Today is a VERY special day, bach babes. It's our second birthday! Yep that's right, just two short years ago Stag & Hen opened its online doors and every day since has been an adventure. One of the questions I am asked most is "what made you want to start a bachelorette party company?!" And so today, in honor of our birthday, I thought I'd share how it all began!
It starts with my best friend, Ashley. In the spring of 2015, she sent me a text saying she had some news to share. You guessed it, she was ENGAGED! Fast forward a few months later and I was planning her bachelorette party: a wine-tasting weekend in Austin's hill country.
A corporate event planner by day, I was shocked at not only how much time the party took to plan, but also about the lack of cute and classy party supplies. Why was everything out there cheap, tacky and covered in rhinestones?! I returned home from the party with a daydream to make both planning and shopping for bachelorette parties easier.
My best friend, Ashley, and I at her bachelorette party - the weekend that inspired Stag & Hen!
Finally, after moving to Atlanta and with the support of my better-half (shout out to my boyfriend, Kevin), I decided it was time to stop dreaming and start doing. I opened a bank account, built a website and bought my first batch of party products. The first item to arrive? A giant, mylar flamingo balloon!
Next thing I knew I had boxes and boxes of party supplies lining the walls of our one bedroom apartment... with no photos of any of them for the website. Oops! Not knowing anything about photography and having over 100 products to photograph, I knew I needed help. I called my three best friends in Austin, one of whom had a camera, bought them plane tickets, and a few weeks later they were in Atlanta. Can we talk about how amazing friends are?!
After a long weekend of tinkering with rented photography equipment and not much sleep, with the help of my amazing friends, I finally had the photos I needed to launch the website. IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!
The first Stag & Hen photoshoot! My three best friends flew in from Austin, we rented photography equipment and took photos of over 100 products... in less than 72 hours!
Fast forward two years, several hundred trips to the post office, a cross-country move back home to Texas with our entire inventory in tow in a U-Haul, and here we are. That daydream I had after Ashley's bachelorette weekend to make both planning and shopping for a bachelorette party easier, has finally become a reality.
Not only does Stag & Hen now offer 300+ cute and classy bachelorette party products, we also recently launched our first bachelorette party city guides. These guides offer a hand-picked selection of the best activities, restaurants, bars and places to stay for an amazing bachelorette weekend.
It has been an AMAZING ride and I truly cannot wait to see where we go from here. Thank you to everyone who has supported us by following us on social media, purchasing products from our website, sharing the details about your bachelorette weekend for our blog or just offering words of encouragement! You are ALL amazing and we couldn't do it without you. We love you, bach babes!
CHEERS!
Jenny