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Living in Nashville for the past few years, I have seen my fair share of bachelorette parties hit the scene. As Rachel Varina so articulately put in a previous column, these bachelorette parties have a lot of interesting traditions that I, as a mid-20s male, do not quite understand. I imagine my bachelor party’s spending decisions will be different one day (aka strip clubs), but I try not to question what girls do because girls just wanna have fun. However, when some of these not-so-desirable traditions become adopted by bachelor parties, I have to draw the line and speak out.
This past weekend, I dragged my girlfriend to a few bourbon distilleries around Louisville, a short 3-hour drive from Nashville. I would say it is pretty natural for a bachelor party to hit Louisville given the bourbon, horse racing, and good food, and we saw several of all sizes over the course of the weekend. But one of these groups had matching outfits. And when I say “matching outfits” I mean about 15 guys were dressed identically. This wasn’t your usual J Crew gingham-wearing, dark jeans crowd, which I am a proud, card-carrying member of. These guys were wearing matching short-sleeve seersucker suits (didn’t know short sleeve suits existed), matching lime green ties, matching lime green tennis shoes, and matching cheap sunglasses; clearly, an outfit designed to draw attention.
They were the talk of the town at this particular distillery, but not in a good way. Since this was my first time seeing such disturbing behavior from a bachelor party, I decided to do a quick Google search to see how widespread this phenomenon is, and to my surprise, it is becoming somewhat common practice. T-shirts ranging Hangover-themed “Groom’s Wolfpack” to baseball jerseys for the groom, best man, and groomsmen are sweeping the internet, and that’s just the start of it. I knew this industry existed for the ladies, considering every Saturday night I see girls in matching tank tops and cowgirl boots singing louder than the actual cover band on Broadway, but I had no idea this was an option for the bachelors out there.
Men – this type of behavior is not our lane or our purpose on a bachelor party. Don’t try to steal the thunder of the ladies out there. Let them have the matching outfits so they can take and post the perfect Instagram of the #bridetribe. We do not need to worry about Instagrams or hashtags or any sort of trinket that will never see the light of day after this weekend is over.
If the first thing you are saying after a bachelor party was “man, our outfits were so sick,” or you are going around the week after showing everyone how cool your crew looked tearing up the town, then you need to reevaluate your priorities. Instead, let’s stick to the classics that bachelor parties are known for, and let our actions cause us to stand out from the pack- like spending our money on shots for the group of girls at the bar that we have absolutely no chance of scoring with, lap dances from girls who are trying to pay for college, rounds of golf at a nice course even though we will black out at after 12 holes, and other shit we won’t remember the next morning but will talk about for years to come (while the wives aren’t around, of course).
** disregard this if you all plan to wear tuxedos. Tuxedos are badass **.
Image via YouTube
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Do bachelor parties who do this sip on matching wiener straws too?
My favorite bachelor party was a 1920’s golf themed bar crawl. Nothing like seeing the groom and his brother wrestle at a bar at 4 pm dressed like Bagger Vance. We were promptly kicked out after trying to start a food fight.
Dibs on that for my next Halloween costume
The bigger issue that needs to be addressed are dudes taking pictures at the bachelor party and posting them to Facebook and shit. I feel like that goes completely against the spirit of the occasion. How about we put the phones down for a change and just rage? Your aunts and whoever don’t need to be seeing them and leaving comments in between posting Minions memes with fake facts on them.
While I agree and I would never organize such a thing…a buddy made t shirts for my bachelor party and being able to spot a shirt with my face on it while wondering around lost saved me from certain death or jail on more than one occasion.
Maybe it comes with being older but I really don’t care about these things. I think we all have the right to make fun of groups that do this, but if you want to have matching shirts with the bros, eh, who really cares.
True, but while you don’t care if your crew wears matching outfits, it says something about the guy who cares so much that he gets everyone matching shirts. The male principle of always do what takes the least effort always takes precedent.
Agreed. I would never push to have matching shirts for my group
I agree in principle. But a work colleague showed me a picture of his brother’s bachelor party in November where the groom to be was dressed as Hillary and all 48 guests (yes, it must’ve been the biggest bachelor party ever) in full Trump outfit – navy suit, red tie, blonde wig and orange faces lined up in tiers like a football team annual photo. Should’ve made the news, it looked incredible.
Group I’m going with at the end of this month is pushing for everyone to do Hawaiian shirts. All the shirts will be differently but not completely sure how I feel about it.
Closest to this I’ve been a part of was everyone wore a different throwback basketball jersey to the pool, didn’t complain cause I got a sweet Charles barkley suns jersey out of it, and we were different enough that it wasn’t too douchy
Why not just stick with the classic method: copious amounts of booze and the 3 G’s (golf, guns, and girls… as in strip clubs)
What about if everyone is in Jorts?