She issues each of us with a Champagne flute and charcoal pencils as we take our places around a circle of easels. On the central plinth, a banana and two apples are suggestively arranged for our first lesson - still-life sketching. Amanda shows us how to hold our pencil correctly and demonstrates different drawing techniques - sharp lines, shading, smudging. The group settles into the task at hand. It's a great way to calm nerves before the main event, the entrance of our male model.
A handsome young man strolls through our easels to the centre of the room, de-robes and leans, casually naked, against the plinth. He is enormously well-hung. Mum's face suddenly drains white as she struggles for composure. Did no one warn her? One of the bride's mates cracks a lewd joke (there's always one). The groom's mum giggles and blushes repeatedly. Thankfully we have a job to focus on. We quickly become so absorbed in capturing our subject's likeness we almost forget his nudity.
A competitive element is introduced as we're invited to walk around the room critiquing each other's efforts. That's ramped up a few notches with a game of "Musical Easels". Every time the music stops we all move to the next easel and pick up where the last person left off. We're encouraged to use our imaginations to build on the work. Some women are very imaginative. Some of the drawings become decidedly silly. We're so busy laughing at each other it's almost as if there wasn't a naked guy in the room.
It wouldn't be a hen's night without the bride-to-be suffering some embarrassment. My sister is asked to sit on the model's lap for the next drawing but she gets to keep her clothes on, so it's not too awful. Fortunately he's not sleazy. We sense he's probably gay, which makes him less intimidating. He laughs along with us and afterwards wanders around the easels to chat about the work.
By the time an hour and 15 minutes is up, our group has a newfound cohesion and camaraderie as we walk across Ponsonby Rd to dinner for the next stage in our epic night.
Sex and the city
by Kim Knight
"This is a vagina," said the woman with the whiteboard and the marker pen. "And this is where you'll find the clitoris."
She had arrived with an anatomically correct diagram and two suitcases. One contained nothing but spare batteries. In a hotel suite in midtown Manhattan downtown New York City, the sexologist flogged vibrators with the clinical zeal of a tupperware lady selling salad spinners.
We were a dozen or so "hens" making small talk while we passed around plugs never intended for a kitchen sink. Later, we did tequila shots in the Meatpacking District and then the bride to be hiked up her dress and climbed on the back of a Harley Davidson.
At my best friend's wedding in New York, I wore a blue silk dress and silver heels.
At my little sister's wedding in Greymouth, I wore a blue silk dress and silver flats.
Compare and contrast the hen's night experience.
"No Davey, no!" shrieked my little sister.
I had promised her it would be classy. Nothing made from toilet paper, no instructions to kiss a police officer. I brought mojito mix and Lindauer. Her other bridesmaid brought her snake-hipped little brother in a pair of leather chaps and a cowboy hat.
"Keep your pants on Davey," begged my sister. "I used to BABYSIT you, Davey!"
Later, we did tequila shots at the Railway Hotel and then the bride to be climbed on a table with a microphone in hand and demanded the band play Brass in Pocket.
My laundry basket is lined with the blue silk ghosts of weddings past. Whenever I hear a bride promise her bridesmaids they'll be able to wear that dress again, I wonder if she understands how few occasions in a woman's life really require a sleeveless, empire-waisted blue silk frock. I wonder if she understands that whatever happens after she says "I do", those women who were there that night will always love her.
Get a room
by Sarah Daniell
Decades ago, in another lifetime, my mother called it a "kitchen tea" party. Decades later, on top of planning a wedding, hens and stags dos seem like an idea rooted in Lumsden in the 1950s. Why do we have to be separated? I want to be with my darling. Not just forever, but now, also, for a really good party. I had hen's party and separation anxiety.
By 10pm, I'd also had quite a lot of Champagne and we meet up with our partners who had been on a fishing charter all day. We head for a private karaoke room for some bacchanalian celebrating. Phil and James sing Under Pressure, but both want to be Bowie. We all sing, to my embarrassment, Sarah, by Fleetwood Mac. It is all about me. It is all about us. There are haikus. There are photos. It is fantastic.
It's a hen day and night. It starts on a warm late March afternoon to be specific. We meet at the Retreat Room at the impossibly chic and swanky Sofitel Hotel, at the Viaduct. This place is dripping with luxury. The room is decorated with flowers the table laden with 10 different canapes and flutes. Understated opulence ($950, including high tea, room decorated in the theme of your wedding). From the balcony, we look at the harbour while the sound of a waterfall trickles away in the atrium below. It could not be more serene. Mostly.
The iPod dock located, music sorted, party begins. There are about 14 of us.
"Just hold the bottle like that," says the hotel maitre d' (tuition: free).
The "bottle" is a vintage Perrier-Jouet, and in my other hand is a sword. The story goes that Napoleon, when victorious after battle, would slice off the top of a bottle of Champagne with his sabre. This is called Sabrage ($235). So I charge at the neck aggressively, and boom-bang-pop - out flies the cork and not a drop is wasted. Victory is not sweet, but nicely dry, and intoxicating ($235 for an additional bottle).
We sit down to eat at the splendid table.
It never happened
by Tess Nichol
Never mind a hen do, my friend was never supposed to have a wedding.
Marriage was a conspiracy, she said, and she was going full 9/11 truther on it.
Husbands are parasites, sponging off the unending domestic labour of their forever-toiling wives and she wasn't going to have a bar of it.
That was about a year and a half ago; my former flatmates have been married for nearly eight months.
Things change, family obligations pop up and the lure of a big party with whanau and friends celebrating your love is hard to resist.
They did it all on a shoestring, north of Auckland on Waitangi weekend, the weather was perfect.
Everyone brought a plate, or ice, or was tasked with doing the dishes.
We'd planned to have a hen's do - a luxe brunch with bubbles and ridiculous pampering rituals was discussed but a proactive approach was acutely lacking.
Then all of a sudden it was two days before the wedding and our house was full of cutlery and Champagne flutes and to-do lists with a lot of items needing crossing off and no one could be bothered.
They were the first of my friends to get married so I don't have a lot to compare it with, but it didn't feel like anything was lacking.
Strip away the penis straws and the weird jokes about last nights of freedom and hen's dos are about having fun with your girlfriends.
• The Retreat venue hire is $950 for full day or $650 for half day
• High tea - that's food, $45 pp without sparkling wine | $59 with a glass of sparkling wine
• Sabrage $235 per bottle
