It feels a little strange writing about this now when my hen do was back in late March, but I made a decision to take 5 weeks off around my wedding and honeymoon, and that included virtually no blogging or social media – so now I am back I want to share it all with you, even if it is a little late!
For those of you who have never heard of a ‘hen do’, it is what brides call the party they have with their girl friends before getting married (and boys have a ‘stag do’). In the US I think the closest thing would be a ‘bachelorette party’, although hen dos here tend to include going away for several days.
Anyway, because we had decided on a tiny wedding, I felt strange about the idea of having a large hen do with lovely friends who weren’t coming to the wedding, so instead I decided to have the World’s Smallest Hen Do (WSHD) with just me and my best friend Heather.
Heather and I met at university nearly 20 years ago, and have been like sisters ever since. Everyone used to joke that we seem to come as a pair, often getting us mixed up (although I don’t think we look alike!). We were actually born on the same day, so share lots of Taurean traits, and have a great excuse for celebrating our birthdays together!
Tradition has it that the bride-to-be gets dressed up in a lot of pink (often including variations on cowboys/tiaras/feathers etc) and totters around town in very high heels and a very short dress, drinking a lot and cackling wildly. But that isn’t really my scene, so we went for something else. For the WSHD Heather and I decided to take a trip down memory lane, and go to a spa up in the North East of England, near where we went to university (in Durham). It was a blissful few days, where we got to catch up properly on the details of our lives, get pampered, skim stones at the beach, and blow away the cobwebs on a blustery visit to the coast. Just my kind of trip away. Here are some pictures from this very special time…
Zipping off in Heather’s sports car for a few days away
We went via one of the most fabulous bookshops I have ever been too – Barter books, inside an old railway station. (I know, who goes to a bookshop on their hen do? But you have to realise this was MY hen do and I love bookshops!)
Off to the lovely Doxford Hall hotel & spa
We got lost in the hotel’s maze…
And every day Heather surprised me with a little gift to help me prepare for married life!
We spent one wonderful evening an incredible restaurant IN THE TREES!
(Above three images via The Treehouse Restaurant)
The Treehouse Restaurant is in the grounds of Alnwick Castle, where Harry Potter was filmed, and is as magical as you might imagine, and a whole lot more delicious than we had expected. You reach it via a wooden walkway and it is literally in the treetops.
(The North Face coat over a summer dress is never a good look, but it was freeeeeezing!)
We were blown along by crazy winds out at Bamburgh Castle
…where the shoreline reminded me of Cape Cod
…And we skimmed stones near the lifeboats at Seahouses, famous for the incredibly brave local resident Grace Darling (read more about her amazing story here)
Of course by then it was time for tea…
And we couldn’t resist this sweet little local shop with such a brilliant sign in the window (our kind of place).
We spent hours reminiscing about old times (shared adventures at uni, in Japan where we have both lived for several years, on holidays in Thailand, Greece and more…) and looked ahead to our plans and dreams for the future. What a special few days it was. We have decided to make it an annual thing, to get away in Spring for a few days, just the two of us.
And then it started to snow! We had to race back through the countryside to make it in time for my final wedding dress fitting, and this is what awaited when we got there:
A rowdy, drunken, sun-soaked hen do it wasn’t, but my kind of hen do it was. Thank you Heather!
