Hens/Does Nights - Kitchen Tea
The same rule applies to kitchen teas as Engagement Parties - do you have several cupboards of manchester, napery and kitchen gear already? A kitchen tea is a traditional hangover from the days when a new bride would be setting up home for the first time, and often at a young age, and a kitchen tea gave her the opportunity to collect items to start house with. These days, a lot of brides have been working for several years and are over 21, so have had plenty of opportunity (and parties) to collect household stuff, if they haven't already set up their own household anyway. If you already have an overstuffed hope chest or an apartment or flat that is bulging at the seams, you may not want to have a kitchen tea.
You could call it a cellar tea (guests bring wine and bar items) or a gazebo tea (guests bring small garden items and/or pot plants - great if the happy couple are building a new house out in sand-pit land!), or simply not have one at all, and just have a Does or Hens Night instead.
It's supposed to be up to your Maid/Matron of Honour (now is that a traditional hangover term or what?) to help organise a kitchen tea, and tradition also had it that she would also host it, but it might be a whole lot easier just to have it at the bride's or groom's parents house if there will be many guests and lots of little gifts. Transporting boxes of gifts around the place is not fun when you're suffering from pre-wedding tension, so if you can leave them in the care of your relations that's one less thing for you to worry about.
If you are going to have a Does or Hens Night make sure you do not have it the night before the wedding. You may need a week to recover sleep afterwards! If you have any preferences, like PLEASE DO NOT HIRE A MALE STRIPPER or PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE ME TO A MALE STRIP CLUB or PLEASE DO NOT SUBJECT ME TO HUMILIATION IN A PUBLIC PLACE, make sure your guests know this. I was terrified that a particular guest was going to spring a male stripper on me in the middle of the restaurant and even though she did not, I would have enjoyed myself more if I'd been able to trust her not to. I told my bridesmaids to act as bouncers and enforce the rules!!! If you are going to party like it's 1999 (and hey it is!) you may be able to organise free entry and perhaps even a perk like a free cocktail for the bride, if you telephone the venue you intend to party at, several days or weeks before.
You can have great fun making your own postcard sized invitations for does hens nights and kitchen cellar or gazebo teas, with desktop publishing or word processing, using clip art. If you don't have any clip art on the PC you're using, search the Internet and down load some!
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