Are you your best friend’s/brother’s/cousin’s witness at the wedding? It’s a great honour and participating in his stag do will be the opportunity for you have an unforgettable weekend together! But, there’s no denying that there is often little time to organise this kind of weekend given all the time constraints and each person’s budget. Maybe you don’t even know half the group and you all live in different towns. This all makes communication difficult!
Here are a few tips and tools to help you with this task:
Decide on a date
Unless you’re lucky, you won’t find a perfect date for everyone, especially if it’s a big group! Doodle is an app which, although it won’t eradicate this problem, it will help you have a better view of each person’s availability and possible dates for the holiday.
You create your event, add possible dates and invite the participants. They can respond with “Available”, “Not Available” or “If Necessary” (don’t forget to activate the “if necessary” option in the settings before submitting the poll). The website is clear, fast and straightforward. Highly recommended!
Communicate
Create a Facebook event and invite all the possible participants or those who’ve already confirmed. This solution is sometimes more efficient than emailing, which can sometimes lead to an endless conversation. Those of you who are very busy won’t read them, won’t give any opinions on the decisions to be made and will then always ask about the status 1 week later. Facebook enables more reactivity (you receive a notification for each posted message) and everyone can comment on what has been said, etc. What’s more, organisers can summarise the decisions made in the event description.
Beware: if the future groom is not in on this, don’t forget to set the event to private! This solution should obviously be avoided if not everyone has a Facebook account or if some only connect twice a month.
Collecting money
Two websites allow you to collect the money needed to pay for the holiday,Leetchi, Bankeez. You create an event and then invite the participants to the holiday. For the organiser, it’s the same as sending your bank details; but these websites enable bank card payment, so it’s faster. However, the commission is quite high when the money is collected: between 3 and 4%!
Organising activities
That's our job :)
Managing the budget
Once you’re on site, the Tricount (Android and iPhone) application helps you manage your accounts in a simple way. It’s easy to use: each time a group member pays for a shared expense (i.e. food shopping before a night out), a designated member enters the amount in the application. At the end of the weekend, the app will simply tell you who owes what and to whom. No more complicated calculations! This app is so practical, it will become a must for any holiday with friends.
If you know of any other useful tools, please tell us!