The hen do planner that keeps everyone together.

Planning a hen do means juggling a big group with very different budgets and ideas, a packed weekend of bookings, and a bride who can't know the half of it. It usually lands on one person, and it's a lot. A hen do planner takes the weight off the maid of honour. HolidayPal keeps the whole weekend in one shared trip — flights, accommodation, the spa and dinner bookings, the itinerary and the budget — so you're not repeating yourself across three group chats and a spreadsheet. Everyone sees the plan; you actually get to enjoy it.

Big groups and early flights are a recipe for chaos. Drop a meet-up pin — somewhere easy like "the Prosecco bar past security" — with a time and a note, and everyone sees it with a live countdown and one-tap directions, so nobody's left wandering the terminal. Keep all the flights and boarding passes in the same trip, add live flight tracking on Plus, and you can see at a glance that everyone's on the same page — literally.

The best bits of a hen weekend are the ones the bride doesn't see coming — the spa morning, the sash and veil, the secret cocktail-making class, the personalised everything. HolidayPal has a surprises section only the group can see. The bride taps "I'm the hen" on her own phone and those plans disappear for her, while everyone else still has the full running order. No need for a separate secret chat that someone inevitably adds her to by mistake.

Hen dos add up — accommodation, activities, outfits, the lot — and nobody wants to be the one chasing payments afterwards. A shared group budget keeps a running tally of the costs, visible to everyone, so it's all transparent. Everyone joins the trip with a code or WhatsApp link — no accounts to set up — and one person (usually the maid of honour) buys a one-off £19.99 Group Passthat unlocks the meet-up pin and surprises for the whole trip. Organising the stag side too? There's a stag do planner and a group trip planner as well.

There's no fixed figure, but going in with a realistic per-head number keeps everyone comfortable. A UK weekend often works out around £150–£300 a head once you add accommodation, a couple of activities, meals and a night out. A weekend abroad — Marbella, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Dublin — is more often £300–£600+ with flights in, and activities like a spa morning, cocktail class or afternoon tea typically run £30–£80 each. These are ballparks, not quotes — the real cost swings on the destination, the number of nights and the activities.

Hen groups often span very different budgets, so two things keep it fair: agree the number beforeanyone books and keep some extras optional, and remember the group usually covers the bride's share, so build that in from the start. A shared group budget keeps the running total in the open — no nasty surprises, and no chasing payments a month later.

Most hen-do sites are booking agencies — they sell you the package: the spa, the cocktail class, the villa. Lovely, but that's the easy bit. HolidayPal does the part they don't: it organises the weekend you've booked, wherever you booked it. Nothing to buy, nothing locked to one company — just one app that keeps the whole group's flights, boarding passes, seats, meet-up point, budget and the surprises hidden from the bride, all in one shared place. Book the hen do anywhere; run it with HolidayPal.

And it's one price for the whole group, not per head — the maid of honour pays once and everyone's sorted.