Welcome to wedding season, everyone!
If you’re like my poor friend, Jenni, and had a wedding planned for 2020, I imagine things didn’t look quite like how you imagined. This particular couple opted for a smaller-scale backyard wedding and postponed the big event and all pre-ceremony activities by a year. And now here we are! Fully vaccinated and ready to celebrate.
Last month I was finally able to throw Jenni’s bachelorette party. The original plan back when we started planning in late 2019 was to bar hop in Boston, but you all know what happened next… So although things are getting back on track, we ultimately decided to focus on finding a more centrally located rental (party members came from ME, NH, and VT) with plenty of space and fun amenities.
I enjoy the city as much as the next person, but the Frequently Frugal in me was definitely excited to see what I could do to get creative without the crutch of – unavoidably expensive! – restaurants and nightlife to keep us entertained. You can visit my Etsy shop* to find some of the games I made.
Theme: Camp Thornton
When the party planning started back up a few months ago, I hopped on Airbnb and loacted a beautiful, spacious home in Thornton, NH. Nobody had to travel very far – and best of all, Jenni’s maiden name is Thornton!
A rural getaway in a town that shares its name with the bride? Camp Thornton was the natural choice for the theme.
Camp Thornton Olympics
The highlight of the weekend (I hope!) was a set of activities I planned out and referred to as the Thornton Olympics. All credit goes to one of the members of the bridal party, Katelyn, who suggested we incorporate some of the challenges from TikToker Alex Presley‘s Quarantine Olympics.
We each had a sash and the winner of each game was awarded a badge (to glue to their sash) and a Ring Pop prize.
Opening Ceremony
The Olympic games would not be the same without the lighting of the flame. I played around with a few ideas for this (flaming shots?) but decided that a ceremonial burning of the exes would be fun. And it was! I printed a little collage and we took it outside to say farewell and burn it to pieces… and stomp on it a few times for good measure. To put out the fire, of course.
Round 1
Super Sock Slider: We put on our slipperiest socks and took turns sliding across the floor, marking with tape each time someone passed by the previous record. Farthest slide wins!
Fruit Roll-Up Fangirl (above): First to eat a whole Fruit Roll-Up without using their hands wins!
Superior Sack-Swinger: I put one Wiffle ball into each foot of a pair of nylons, which we then took turns tying around our waists and swinging into a pyramid of plastic cups. Whoever knocks over the most cups wins!
Round 2
Oreo-Eating Expert: We each started with an Oreo on our foreheads. The first to get it into their mouth without using their hands wins!
Land Mine Leaper (above): We set up obstacles (balloons and plastic cups) on the floor, and took turns being blindfolded and walking through it all. Whoever touches/knocks over the fewest things wins!
Whipped Cream Wizard (above): One by one we sprayed whipped cream on the back of our hand and slapped our forearms to fling the whipped cream into the air. Whoever catches it in their mouth the most completely wins! As you can probably guess from the video, I did not win.
Round 3 & Closing Ceremony
Imitation Artist (above): I think this was my personal favorite. One person drew on paper placed on the back of another person, who drew on paper placed on the floor or a wall. The back-drawer draws one shape at a time while the floor/wall-drawer tries to copy what they feel being drawn on their back. The most accurate floor/wall-drawer wins!
Stache-Pinning Pro: I printed a picture of the groom when he was a baby-faced pre-teen, taped it to the wall, and gave everyone a stick-on mustache. We took turns being blindfolded, spinning around, and aiming for the upper lip. Whoever comes closest wins!
After playing all the games, we had a brief closing ceremony where I awarded prizes to those with the most wins.
Other Activities
Note: I listed a few of the games below on Etsy* for a small fee if you’re interested!
Friendship Bracelets
Since we went with a summer camp theme, I decided to pick up some embroidery floss so that we could make friendship bracelets. Let me tell you, this was so much more tedious and challenging than anyone remembered! I don’t know if we just weren’t as concerned with quality as children or what, but this activity took a LONG time and we were not very impressed with ourselves.
Cookie Decorating
I brought some sugar cookies, icing, and sprinkles and left them on the table for people to decorate and snack on at their leisure.
“Drink if…” cootie catcher
Remember cootie catchers?? They’re those origami fortune tellers that you manipulate with your fingers, typically with Magic 8-Ball style statements inside to answer your yes/no questions about the future.
I put a drinking game spin on this, labeling the outside with our names, the flaps with various drinks, and the inside with statements about our relationship with the bride and her groom, our dating history, etc.
Here are some examples (on the tamer side). Drink if…
- you’ve known the bride for 10+ years
- you have the groom’s cell phone number
- your relationship is the oldest in the room
- you share an ex with someone in the room
If the statement is true for the person playing, they drink. If it’s not true, they tell someone else to take a drink.
Bride Libs
Remember Mad Libs? It’s that game with a story missing key words, which players blindly fill in before reading the story aloud. I made a “How
They Met” version*, which turned out very silly.
Bonus: “Who am I?” Story-Writing Game
This game* was supposed to be an icebreaker of sorts, but I forgot to encourage people to write their stories and we didn’t end up playing.
The instructions were:
- Write a funny, personal memory of the bride.
- Scramble the memories.
- Read a card aloud.
- If the bride guesses who wrote your memory correctly, you drink.
- If the bride is wrong, she takes a drink.
Bonus: Sheet of 4 Party Games
I made some bridal shower games that we could have used during the bachelorette weekend (the bridal shower was canceled) but we had plenty of other games so I didn’t break them out. You can check them out here*.
Food & Drink
Although we originally planned to order takeout for one meal, we actually ended up with tons of food that party members had brought and decided not to leave the property the entire weekend!
Day 1
Dinner: Pizza (store-bought dough and a variety of toppings)
Day 2
Brunch: Blueberry pancakes & mimosas
Dinner: Burgers & veggie kebabs
Late-night snack: Dino nuggets
Day 3
Brunch: French toast sticks, bagels, & yogurt bar
We also had snacks like Pop-Tarts, Chex Mix, berries, etc. available throughout the weekend, along with Jell-O shots and a variety of other drinks.
Take-Aways
At the end of the day, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the planning process was fairly painless (aside from the pandemic factor, of course), and the cost of the weekend was not bad.
But really – whether you’re planning a bachelorette party or just looking for a way to kill some time, I HIGHLY recommend trying some of the Quarantine Olympics games. I don’t know about you, but I live for fun, easy, low-cost activities like these.
Links with “*” at the end are links to items in my Etsy shop, meaning that I will receive the profit if you click the link and buy something.