We talked in an earlier news piece about how Marvin Humes’ JLS bandmates were planning an epic Stateside stag do by way of a send-off before tying the knot with Saturdays babe Rochelle Wiseman. Well, we are pleased to say that the boys have returned from their titanic booze-up in one piece, although Marv did look rather worse for wear upon emerging from the Heathrow terminal building. The pop group enjoyed a monumental stag do adventure, taking in Las Vegas and Miami, before jetting home last Friday.

It transpires that it took all of a day in Sin City for Marv to get stitched up, finding himself handcuffed to a dwarf named 5 Cent. Genius! The lads then went on to hang out with boxing bad boy David Haye in a Vegas strip club, take a helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon and sipped cocktails by their pool with a throng of pretty girls.

Miami saw further fun and games, the group cruising around the bay in a speedboat full of scantilly-clad lovelies. We don’t know about you but this sounds like the ultimate stag do to us and we aren’t surprised that Marv looked a little worse for wear upon arriving back in the UK. Onlookers probably suspected they’d just come back from an Amsterdam stag do, such was the evidence of depravity, yet the boys proved that the Americans know how to host a raucous party just as good as the Dutch do.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be asking you what would go down on YOUR ultimate stag do. We are then going to collect the results together and offer the most popular activities up as a prize! So get your stag do thinking caps on and get in touch via our Twitter, Facebook and website. And who knows, maybe you could be handcuffed to a dwarf named 5 Cent before you can say ‘Vegas Baby!’

A San Francisco resident is suing BMW for emotional distress after being left with a non-stop 20 hour erection after riding his motorbike.

Henry Wolf is taking legal action after his special “after market” seat caused him to suffer, “personal injury, lost wages, product liability and emotional distress.”

I can think of several men over 50 who would kill for such an ailment…

Or not…

“It’s been long-known that compression of the neurovascular supply to the penis – if it’s compressed for a period of time, whether it be on a bicycle seat or some other device – it can actually cause prolonged numbness of the genitalia,” the Michigan Institute of Urology’s Dr. Michael Lutz told CBS Detroit.

Wolf’s lawsuit claimed that “he has been experiencing continuing problems” since the 2010 ride.

What kind of problems? Well, we’ll tell you…

The 1993 BMW bike has a ridge-like seat which has left Wolf unable to have sexual intercourse.

Ouch.

BMW of Southeast Michigan said that the man wasn’t riding on BMW-motorcycle seat:

“Sometimes people say it’s more comfortable, sometimes people can get a tall seat or a low seat or they’re shorter or taller, they can come heated,” said Theresa at BMW Motorcycles of Southeast Michigan.

Fair play to Mr Wolf to putting his head above the parapet but it seems unlikely he will win because of the technicality that, y’know, BMW didn’t even make the seat. Pfft.

One thing is for sure, BMW are likely to offer up a STIFF defence…

Sorry.

If you’d like to take a ride on some beasts that won’t leave you with a floppy one, you should try our quad biking activity which is perfect for stag weekends. We also offer quad biking as part of our fully-loaded “Rage Against The Machine” stag party package. Choose your stag do destination and make an enquiry today.

We love to hear stories that centre around unique stag do ideas here at The Stag Company. With that in mind, we’d like to tip our collective hats in the direction of Andy Bond who organised a Starsky and Hutch themed drive in an old banger from Sheffield to Benidorm all in the name of charity. Bond, the Bridegroom, took three mates along for the ride, including his brother Richard.

They raised £2,200 for Macmillan and Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice in North Anston and had a blummin’ good time too, from the sounds of it.

Andy, who married bride Katie Millar, said: “I do enjoy a good night out but I wanted to do something different.

“It’s something I have always wanted to do and getting married is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I thought this could be another.”

It wasn’t a journey without its problems – sleep was hard to come by thanks to a snorer in the group and they got lost a fair few times too.

Andy, 35, said: “We got lost at every point – I was navigating to Dover and ended up going through London so we had to pay the congestion charge!

