Hen Party with a difference at Lough Crew House

Place settings for dinner

It is always a huge honour to be asked to be a bridesmaid and I was over the moon when my sister asked me and my other 2 sisters to be hers for her wedding last Novemeber. It is such an exciting time, wedding dress shopping, bridesmaid dress shopping, emails, facebook messages and pinterest notifications to beat the band, ideas flying left, right and centre. But, then comes the realisation that the hen party needs to organised too! Now, some women come into their own with a big event like this, however I am a more last minute type of girl and with the 2 other bridesmaids living in Australia (they were amazing though!) I was freaked at the idea!! But thankfully it all came together wonderfully and we had an amazing time!

The entrance to Loughcrew house

Knowing the bride to be, Doreen so well, I knew she would like something a bit different for her hen party.  Everything about the hen was a surprise for the 'Hen' and the guests. This was probably the most difficult part, trying not to let any of the details slip out!! After a bit of research we found the perfect location.... Loughcrew House , Oldcastle, Co. Meath. It caters for approximately 15-20 guests. They are so helpful and easy to deal with. They really were wonderful (even when I asked them to send me on the measurements of the dinning room table....I wanted to buy a table cloth!!) We were welcome to set up the space any way we liked, so we added some decorations and created a festive table setting using a deep red table cloth, gold chargers, holly and lots of candles. A lot of the decorations were made by Cards by Eilish ,,,she makes amazing decorations, wedding invitations, cards, you name it, she does it. (Also a bonus she is our mother!)

Loughcrew House have caterers that come in to cook dinner. We sent out the menu in advance to the guests and everyone chose their meal, they also were superb and accommodated for vegetarians and coeliacs in the group. The food was fabulous.

The table we set up for dinner

We all met at 1 o clock on a Saturday in our home, we had prosecco and cheeseboards and then we were bused to Loughcrew House. Before we left, we got everybody to guess where we could be going....nobody did!! It was such fun on the journey there, everybody trying to figure out where we were going, it was a complete surprise to everyone! When we arrived there was lots of wandering and exploring the house. In everyones room there was a little quiz about Doreen they had to fill in, we went through these over dinner, it was good fun! We met at 3pm for our main activity, which was Scrapbooking. We organised this ourselves. Basically everyone had a picture of themselves and the bride and we had a table of arts and crafts supplies (Dealz is super for stocking up on these) and everybody set about decorating the page and writing lovely messages. It was a wonderful activity as everyone got stuck in, and it was perfect to talk to the people at the table...and of course sip on plenty of prosecco! When everyone was finished their masterpiece they were all gathered together into an album and the bride has a wonderful keepsake of her day.

Next on the agenda we divided into groups and designed beautiful toilet paper wedding dresses! Again, peoples creativity really began to explode and they were adding bauble decorations and Christmas wreath headpieces!! This was a great activity for mixing different groups of friends. After all the fun, it was time to go get ready for dinner. At this stage the bridesmaids cleared up from the days activities and set up for dinner. We all reconvened in the drawing room for yet more prosecco at 6 o clock.

Party Games!

The next surprise for the bride was we organised for a photographer, Verona Photography , to come for an hour . This was money so well spent, her pictures are amazing! I think its easy to spot which are the photographers pictures and which are not. She took some fabulous group pictures and then some 'action' shots of us over dinner. The bride to be was thrilled to have all these beautiful pictures of her day.

Scrapbooking fun...and drinking prosecco!

We really made our own fun, we chatted and laughed the whole way through dinner, it was super we had the house to ourselves, we didn't have to worry about disturbing tables beside us! We provided our own drink, so there was no shortage (or pub measures!) We went through the quiz answers people had filled in, played pass the parcel, had Jenga and Guess Who,,, its starting to sound like a 10 years old party! It was all such good fun. There was no, waiting in cold queues, looking for taxis in the rain, standing at bars waiting to be served, people getting lost or separated. It was all so relaxed and fun. We sat by the big open fire, we drank and danced into the early hours. It really was a hen party to remember.

Beautiful album for the bride to be

Dinner time banter