The Emergence of Stag Weekends
The ‘traditional’ stag do is on the wane. The days where the stag do is a single night before the wedding filled with as much debauchery as is humanly possible to fit into one night are almost over. Instead, there is a growing trend for the stag do to take place over an entire weekend. Yes indeed, we are in the new era of stag weekends.
Stag weekends are broadly the same as a stag do. They are just longer and more often than not take place outside of the groom’s hometown, or even his home country. The major difference is that, by virtue of spanning an entire weekend, they also encompass day times. And as many an intrepid stag weekender quickly discovered, it’s very hard to fill an entire weekend with beer alone.
As such, stag weekends take in more than the usual stag do activities. Instead, depending on how you look at it, they are either a chance for men to discover their inner manliness and take part in some fantastically masculine activities, or they are a chance to recapture an inner boyhood that never had a chance to fully express itself.
Either way, stag weekends are filled with day time activities that would delight any small boy or fantastically masculine man such as paintballing, blindfolded 4×4 driving, go-karting, gorge walking, spy training, medieval banquets and many more activities of the manly variety.
It is difficult to ascertain exactly why this trend has emerged, but it is perhaps down ultimately to couples getting married later in life.
Put simply, many couples getting married these days do so having lived together for a number of years already. This means firstly that they have more disposable income as they are getting married on the back of having been in full time employment for many years, and secondly that the step of marriage is more psychological than practical.
It used to be that marriage was a necessary prerequisite of living together, and simply took place as the next logical step in life. However, nowadays, more often than not, it is a conscious choice that is made after much deliberation. As such, marking the occasion becomes of more importance. It is perhaps the same reason why wedding planning has become such big business, as weddings get bigger and more grandiose.
Either way, the stag do is changing, and it is difficult to argue it is anything but a good thing.
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