Hen Night Tasks: Recruitment for the Post of Wife

Two years ago a friend of mine asked me to be the host of her hen night. Inspired by one of the attractions during another friend’s hen party, I organised all hen night tasks around the theme: recruitment process. The bride-to-be left the party smiling radiantly; all the participants seemed to have had a lot of fun, and I felt really proud of myself. Now I would like to share my ideas for hen night tasks with you.

Spoiler alert! If you are getting married soon, don’t read further, but share the link to this post with the organiser of your hen night. Otherwise you won’t have a surprise!

We met with the future bride in the Old Town. It wasn’t difficult to find us since we were decorated with garlands of Hawaii flowers (like at my hen party). We put them also on the bride-to-be and added a pink straw hat with a broad brim to make sure she stood out from the crowd.

Outdoor hen night tasks

I got the idea for the first attraction of the night from a friend from France, whom I forgot to thank for that (alors: merci beaucoup!). The future bride was challenged to kiss 1 tonne of men. In order to avoid estimating people’s weight, we took bathroom scales with us. My friend chose which men to approach with this unusual offer, and we weighted them, recorded the result and asked them to write down their best wishes for the bride, all of which was documented with photos. Most men were eager to help and welcomed the prospect of receiving a kiss on the cheek from a beautiful stranger. After completing this task, my friend was rewarded with a T-shirt that said ‘A woman of success ‘.

The next task had to be prepared in advance. A month before the party, I asked the participants to try and compose funny lyrics to a well-known melody, which we could sing to our friend. One of the girls accepted the challenge and modified the text of the theme song from a Polish TV medical drama series entitled ‘For better and for worse’ (the future bride is a physician). Before leaving we had a rehearsal at my flat, and then performed the song in the vicinity of the National Opera. The future bride was supposed to conduct our little choir and record us. Fortunately, the place was secluded enough to prevent passers-by from stopping and staring at our amusing show. When we finished, our friend was presented with a linen bag with a drawing of a bride dragging a guy in a suit along the ground and saying ‘I got one’, where she put the wishes from the tonne of men and the lyrics.

Indoor hen night tasks

The official opening of the night took place in my apartment. To begin with, I organised a quick competition: the pair of girls who were the quickest to assemble the words ‘hen party’ from letters torn out of a newspaper won. Meanwhile, the bride was encouraged to eat and gather strength for the upcoming tasks .

The first of them was a formal job interview, which everybody has thoroughly enjoyed. I have already described a similar one in the post about the hen night of a college friend, so I will skip it here and write more about other tasks, instead.

Practical hen night tasks

In order to prove that she was qualified for the post of the wife of her fiancé, the bride had to recognise his body parts
by looking at the ears, noses, eyes, hands and legs of various men. The photos with the groom’s body parts were supplied by his sister. Other body parts were cut out from the photos of my friends in such a way that would make them unrecognisable.

Next, the bride had to prove that she was also able to recognise the sounds made by her fiancé. Some days earlier I had met with the groom and showed him several sentences (complements, apologies, requests…), whose meaning he was supposed to convey without words, solely by means of sounds. His prospective wife had to listen to the recordings and match them to cut out and mixed sentences. Once she had them all correct, she received a book on communication between men and women: ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’*.

Theoretical hen night tasks

Then followed a recording with questions to the groom, to which our friend had to give the same answers (more details about how to make it are provided in the post about my own hen night). If she answered correctly, she was allowed to eat or drink something; if she was wrong, we made noise with party horns.

Hen night tasks for the successful applicant

After this theoretical exam, our friend received a phone call with news that she was awarded the post, but had to prepare for it. Life (also married life) is full of ups and downs. Sometimes there may not be enough money to buy new clothes, yet the husband’s attention should be kept at all costs. After this introduction, I took out a piece of white cloth from the wardrobe and informed my friend that her dressmaker had lent me her veil for the party, yet it had ripped a bit. The truth was that it was just a white mosquito net. Our friend had to come up with as many items of clothing made from the ‘veil’ as possible. While she presented them on herself, we congratulated her on her creativity and took pictures. Eventually though, we decided it was better if she bought herself proper lingerie and presented her with an appropriate voucher.

To help her in her new life, we provided our friend with some good advice from experienced wives, which she had to take out from balloons filled with air. Then she told us about her coming years with her husband, prompted by randomly matched sentence beginnings and endings. Both games are described in the post entitled: ‘What a Bride Needs‘.

Finally, our friend was presented with a list of intimate questions about her expectations concerning her marriage. Her fiancé had been shown the same list (written on a different piece of paper), written down his answers, sealed them in an envelope and inserted the envelope in a decorative glass bottle. Our friend was to do the same during her hen night while we were busy with something else. I read out the questions from the list, but the answers remained the secret of the newlyweds until they smashed the bottle over a year later on their wedding anniversary.

Hen night tasks: downloadable materials

I know from experience that preparing such a hen party is laborious, but you may save a lot of time by downloading and using my materials. I encourage you to regard them as inspiration and modify them as you wish. I would be grateful if you added your ideas (e.g. for funny sentence beginnings and endings or for the good advice) or if you let me know if you have actually used any of them!

My advice:

– Don’t forget to take a pad with you to collect the wishes from the tonne of men! Wishes written on somebody’s back may be illegible! If you use my template, print it on A3 paper – this will give the men more space to write.

– Theoretically, you may use photos from the Internet to cut out body parts, but the difference in their quality might be considerable and make the task too easy.

– Instead of a mosquito net, you may use a diaper, a tablecloth, a curtain or any other piece of white material.

– While searching for an appropriate bottle to be smashed during the anniversary, pay attention to its size. A smaller one may look nicer than a wine bottle, but may fail to accommodate two sheets of paper in sealed envelopes! If need be, you may skip the envelopes and fold the sheets in a way that will hide the writing from view.

* The link to ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’ is a so-called affiliate link. If you click on it and purchase this book, I will receive a comission. Your price will remain the same, but I will be happy to know that you liked my recommendation. If you also think that a future bride will enjoy this book, I would be grateful if you used this link.