“Paul is quite a loud snorer so he had a lovely night’s sleep but nobody else did. It was really good fun.”

Top work, boys! If you’ve set yourself any fundraising targets for your stag do, get in touch and we’ll feature you on the blog and perhaps even make a cheeky donation!

If you fancy piling into an old banger and crashing into your mates, you should try our extreme dodgems activity where you can get behind the wheel of a 1300cc saloon stock car and have your stage your very own stag do destruction derby. Forget about insurance premiums and no claims bonuses, you’re obliged to take on some damage in this activity. Helmets and safety harnesses are, mercifully, provided.

Source: Sheffield Star.

Let’s face it most grooms don’t get too involved with their wedding plans. Some do, but we can’t help but question the masculinity of anyone who knows the difference between white Baby’s Breathe and white Statice flowers (because the rest of us sure can’t!)

Anyway let’s assume that the missus has taken charge of 98% of the wedding planning, which means that as a groom there are only a few things you need to get right,

• Pick a reliable best man (see our Top 5 tips on choosing your best man blog post)
• Pick the ushers (although she’ll probably get involved with this too)
• Get your suits ready  (again she’ll probably have something to say about this)
• Turn up to the wedding (preferably sober)
• Write and deliver the groom speech

Now it’s not a long list but it’s an important one, and writing the grooms speech is something that many grooms get horribly wrong.  Remember the aim of the speech is to make your future wife feel special and loved. Not awkward and embarrassed because you decided to retell that hilarious story of how she got hideously drunk and threw up on a guide dog. Funny? Yes. Appropriate? No.

So sit back, relax and read on because in this blog post we’re going to help you write the best speech EVER using these top 5 tips on how to write the grooms speech.

• Bullet point the romantic milestones of your relationship

Do this first as it’ll help shape and structure your speech: getting in the key dates/moments is an easy way to keep the speech on topic and at a reasonable length. The list should be no longer and one side of A4, but if it is longer, review it when you’re done and narrow it down to the top 5 milestones. After all, the aim of the speech is to be romantic, funny, punchy and precise. It’s also meant to be a sentimental reflection of your relationship, so make your future-wife feel special  by reminding her that you  do remember the special moments (first date, first kiss, first flat/house, where you proposed etc.) Trust us; it’ll earn you major “Good boy” points.

• Keep the lovey-dovey cheese to a minimum

Women want romance but most modern women don’t want you to start reciting Lord Byron-esque love poetry.  So make sure you don’t overdo it by avoiding the clichés such as “They say you don’t marry someone you can live with; you marry the person who you can’t live without…” Keep it original and specific to your relationship, that way you’ll sound more sincere and less like you Googled “How to write a grooms speech.”

• Don’t bring up private/embarrassing stories or Ex’s

Telling the odd funny story is fine, so long as it’s PG rated, mild enough for your Nan and doesn’t paint the bride in a bad light. That’s right you might want to leave out the time you and the missus had “fun” in the car during your nephews christening. Similarly don’t dig up dead relationships, especially if there are ex’s present at the wedding – not even in a funny way. It’s just awkward and uncomfortable for everyone. So don’t do it.

• Be happy; sound happy (and sober!)

You’re married, it’s your big day, and you should be feeling like the luckiest guy alive (if you’re not then there’s something wrong there!) So make sure you keep that in mind when you deliver your speech. Don’t say things like “This is actually a Tesco shopping list…” or (heaven forbid!) “The ball and chain made me write this…” because despite what most groom advice sites will tell you, no bride wants to be the joke on her wedding day.

• Relax and look into her eyes

Yes everyone can hear the speech but looking into the eyes of your bride whilst you read out just how much she means to you is going to make her very happy. So relax and enjoy the moment, tell your wife and the crowd just how much she means to you. Feel free to shed a manly tear if the water works start but make sure it doesn’t turn you into a blubbering mess and ruin all your hard work.

