Early 20s: You have to consider which members of the bridal party won’t be able to drink because they’re underage.
Mid-30s: You have to consider which members of the bridal party won’t be able to drink because they’re pregnant or nursing.
| Early 20s | Mid-30s |
You plan night after night of crazy drinking at bars and clubs, striving to get home no earlier than 3am. | You plan daytime trips to wineries or other attractions and include hours of recovery time in between each one, as well as quiet time before bed. |
| You bank on dudes buying the girls drinks at the bar, so you don’t budget too much for alcohol, especially because no one really makes that much money. | You bank on everyone bringing their own preferred alcohol and possibly buying a round for everyone at the bar, because everyone has developed a taste for what she likes or doesn’t like and is taking care of herself now, thankyouverymuch. |
| You get the cheapest hotel room or AirBnB and cram everyone in because you really just need a crash pad and no one will be using it much. | You get a space where everyone has her own bed with access to a plug for her CPAP machine, and probably a kitchen and pool because you’re not really going to want to leave much. |
| You stock the mini-fridge with Mike’s Hard Lemonade. | You stock the fridge with magnums of sparkling wine, boxes of different flavors of LaCroix, and Pedialyte. |
Your worst fear is that the fiancé will hook up with a stripper at his own bachelor party. | Your worst fear is that the fiancé will hurt himself trying to do something he could do in his early 20s or show up to your party. |
| You base your hotel or AirBnB location on proximity to bars. | You base your hotel or AirBnB location on proximity to brunch options. |
| You don’t plan any meals because everyone will just grab fast food while they’re out if they want to eat at all. | Every meal is meticulously planned and extra food is ordered to have on-hand in the kitchen so that you can cook and hang out together. |
The maid of honor plans the whole event and apologizes profusely to anyone who didn’t enjoy herself 100% (which is everyone). | The bride plans the whole thing and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about it. |
| If someone can’t come, you get extraordinarily hurt, but can’t show that you’re hurt, and so hide it and just act passive-aggressively against her. | If someone can’t come, you are secretly thrilled because it’s one less person to have to wrangle or whose meal plan you have to schedule food around, but you can’t say that, so you have to act mildly upset at least. |
| You spend hours devising hash tags and taking selfies to mark the day, especially any hot guys you come across. | You forget to bring the phone out much for photos or maybe forget your phone altogether because you’re really just there to see some good friends and enjoy the fun with them. |
| At least one woman is assigned the role of “babysitter”, meaning she has to get between any other woman who may be making bad choices in a drunken state and said bad choice (e.g. going home with the wrong guy, getting into a sketchy cab, not eating the right snack for her diet, drinking one more drink when she’s had enough). | Every woman is expected to take care of her damn self. |
| Every member of the bridal party is expected to spend thousands of dollars on air fare, new clothing, accommodations, food, and alcohol. | Every member of the bridal party is expected to spend as much or as little as she pleases. |