Friends & money

Splitting the cost of a bachelor or bachelorette party, without anyone footing the awkward part

By Team Cherry · October 14th 2026 · 4 minute read

Somebody has to book the place, and somebody has to put it on a card. Then the group chat goes quiet, and two weeks later that same person is doing sums on their phone, hoping nobody minds being asked.

We've all been on one side of that, and plenty of us on both. A send-off for a friend who's getting married is a happy thing to organize, and a surprisingly easy one to get wrong with money. Here's what the research says, and what we'd do about it.

People feel the pressure, and many don't say so

The surveys on this are from the UK, where the parties are called stag and hen dos, and some were run by companies with something to sell. They're a useful window all the same.

In a 2022 survey of 1,000 people planning to attend a wedding, commissioned by Amazon Handmade, 54 per cent felt pressured to spend more money than they would like when attending a wedding.^[1] That covers the whole event, not only the party beforehand.

A 2023 survey for Aviva looked at the parties themselves. It reported that around a third of people have declined a stag or hen invitation, and in four out of five of those cases the expense was the reason.^[2] Put plainly, a good number of people who would have liked to be there stayed home because of the bill.

Neither survey tells us how any one group should divide its costs. They do tell us the pressure is real, and that the person feeling it is often the one least likely to speak up.

Making the split fair before the fun starts

Ask what people can comfortably do, privately

Before anything is booked, let each person reply to the organizer one on one with a number they're happy with. A public poll makes the lowest answer feel like a confession. A private one lets the plan fit the group.

Decide who's covered, and say it early

Groups often agree that the guest of honor's share is split among everyone else. That's a perfectly good choice, but it changes what each person owes, so settle it before the first payment goes out, not after.

Let the organizer off the hook

The person who fronts the money is lending it, interest free, to a group of friends. Agree on a date by which everyone pays them back, and make it easy to do. Otherwise the organizer ends up quietly absorbing the cost, or chasing people they'd rather not chase.

Keep the big costs and the small ones separate

Shared costs that every person benefits from are easy to split evenly. Things only some people chose are another matter, and the people who didn't take part shouldn't carry them. A line for each cost, with who it covers, keeps that clear.

Make "no, but I'll join for part of it" a normal answer

If a weekend is out of reach, an evening might not be. A group that welcomes a smaller version of yes loses fewer friends to the bill.

Where Have Another Cherry fits

When a group shares costs, Have Another Cherry keeps each one as its own line, tagged by who paid and whether it's settled, so the organizer isn't holding the whole story in their head. The free plan is unlimited, with no ads. When the party's over, the free settle up calculator works out the fewest payments that make everyone even.

The takeaway

Celebrating a friend shouldn't cost anyone their comfort. Ask privately what people can do, decide early who's covered, and get the organizer paid back on a set date. The party is the easy part. The money conversation is the one worth having first.

Footnotes

1. Amazon Handmade, survey by OnePoll (July 2022). Amazon Handmade reveals that wedding guests will spend 700 to attend the wedding of a loved one this year. Survey of 1,000 people planning to attend a wedding in the next year.
2. Aviva (June 2023). Guests face four-figure bills for stag and hen dos, but many invitees swerve celebrations. Survey of around 1,000 UK adults.