If you get really stuck, your best man will know how you feel, as he has to write a speech too, so you could always brainstorm ideas together. However it’s really not as hard as it sounds. Just make sure you follow these 5 steps and you should have no problem writing that funny, touching wedding speech that everybody is going to love.

You brought the ring, she said yes, you’ve set the date and (no doubt) she’s already started to scrapbook and plan. Excellent, things are being put in motion; now you can relax right?

Wrong: you’ve got to pop the question (so to speak) to one more person.

You’ve got to ask one of your mates to be your best man.

Now most blokes tend to pick their best mate, and there’s nothing wrong with that but it is your wedding day at stake here (read: if you screw this up, your bride will never forgive you) so even if your mate “X” does an awesome gorilla impression and can drink his own body weight in beer. It doesn’t mean he’s capable of keeping your guests organised and entertained, or help take your nana to the loo because everyone else is wasted and too busy doing a conga line.

So to make your life easier we’ve come up with our 5 top tips on how to pick your best man.

• Before asking potential candidates, think about your mates strengths and weaknesses

Like I said earlier, your mate “X” might be a good laugh but he might not be the right choice as best man. Because aside from organising an awesome stag weekend for you, the best man is also responsible for keeping the ushers in check, writing (and reading out) the best man’s speech, entertaining your guests and generally making sure that everyone plays nice. So if you’re not sure your potential best man can do all of that, then it might be best to reconsider who you choose.

• Don’t fall into the family trap

Family is grand but make sure you don’t get bullied into giving the position to a family member just because everyone expects you to. Unless of course it’s your cousin Joe who owns a boat in the Tenerife – in which case it’s a no brainer! Seriously though, it’s your stag party and your wedding so unless your brother/cousin/uncle is trustworthy and reliable then don’t let your folks guilt trip you into it.

• Pick your best man early on in the process

This seems simple enough but the amount of times we’ve heard of blokes putting it off and then forgetting about it happens more often than you think. So make sure you pick your best man early on in the process so you know who’s got your back right from the start.

• Make sure your best man and the future missus have met and get along

Hopefully you’d have sorted this out before the wedding planning but just in case you haven’t – GET THIS SORTED. If they haven’t met, get them together for a meal and introduce the two. After all it’s your best mate and your future wife here; it’s in everyone’s best interests for them to get along (especially yours!) We’re not saying they have to be BFF’s or anything but if your best mate and your fiancé don’t get along, then prepare for some turbulence till death do you part.

• Make sure they know what kind of stag do you want

The best man has got to know you like the back of his right hand (ok… maybe not that well!) He’s got to know what activities you like, what you’re sh*t scared of and based on that information be able to organise and book the king of all stag weekends. This means he’s going to have to be reliable, semi-organised (read: sober and able to use Google) and persistent enough to shepherd the drunken stags from place to place without losing anyone. Not as easy as it sounds, believe us.

If you follow these simple steps and combine some common sense then you shouldn’t have a problem. Chances are it won’t go horribly wrong but even if it does you’ll have the best man to help you sort things out and get things back on track.

Some people have more money than sense.

A news story has got right up our noses this morning at Stag Company HQ so we thought we’d share it with our readers so you can spend your afternoon shaking your heads, wringing your hands and asking what it all means.

A couple in Tampa Bay, Florida have seen it fit to spend $5000 on a wedding for their dogs. That’s around £3000. On their dogs. Truly. Insert your own jokes about the stag do here…

More than 100 people attended the wedding which featured flower decorated trellis’, a live band, an open bar and a faux grass carpet aisle. Ernie Rubin of Palm Desert and the mother of the groom, Ann Carter were responsible for the lavish bash, which was overseen by a “priest” – it wasn’t clear whether the priest was a canine, or not.

“I’m not losing a son, I’m gaining a daughter-in-law,” joked Carter.

The groomsman, Max, a pug, was brought to the ceremny by June Berke, who said:

“When I heard about the event I was ecstatic. I thought what a brilliant way to raise money for a charity,” Berke said.

