Food plan for a stag or hen weekend

A stag or hen weekend is two nights, a lot of people, and a schedule that will slip. Food is not the point of the weekend — so plan it to need as little attention as possible, and sort the money up front.

Plan around the schedule, not the recipes

People arrive across a whole Friday evening, the big activity eats the Saturday, and Sunday everyone leaves at different times. That gives you roughly four meals worth planning: Friday grazing, Saturday breakfast, one proper group dinner, and Sunday recovery. Everything else takes care of itself.

Friday: grazing, not a sit-down meal

• •Big boards — cured meats, cheese, bread, olives, crisps, dips — that work whenever each person turns up.
• •One hot thing that holds: a chilli, a big pot of pasta, or pizzas that go in as people arrive.
• •Nothing that needs plating or timing. If it can’t sit for two hours, it’s the wrong dish.

Saturday: the one meal worth cooking

Pick one dinner to do properly, ideally something that scales in a single pot or on a barbecue: curry, chilli, a big roast, or burgers on the grill. Assign two or three people to it so no one misses the evening in the kitchen, and make more than you think — appetites after a day out are enormous.

The essentials people always forget

• •Late-night food: something to soak up drinks at 1am beats a taxi to a kebab shop.
• •Hangover breakfast: eggs, bacon, bread, and far more coffee, juice and water than seems reasonable.
• •Painkillers, water bottles, bin bags, foil, and a corkscrew — the boring list nobody buys.

Sort the money before anyone arrives

Food and drink for a stag or hen adds up fast, and chasing people for a tenner afterwards is the least fun part of organising. Collect a kitty up front, or track who paid for what as you go and settle once at the end so the organiser isn’t out of pocket.