equally important question is: Is anyone actually enjoying this?
We decided to ask the hard-hitting questions ourselves, via a poll on our Instagram account. The answers we got were fascinating and horrifying, all at once.
How much does a bachelorette weekend cost these days?
Based on online estimates, the average cost of a bachelorette weekend hovers around $1,000 or more per person — and according to the responses we received on Instagram, that estimate is pretty darn accurate. If anything, it’s a bit conservative.
“I probably spend $1,500-$2,500 on each bachelorette weekend I attend,” one woman confirmed. Another said she spends between $800-1,000 per trip, while yet another said the total usually comes closer to $2,000 per trip.
These numbers are pretty staggering on their own — but when you start to consider the cumulative costs over time, they become mind-boggling.
“I’ve spent a minimum of $20,000 on bachelorette parties so far in my life,” one woman told us, “and that’s not even considering the cost of their weddings.”
Why have bachelorette weekends become so expensive?
Bachelorette celebrations weren’t always this level of bananas-expensive.
“I’m 66 years old,” one woman told us. “For my bachelorette celebration, my friends took me out to dinner at a very nice restaurant in Chicago, where we all lived. It was lovely!”
Another woman said, “Back in my day, they were most likely held in someone’s home with appetizers, many adult beverages, and a bawdy game of some sort. Hilarity and shrieking ensued.”
Nowadays, those kinds of domestic celebrations would look like child’s play. The idea that a party wouldn’t take a full weekend? Unthinkable. That you wouldn’t have to fly to get there? Unimaginable.
So what gives? Why have these celebrations become so expensive?
One commonly held hypothesis is that the rise of social media has made it possible for people to compete, and to judge each other, on a more public scale than ever before. It’s a technological version of keeping up with the Joneses, except the Joneses are no longer just your next-door neighbors: They’re everyone from your old high school friend whom you rarely speak to now (and yet, it wouldn’t be shocking if you wound up invited to her bachelorette festivities) to the influencer you’ve been following since she was a Bachelor contestant, and everyone in between. From the giant custom balloons to the Instagram photo walls to the matching outfits — the new bachelorette party aesthetic is designed to perform well on social media.
Then there’s the issue of getting everyone together under one roof — which is definitely an expensive consideration these days.
“I’ve been to 11 different bachelorette parties and every one of them has required plane travel,” one woman told us. Her comment in particular is illuminating, not just because it reinforces the cost of attending bachelorette weekends, but because it highlights a simple fact that is often ignored in our societal panic over this topic: People used to have a friend group centered in the same geographic area where they lived, and now they often don’t.
Thanks to changing educational norms and the ease with which people can travel and move to different cities, it’s now much more common for a person to have friends dispersed all over the country than it was for someone in the 1960s, or even the 1990s. This might be another less-discussed reason for the increased cost: It’s no longer feasible for a bride’s group of friends to meet up for a more casual celebration in the same area. At least a few people will have to fly in for the celebration.
So there’s a certain logic to finding a shared meeting ground for people all over the country to connect, and it doesn’t seem accidental that some of the biggest bachelorette weekend hubs (Austin, Miami, and Denver) are cities with major airports and somewhat-affordable U.S. flights.
Two women explain why they’re opting out of the bachelorette craze
In the last few years, the general mania over bachelorette weekends has persisted, but a certain disdain has started to infiltrate the mainstream discussion. You can see it in the media coverage around the topic, and in a rising trend where brides opt out of the over-the-top bachelorette vibe entirely.
“I’ve had two close friends get married in the past year, and both decided to not have an official bachelorette party,” one woman told us. “One, who lives in Arizona, knew that several of her bridesmaids were already coming from out of state, and she didn’t want to add the financial stress of a bachelorette party for her bridesmaids.”
Instead of a “traditional” bachelorette weekend, the woman said, the bride planned a hike a few days before her wedding and invited the friends who would already be in town. That way, they wouldn’t have to buy two sets of plane tickets to celebrate her nuptials.
“I’m getting married in January and I can’t imagine forcing my dearest, closest friends into spending money on travel, drinks, expensive brunches, and party buses,” another woman said. “I used to live in New Orleans and I witnessed/waited on a lot of rowdy bachelorette parties, so I know firsthand that everyone in the party gets way too drunk and spends way too much money. Which seems like the perfect recipe for a big, blowout fight.” She adds, “In this economy, I would feel SO guilty making anyone spend extra money.”
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
To round out this bachelorette analysis, we would be doing you a disservice if we didn’t include some of the more hilarious anecdotes we received in response to our Instagram poll. Here are the best, worst, hairiest, and flat out-funniest stories we heard:
“I spent $1,000 for a Hamptons bachelorette party and a yacht day. When I got to the literal yacht we were paying for, I was told we were going to be eating PB&J sandwiches to ‘keep the cost down.’”
“I went to a bachelorette party where the male stripper started taking off his clothes and collapsed in a heap of tears. This was the first night of the party. He quit and we didn’t get any of our money back.”
“I got my phone stolen at a David Guetta Vegas pool party on one of the bachelorette parties I went on.”
“I got Covid at my sister’s bachelorette party (I was fully vaccinated) and missed my trip to Paris.”
“I was invited to a bachelorette weekend and then not to the wedding.”
“I once went to a bachelorette party where there was a small town plumber/stripper who lit his chest hair on fire.”
“In addition to wine tasting, they did breast milk tasting from the MOH. All the girls jumped in!”
