My guy and I have decided that we don't want to have bachelor or bachelorette parties. Neither of us are into nights of drunken debauchery or strippers because we feel they'd be disrespectful to the relationship we have set up. However, we both have friends who would offer to throw us parties and then completely ignore us when we say NO STRIPPERS! We know that if we declined having strippers but then agreed to go to a party, our friends would just dupe us and there would be strippers anyway. So we want to not have bachelor(ette) parties. How would we go about declining them so as not to hurt people's feelings or start drama with our friends who are a little more, shall we say, immature?
Personally, I feel bad that we can't have parties because we can't trust some of our friends. I think that is the worst part about it, to be honest. And I know this is way too early to think about, but I'll admit that I like to think about things ahead of time so that I have plenty of time to mull it over and keep my anxiety down (having an anxiety disorder is the worst sometimes
).
So, any advice? What about alternatives so that we don't have to completely discount parties? Has anyone ever had a joint bachelor(ette) party? I've heard suggestions of having, like, a boys vs. girls night with things like Rock Band, bowling, arcades, etc. and then having a winning team at the end, but I don't know anyone who has actually DONE that. I think that a boys vs. girls night could be fun for all and respectful of our beliefs. But since I know etiquette says that we can't throw our own parties nor are we responsible for the planning of ones that are offered, I don't know how we'd get to do something like that.