In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Professor Beth Montemurro interviewed women who had collectively attended 141 bachelorette parties. She followed women through strip clubs, sleepovers, and debaucherous limo rides. She interviewed them about how they built camaraderie through ritual use of penis straws and edible underwear. Of the 141 bachelorette parties she chronicled, only one included a male guest. No groom or groomsman was invited to join.
In the 25 years since, bachelor and bachelorette parties have ballooned, swelling like novelty condoms used to decorate a rental house. What was once a single night at a bar has become days of vacationing, with the militant schedules and themed outfits of a touring boy band. Another upheaval has gotten less scrutiny: dual gender-segregated events are no longer de rigeur. Some couples are opting for a combined celebration—essentially, a giant group trip. This phenomenon has been called a Jack & Jill, a joint bachelor-bachelorette, a nearlyweds weekend, and a Bachelorx party.
“I think a majority of our clientele has been joint couples,” said Maggie Millan, who works with bachelor and bachelorette groups through On The Way Party, an events planning and styling service in Las Vegas. These couples have “already integrated their lives together, their friendships, their beliefs,” she said. “This makes more sense than partying separately.”
Tristan Hollenbaugh and Cara Napolitano, two 30-year-old travel influencers, never considered having separate his-and-hers parties. “This whole wedding experience was about Tristan and I and celebrating our love,” said Napolitano. “I couldn’t imagine doing a wedding-oriented thing without him.” They met in college, and their friend group is mostly homogeneous. As a couple who likes to do everything together, the idea of forging separate memories of a major life event held no appeal.
Instead, for their June 2025 party, they rented two nearby houses on the shore of Lake Tahoe in northern California. Ten men stayed in one house, ten women stayed in the other. They spent the weekend together hiking, paddle-boarding, playing beer pong, and diving off a rented yacht. Sometimes the group broke off along gendered lines—on the first night, the women shared a luxury picnic, and the men dined at a steakhouse. The next morning, the full group came together for a PJs and Prosecco-themed brunch.
“We got the best of both worlds,” Napolitano said. “I feel like the new tradition is not following what the tradition is, and just doing what resonates the most with you.”
But what of strippers? What about sororal ferality, the lawlessness of girl gangs in polyester sashes roaming city streets in spike heels? What about red-faced bros bearing down on the golf course, sitting bicep-to-bicep in bar booths, crushing beers in unison? What about the grand tradition of jokingly referring to your chosen partner as “the old ball and chain” in front of your friends?
Serena Gordon planned a joint party in Scottsdale, Arizona for her brother and his fiancée, who are in their late 30s and early 40s, ahead of their wedding last month. “They’re super in love with each other,” said Gordon. “I think when they decided to get married, they were already willing and wanting to say goodbye to that last hurrah. They wanted another night to go out with friends, rather than to say ‘rest in peace to single life.’” Their party featured 17 friends and family members, a private Hibachi dinner, and a night of bull riding and line dancing. Instead of daring each other to lick a stranger’s face, they went around the room and answered the question, “When was the first time you told your spouse or significant other that you love them?”