“I hope this will enlighten people who take on a pet to realize that they are more than just an animal, they are a lifetime toddler.”

The two betrothed included Scruffy and Snickers, a pug and… well, the article on WTSP doesn’t say what the other breed was, but it looks like a chihuahua or something… ahem… Rubin dressed the “bride” in a custom couture dress and a leash and veil made by Jan Farber. Snickers was immaculately turned out in a tuxedo.

Some good did come of this weird wedding – the owners asked for donations to be made to a local pet charity instead of presents for the already-pampered pooches:

“In planning this event Ernie and Ann wanted to make sure that a charity was involved and they felt strongly about what we do at the society,” said the Orphan pet society representative and guest Jennifer Hamilton.

Wow. There you go. If you’d like to go and watch dogs in a more natural state – sortof – then you should go dog racing on your stag do – a really good spot of competitive fun for pre-wedding parties.

We’re checking our stats to see if there’s a sudden surge in Madrid stag weekends after news emerged that a Spanish dating association has begun to bus women from the capital into the small village of Candeleda to increase the dwindling population. The group that goes by the name of Asocamu has taken drastic measures to pair off the bachelors of the village to avoid what they see as as imminent abandonment of 5000 settlements in the country.

The Guardian has reported that the village has been inhabited for 5,000 years and a current resident, Jose Miguel has said that he fears it is reaching a point of no return because there are too many men:

“I’ve checked out the few widows and single women here,” he said. “I signed up for this to meet new ladies and to hopefully show them the beauty of my town.”

The group was set up back in the nineties to organise parties for single men and women in these shrinking villages. This shrink has been attributed to Spain’s financial crisis and the pull of the big cities. Bianca Fernandez, a 52-year old women who works in Madrid said she was tempted to give the initiative a try because of the prospect of finding love and having a nice day out:

“I know it’s difficult to find the love of one’s life, but some of these meetings have led to marriages,” she said.

See, it’s never to late for a stag do to commemorate a second chance in life. The idea was spawned after the group took inspiration from the 1951 film Westward the Women, which told the story of the American west being populated by wagon-loads of potential brides shacking up with unmarried pioneers.

Sounds like a winner to us and we can think of several little villages that would benefit from a similar idea here in Blighty. The social clubs and bingo halls of Britain are waiting…

Happy St Georges Day to all and sundry.

IKEA is a dangerous place – we’ve been saying it for months and no-one would listen to us – until now. Hours can be lost to the vortex of flat-pack furniture and Swedish meatballs – women transform into depraved all-consuming beasts, hell-bent on filling van upon van with stuff that you just don’t need and now, one woman in Leicestershire needed firefighters to free her from her IKEA tomb, after becoming trapped inside a flat-pack wardrobe she assembled in her home. This has got to stop.

Other unusual cries for help for firemen have included a toddler who got his head stuck in a potty training fitting, a person who nearly choked themselves on a dog lead and a child whose finger became lodged in a plughole. The firefighters also revealed that they had to free men on their stag do from their fiancée’s jewellery after an ill-judged attempt at fancy dress.

Neil Mayne, a firefighter for almost 30 years with the Leicester Fire Service told the Telegraph: “You do get some strange ones.

“There are some calls with sexual connotations, which we can’t really talk about.

“We often get calls to Leicester Royal Infirmary to help people who have got themselves into a tricky situation.

“Sometimes, if it’s a stag do when somebody is stuck in handcuffs or chained to a phone box, then you can have a bit of banter with them.

“Otherwise, it’s all done with a straight face because it’s all part of the service.

“Yes, it costs money to do and yes some people think there are better things we could be spending our time on but who else are people going to call?

“Our equipment is publicly funded and we use it to help the public when they are in trouble.

“I’ve seen children who have been stuck in plugholes or got their heads and legs trapped in fences.

“There was one chap who impaled his foot with a garden fork – he still managed to drive to the station.

