Brides are bringing back the one-night-only bachelorette party: 'You just come, have one perfect night and leave'

Show up. Go hard. Go home.

That sums up how Talia Mayden approached her one-night-only bachelorette party. In June, the New York-based designer and writer posted online about having a less-than-24-hour bash with her closest friends: pre-dinner drinks at a Lower East Side bar, a $1,100 private dinner at a Chinatown restaurant that seats 25, and an hour-long party bus rental ending with a night of scream-singing at a nearby dive bar.

By 2 a.m., Mayden says she and her friends were calling Ubers to head back to their respective beds. "Without staring down the barrel of a multi-day itinerary, we were able to leave it all on the dance floor," she writes. "It was perfect."

Mayden's night out is departure from what many think of bachelorette parties today: multi-day destination getaways complete with coordinating outfits, scheduled activities, multiple nights out and a running tab many women wince at (and maybe send a few side texts complaining about) once they see the final Venmo request settling the bill. In 2025, the average bachelorette partygoer spent about $1,300 per party, nearly double the average from 2019, according to the wedding planning site Joy.

One jam-packed girls' night out is more akin to how the modern-day bachelorette party emerged in the late 1980s and '90s, says Beth Montemurro, a professor of sociology at Penn State Abington who's researched American bridal showers and bachelorette parties.

The explosion of bachelorette parties in the three decades since mirrors what happened with weddings in general, influenced by the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, along with the rise of individualism, Montemurro says. Businesses chased the trend, with clubs and day spas marketing group packages to bachelorettes, and cities like Nashville and Austin branding themselves as bachelorette party hot spots.

More groups now choose destination parties. Back in 2019, 40% of these events took place in the bride's hometown. Now that number sits below 25%. 

But in recent years, as the conversation about over-the-top wedding spending has captured more attention, some cost-conscious brides may be aiming to do something simpler that "pushes back against that expectation to spend a lot," Montemurro says.

With countless recent headlines decrying skyrocketing costs and friendship fallouts due to the ballooning bachelorette party machine, some brides are ditching the hassle and returning to the '90s-era girls' night out to strike a better balance between finances, time constraints and personalities, without sacrificing the fun.

The year Olivia Sullivan got married, in 2022, she attended nine other weddings and was part of three or four bachelorette parties. She says many of the parties required travel, and she typically spent about $1,500 per weekend bachelorette trip, an amount she considers to be the norm today.

Of the trips she's been on before, "some have been good, some have been really bad, some have been very expensive," Sullivan, 34, tells CNBC Make It.

When it came time to plan her own party in April 2022, she took a different route: She told about 20 of her closest friends, family members and loved ones to join her in Chicago, where she lives, for one single day packed with her favorite activities.

About 10 of them started the morning with a spin class (which Sullivan says came with a $25 fee), followed by grabbing coffee and pastries and heading to a hotel in downtown Chicago the bride had booked for herself and an out-of-town friend. That afternoon, another dozen or so women joined her for tea at The Langham hotel (about $100 per person) before everyone came together for a private dinner (another $100 per person) and bar-hopping at Sullivan's favorite places.

Sullivan, who thinks wedding culture altogether has gotten "a bit out of hand," says the single day's events were much more her speed. It also came with a number of benefits: The "choose your own adventure" schedule meant women could drop in and out of the events.

It also meant she could invite more friends to join her. "I didn't want to have to make a decision about: Which 10 of my friends do I want to bring on a destination bachelorette?" she says. Guests could "spend however much money they wanted and commit as much time as they wanted."

Party costs have been a major source of bachelorette drama for decades, Montemurro says. When she interviewed women for her 2006 book "Something Old, Something Bold: Bridal Showers and Bachelorette Parties," some partygoers noted their frustration for having to cover a limo rental or the bride's drinks for the night. Those costs didn't compare to "the weekends or the trips to Nashville or Vegas" that we think of now, she says.

Sullivan says the No. 1 benefit of having a micro-bachelorette is getting everyone on the same page for one night of raucous fun, rather than having to keep pace over a long weekend of partying.

That was also the biggest goal for Mackenzie Newcomb, who planned a surprise bachelorette for her younger sister, Kate, in May.

A one-night slumber party at their cousin's house in Newport, Rhode Island was the perfect scheme, Newcomb says: Most of Kate's Boston-area friends could easily get there, accommodations were free, and attendees could rally with their best party persona.

"We're going to go hard for our bride, we're not going to get off the dance floor, we're not going to be on our phones, we're not going complain about anything," Newcomb says.

The evening started with an at-home hibachi dinner (about $1,100 split across 12 women, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It). Then the women used Kate's celebrity crush — Will Ferrell — as inspiration to dress up as his most iconic characters. The crew of costumed Ron Burgundys and Ricky Bobbys spent the night shutting down the town's bar scene.

"Everyone's drinking, everyone's dancing, no one's hungover," Newcomb says. "You just come, have one perfect night and leave."

Newcomb, 33, says the lower cost was a huge factor in making the party work for her sister. The growing financial commitment to attending big wedding events has been a major topic of conversation among their friend groups for years.

Thirty-eight percent of Gen Z and millennial wedding guests say they've taken on debt to attend the occasion's marathon of events, according to a 2025 survey from Credit Karma.

Some attendees these days are also in a life stage where their appetite for pricey bachelorette trips has been spent, according to Montemurro. With American women getting married later in life, many may have already been through a slew of bachelorette getaways, have friends with childcare responsibilities, or have the discretionary income to plan friend vacations without tying them to a wedding engagement.

Montemurro posits that these women may feel less compelled to go all out on a bachelorette trip for themselves.

Newcomb, who plans multi-day reading retreats for a living, says the one-night bachelorette is a perfect compromise for an "anxious bride."

"It allows you to enjoy this classic cultural experience, while simultaneously not putting out your friends nearly as much financially as they would be for a full bachelorette weekend," she says. Plus, for those worried about mixing friend groups or navigating friendship politics, "they can suck it up for one night for sure, and they will."

For as much time and money and text-wrangling that goes into bachelorette party-planning, Montemurro says one thing that's remained the same over the decades is why women plan and attend bachelorette parties at all: to show they care for their friendship with the bride.

Washington, D.C., resident Alyssa Simmons says she hopes planning her one-day bachelorette party will bring the occasion "back to focusing on what really matters" — spending quality time with close friends as she moves into a new chapter in her life.

Simmons, 30, who grew up in New Jersey, says she's planning to bring about five or six friends together for a day of activities and overnight stay in New York City, where many of them spent their teens and early 20s. On the itinerary for her spring 2027 party is getting brunch in Harlem, where she and her fiance met, hitting a burlesque show, and splurging on one nice dinner out.

Simmons says she's spent up to $2,500 on a four-day bachelorette trip before, money she's happy to set aside to celebrate a good friend, and she's even considering going on another to the Dominican Republic soon. But for her, an only-child with a self-proclaimed limited social battery, a one-night bash strikes the perfect balance: celebrating without commanding too much time, money or energy.

"Some people get carried away" with wedding events, she says, "and I love that for them, but it's just not feasible for me."

Simmons, who's planning her wedding for Labor Day 2027, says she'd rather shake things up and do things a little differently for herself and her friends.

"I thought that this was like a really nice compromise, and I haven't had a slumber party vibe with my girls, and especially in New York City, in forever," she says. "I thought it'd be so fun to do it that way."

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