Introduction
Remember back in March 2020 when our respective governments told us we’d need to lock down for 6 weeks maximum? Well, here we are, years later, and we’re finally getting back to normal. Woohoo to that! If you’ve fallen victim to having to postpone your wedding and associated festivities due to the pandemic, here are our 10 best ideas for booking an amazing hen party after covid.
1. Disco dodgeball
If you love to boogie and think you can dance to your favourite disco track while you’re playing dodgeball with your besties, this might be the activity for you. It can be hard enough to concentrate on taking aim at your friends with a ball and trying to eliminate them from a game but to do it while singing Saturday Night Fever and prancing around in a neon tutu takes a whole other level of concentration you didn’t know you had. Or would ever need.Â
2. Urban axe throwing
Axe throwing is the activity you didn’t know you needed to take part in. If you want to really go for it with your hen party after covid, you need to get out there and do something unique. After all, you’ve got almost two years to make up for. Take aim with your sharpened axe, get some pointers (pun intended) from your coach, and throw like you’ve never thrown before. Plus, you never know, if the world ever succumbs to a zombie apocalypse, you’ll have the necessary skills to enable you and your squad to survive. With the way things have been for the past couple of years, this might not be as far-fetched as it once seemed.
3. Prosecco afternoon tea
Some of us like to go out and throw axes at boards and some of us like to glam up and spend the afternoon at some gorgeous hotel, enjoying a few glasses of fizz and some impossibly tiny sandwiches and cakes with our best mates.
Planning a hen do after covid doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go wild. You certainly can, but you don’t actually have to. If you just want to get the festivities started in a chilled-out manner, bag yourself a gorgeous country house hotel, or vintage city coffee shop, and start the pre-wedding celebrations in style.
4. Garden Glastonbury
If you have your own garden, or one of your mates has a decent amount of space, why not host your own Glastonbury as a post covid hen do to rival all others? Hire a gazebo, construct a makeshift bar on the deck, get your tents out, and turn the music up!
If you can get your hands on a projector and screen for outside, then relive all the greatest moments from the actual Glasto by projecting The Killers and Kylie onto the big screen for everyone to sing along to while they drink beer out of plastic cups. Feel free to serve overpriced vegan noodles if you really want to be authentic. Wellies are optional.
5. Solve a murder
Not a real one, obviously, but a digital one. If you’re considering hosting a home hen do after covid because you’ve had to spend all your money on petrol and electricity, this is a fun way to liven up the night. You can book yourself on a digital murder mystery and choose a theme, like 1920s Paris or a cruise down the Nile in the 1930s.
The packages provide everything you’ll need, including scripts and instructions, as well as fun extras, such as suggestions for themed food and drinks to make the whole experience more immersive. If you consider yourselves more Inspector Morse than Inspector Clouseau, it could be an entertaining night.Â
6. Old school sports day
Remember when you got roped into these at school and despised them with every fibre of your being? Now that you’re a proper grown-up, the chances are you look back at those days with misty-eyed fondness. Isn’t it funny how time changes things? All you need for this are some props and a big garden, or a local park or field. It’s time to see if the sporty kids from class are still as sporty as they used to be.
For this, you’ll need sacks for the sack race, egg and spoons for the egg and spoon race, and three legs for the three-legged race. If you only have two legs, borrow an extra one from a mate. If you’re up for a lively hen party after covid, this will bring out the competitive streaks and provide highly amusing (if not a little embarrassing) footage to be looked back on.
7. Bubble football
If you’ve ever watched Arsenal ladies and thought ‘I could definitely do that, but I’m not that fond of being charged into by someone else at high speed’, then the time to put that to the test is now. If you love your footie and think Pernille Harder has nothing on you, suit up in a massive protective bubble and try to score goals against your mates in Zorb football.
The game has rules but most of the time they’re forgotten as you descend into fits of giggles trying to get yourself up off the pitch after falling. It’s not easy. At ALL. It is funny, though. If you’ve missed going to the game due to the pandemic and need some action in your life, this is the perfect hen party after covid rules have eased.
Note: You will *not* be able to sing ‘we can see you sneaking out’, because sneaking anywhere while encased in a giant bubble is impossible.Â
8. DICKtionary
Yes indeed, no family board game is safe in a world where women want to have a good old giggle. This, as may be evident from the name, is an’¦interesting take on the, quite frankly, tedious normal game of Pictionary (in our opinion). Whereas in the regular game, you must draw on the board while your teammates guess what you’re trying to depict, in this game, you get your own host when you book, and he’ll remove an item of clothing for each correct answer.
When booking a hen party after covid rules are relaxed, make sure you enquire about their social distancing regulations. Will your host be safe is you don’t have to abide by the 2-metre rule??Â
9. Bottomless brunch
Having a hen party after covid can seem a little daunting, depending on the travel rules, social distancing in different bars and clubs for a pub crawl, etc. This is where the idea of the bottomless brunch comes into its own. Instead of moving between bars and restaurants on a day out, why not book a two-hour, all in one place, eat as much food and drink as much prosecco as you like kind of hen party?
This way, all you need is one simple booking, and the rest is taken care of. No need to rummage around for a mask in the bottom of your bag every time you go somewhere new, no worries about how many people you have with you, and no working out all the different rules individual establishments are sticking to. It’s one place, with 120 minutes to eat, drink, and get merry.
10. Dance party
Ever watched a music video and wished you had the moves like Jagger? Or desperately wanted to be part of BTS so you could get involved in all that impossible-looking choreography? With a dance party, you can book a professional instructor, get dressed up, and have someone show you the moves to your favourite track.
Given we’ve spent a good chunk of the past two years sitting on our sofas watching Netflix, a hen party after covid needs a little bit of energy and a whole lot of hilarity to kick things off in style.
Get exploring
Check out these hen party ideas and more on our destination pages for Ireland, the UK and Europe.
Conclusion
The pandemic has impacted on everyone, and we’ve all paid some sort of price in the hope of keeping ourselves, and other people, safe. Weddings have been cancelled and postponed, and all the events associated with them have fallen by the wayside. It’s now up to you, in 2022, to get your groove back and make sure your hen party after covid is ever better than it would have been before!
