Stripper Free Bachelor Parties?

There is a vast misconception in this world that one cannot have a fun bachelor party without strippers and alcohol. For the second time in my life, I find myself directly battling that misconception. If you missed my last post, one of my best friends, Derick, asked his girlfriend to be his wife right before Christmas. The images link to their website where you can read about the proposal and see a countdown to their wedding....also, you can watch a slightly updated video on his site or on my last blog post which I updated.



So, last night Derick asked me to be his best man which is an awesome honor for which I intend to work very hard to complete. Being a best man to me is more than just standing beside your friend at his wedding, but a commitment to help him achieve his objectives and uphold his commitments, short term (getting married) and long term. Long term is often lost in our culture but vitally important in my opinion. Imagine if every best man felt it was his responsibility to keep in touch with the groom and ensure he was doing his best to honor, love, protect, and cherish his wife. The world may look a bit different.

As for the short term, there are lots of lists. I found this one which I thought was useful. On the phone last night the first thing I thought of was the need to plan Derick a bachelor party. Knowing Derick, he and I are similar in that bar hopping and strippers were not on the list of activities we are interested in for our bachelor party. My first thought was what did I do? I went jetskiing with my friends in Wilmington and then had a nice dinner. Since Derick is getting married in March...that wasn't happening. What did my brother-in-law do? We played basketball. Not really Derick's thing. So, I started to compile lists of other things to do. Here are some of the things I thought of as I was trying to get to sleep last night..

• Paintball
  
• Go Karts/Laser Tag
  
• Large scale poker night
  
• Camping / Geocaching
  

Then I was out of ideas and came across some others through friends or this helpful website.

• ATV or Jeep offroading adventures
  
• Rent and fire machine guns at the range
  
• Ziplines in the mountains
  

Here were things I had to cast off because of the time of year:

• ski/snowboarding (might be too warm in March, especially in NC)
  
• jetskiing
  
• white water rafting
  
• sea kayaking
  
• hunt
  

And other things that fell off my list:

• Basketball
  
• Football
  
• Video Games
  
• Golf
  
• Skydiving
  
• Sports event or concert