Caribou!

When men get married, they typically have a stag night/weekend/party and invite all their male friends along to celebrate/commiserate the end of their life as a single. Similarly, when girls get married they typically have a hen night/weekend/party and invite all their female friends along to wear L-plates and fall over. These twin traditions leave something of a hole.

If for example you are a male friend of a female marriagee, you will tend to not get invited on either the stag-do (because you don't know or disapprove of the groom) or the hen-do (because you are a not a no-tail). You're missing out on a party through simple circumstances of gender. I think this may be illegal in some countries.

Likewise, female friends of male marriagees don't get invited on the stag-do (because they are girls) or on the hen-do (because they are either evil-enemy-ex-girlfriends or potential ex-evil-enemy-ex-girlfriends. Probably. I'm having to enter the female mind here, which is never easy. Where's the door? What's the alarm code? I'm never sure. Let's move on. Anyway...) and so they also lose out.

So it's all a bit rubbish really.

There is clearly a third party that needs to happen. What would happen is that all the groom's female friends go out with all the bride's male friends, possibly for up to 12 days, and they have a fun time and drink some beer, shoot some pool, sail some rivers and maybe even walk the dog a few times.

This would be good because:
a) Everyone would have a party
b) Everyone would know more people at the eventual wedding
c)

This party would need to choose an animal name too. Stag and Hen have already been taken, so I might suggest Caribou.

I'm undecided on whether the bride and groom should be allowed on the Caribou Party or not. They'd be useful on day one so that they could introduce everyone to everyone else. But after that maybe they'd just get in the way like a broken lorry on the A11.

Were such a party to take place, the following places should be avoided:
1. Lincoln. I hate Lincolnshire.
2. York. Too many Hen/Stags already. Caribous can do better.
3. Exeter. I'm not really sure where it is.
4. My friend John's house. It's quite small and the toilet has a dodgy flush.

See you there! Maybe!