“Then there was a man who was having a bath and his wife told him not to stick his toe in the tap. Of course, he did and it got stuck.

“We’ve got all sorts of equipment to help free people, from the big jaws of life we use to pull mangled cars apart to smaller cutters for delicate work in sensitive areas.”

The woman in question this time was trapped for 90 minutes until the Leicestershire fire service arrived. We like to think the firemen sat outside for half an hour having a cup of coffee, just giving the woman a little more time to think about what she’d done.

We’ll say it again: IKEA is evil.

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To find out more about a Nottingham stag do (where you definitely shouldn’t wear your missus’ jewellery), visit our special offers page to find out more about some of the offers we have running this April and May.

Being a best man is an honour, however to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. It’s all good to plan the stag do and prepare yourself for the inevitable drunken and fun times but it’s the penultimate speech that will often make or break.

• Preparation

A teacher once told me that ‘failing to prepare, is preparing to fail’, unlike the majority of things in school, this lesson was remembered. A best man’s speech is a challenge, whether it is easy or not, give the task the time and effort it deserves.

• Keep it personal

Sentimentality is a powerful tool, use it. Each of us yearns for a past time in our lives, such memories are able to turn any frown upside down. Recall your experiences with a groom for the audience to share, this will show everyone the depth of your friendship, there’s no romance like bromance.

• Stay sober

The sight of a best man being utterly gazeboed and subsequently slurring and vomiting during his speech is a cliché in culture. Stay sober and save that Dutch courage for later when you’re throwing moves onto the dance floor.

• Short, sharp and sweet.

Nobody likes to listen to a tedious speech, whatever this is, even if you’re explaining the meaning of life or a full-proof way to win the lottery. If you begin to bore the audience, it’s a losing battle, better to leave your audience wanting more, then to bore them to sleep.

• Know your audience

Some stories are better left for another time, or never to be spoken of again. Any illegal activities or antics with other women are a touchy subject, even more so if you discuss the groom’s illegal activities with other women; it’s the equivalent of hara-kiri.

Written by Peter Lam, web editor intern at The Stag Company.

To find out more about some of our special offers of our brand of the Leeds stag do, visit the site or call 01273 225 070.

The wedding season has dropped its anchor into the UK oncemore and that means that news is starting to emerge on the weird and wonderful happenings all over this soggy country of ours. We don’t just focus on the various stag do ideas and news-stories here at Stag Co HQ, we like to keep a watching brief on anything wedding related too – you can’t have one without the other, can you? Let’s take a look at what’s been going on…

We’ll start with a nice romantic one that was reported in the Daily Mail (a rare and welcome break from trying to seal the UK’s borders with words).

A couple that met on the popular webcam website Chatroulette have married, which, when you consider just how many men there are with their willies out, is some achievement. Siobhan Rodgers sifted through the cocks to find Alex in November 2009 and the pair married recently in Michigan, after taking their relationship to Facebook and Skype.

Siobhan from Michigan, USA said:

“I thought he was really hot and we got talking — we spoke for six hours! We started to panic that we might press the next, button and we would be lost forever, so we added each other on Facebook.”

‘We now live in London and are truly in love and we owe it all to Chatroulette.
‘We were one of the lucky ones, as I know most people on there are doing things that are not exactly a conversation starter!’

We think she’s talking about the willies.

In other wedding-y news, a pair made the most of their April Fool’s Day by pretending to get married and posting photos online to fool their unsuspecting friends,

Mother-of-three Rachel from Southampton said:

”Nathan is normally stationed abroad with the armed forces and when he got leave we decided to have a laugh and pull a fast one on our friends.

“I started writing messages on Facebook to make it believable, such as ‘last night of freedom’.

“I told my dad and he agreed to play along. He’s got a great sense of humour and agreed to ‘give me away’.”

Top stuff, we’ll have to remember that one for next year. Any excuse for a “fake” Brighton stag do, anyway…