The "kingoftheforks" Hates My Blog/Stag Do's have gone insane.

Actually, he hates all blogs. Or "blogs" as he insists on referring to them.

He is a friend of mine (hello Jim), so the abuse I'm getting in the comments sections isn't wholly unexpected. In fact, he was the best man at my wedding, and did a very good job of making sure I didn't die on the stag do - for which I am still appreciative, despite my wedding not leading to a lasting marriage.

But getting to the point. Is it just me getting old, or have stag do's gone insane in the past nine years? When I was looking at things to do for mine - in 1997 - I had a lovely afternoon/evening getting steadily more drunk in London's West End. Then we went to a bar I'd frequented as a student, then onto a party (which I didn't like apparently) and was then dropped off at home. All done in one day, and could have been managed on a budget of £30 min - £100 max per person.

I've recently been on Giles's stag do - to Barcelona, as previously posted - which was a four day non-stop debauchery spectacular (£240 + spending money). Ryan's before that was in London, and very well organised - I put £75 into the whip and that was all I paid for the entire day. The one I went to before that (Hanson's) was in Munich - for the beer festival - and was a three-dayer (£200 + spending money). Before that one, I was supposed to go on a four-dayer to Prague (Gee's) for a stag do, but unfortunately couldn't find my passport, so missed out - despite having aleady paid for the flights.

I'm not being a tight arse here - well, maybe I am - but having gone on these stag do's I've then had to pay good money to get to the weddings! Which means less money to buy presents with. Which is a shame, as one of the things that overwhelmed me at my wedding was the amount of presents that we got. And I like to think that part of the reason was very few people - apart from older relatives - had to travel very far for either the wedding or the stag/hen do's.

So if you're planning on getting married, here's my advice - which, given the fact I was divorced after 4 years, you might want to ignore. Have a stag/hen do local to where the majority of your friends live and make a good long day of it - rather than a long weekend or longer somewhere abroad. If you want to get a reasonable amount of presents for your new home - or just things you really want - get married somewhere close to where the majority of people you would expect to attend actually live (when equally split, get married in the middle so everyone has to travel the shortest distance).

Not only will you be able to claim that you're doing your bit for the environment by reducing travel to the minimum possible, you should also get a lot of happy people turning up to give you presents. Which means your wedding photos will be full of smiling faces, giving the impression that everyone likes your partner and that you're incredibly popular. And your grandchildren will eventually be very impressed by this, given that by the time they get married, they'll have had month long stag do's in Australia/China/Iraq and got married on the Moon with no guests attending and few presents.