When you mention to your friends that you’ve proposed and the lady said “yes” to spending the remaining years of her life with you, the first thing your mates will think of is the big send off- the buck party. Things have been rather gloomy since 2019 and people are looking for any reason to party, have a good time after being cooped up inside for months. A bucks night just sounds like the perfect thing for your mates to party and not be the responsible adults they have been forced to be by some virus. Whoever is going to be in charge of organising the will be under pressure to throw the best bucks party ever. Of course, the groom wants an epic night but when you really think about it, the bucks night out is about the friends and not so much about the groom.  It’s like the last chance your friends have to have fun and get into trouble with you. Bucks parties have a way of turning grown men into 17 year olds who couldn’t  care less about appropriate behaviour or rules. 

Tradition says the chief organiser should be the best man but we are living in different times. A few traditions have survived through the different generations. The best man does not have the role of chief bucks party organiser by default. With that said, who should organise your bucks party? 

1. The groom 

Besides the best man, the groom can organise his own send off. The bucks night  is held to honour the groom. Some people will take the opportunity to settle old scores and humiliate him, if he wants to avoid this and survive the night unscathed, he might want to take control of everything.  

He can invite whomever he wants and chose whatever location. He also gets to choose the activities and decide whether everybody gets to experience bucks party strippers or not. He can try and make it fun for everyone but everyone should remember that it is his night, his pleasure should be satisfied and everything else is secondary. 

1. The best man 

Being the best man means that he knows the groom better than most people and that he is someone the groom trustworthy. This guy has a lot to deal with. He is in charge of the ring. He is in charge of finding the groom the best duds and making sure that the groomsmen are also presentable on the day of the wedding. He might even have to pull out his long forgotten poetry skills to write the groom’s vows and then there’s that best man speech highlight everyone will toast to. There are a thousand things that can go wrong but the best man has to make sure that nothing goes wrong. One wrong step can mess up the best laid plans, so there should be a back up.

1. The Group of friends

The groom’s friends and all make it a group effort and not leave it just to the best man who has a hundred other things he is responsible for. Get the core friends in the group together to plan the bucks night out. Making decisions as a group means there will be less issues. People can’t complain about something they all agreed on. The best man has less stress to deal with because there more friends taking responsibility over the activities of the night. Plus you can share the blame when the groom returns with his hair dyes yellow, a black guy and the story of how he turned into Rambo to defend the honor of one lady named “Candy” who was being harassed by these “rugby-type” guys at the strip club.    She can’t be mad at all of you or uninvite the lot you.

1. The Bride

The worst thing that can happen to any man is to have his bride organise his bucks night. Traditionally, it should never happen but it has been known to. If you have a bridezilla, rather do what she says or suffer her wrath. The groom might want to prove something to his wife and allow this to happen, don’t bail on him even if you absolutely hate the idea of an afternoon in some country hotel with no bucks party strippers and booze. You should be wolfing down steaks, chugging kegs of beer in front of a stripper like your forebears did and millions other men around the world are doing.