FireFly Bachelor & Bachelorette Parties

Jeff the editor of the The Plunge, kindly bared his soul and answered a few interview questions for us.  For those of you who still don’t know, The Plunge is an invaluable resource for the “yes man” (the lazy nearly catatonic guy who st wants everyone to stop bothering him until he mumbles “I do” and gets wasted at his own wedding; or the Groomzilla, (a micromanager and penny-pincher who drives everyone crazy). If either of these stereotypes describes you, “welcome to The Plunge”.

What is ThePlunge.com?
It’s a website for guys. Specifically, it’s a site for guys getting married, or guys thinking of getting married, or maybe guys who are terrified of marriage. Mostly, though, it’s a site for guys who are kinda skeptical and turned off by the idea of “wedding planning.” We give survival tips.  We cover the whole gamut: buying the ring, the bachelor party, tuxes, dealing with obnoxious parents, cold feet, and negotiating the ethics of lapdances.

Describe the ideal reader for the plunge?
A billionaire who is so charmed by us he says, “Yes. Yes. I need to make these guys filthy rich.” Second-best reader? An average guy who’s either: 1) getting married; 2) thinking of getting married; or 3) recently married.

There’s a key phrase there: “average guy.” No, we don’t insist that our readers get Cs in high school or wallow in mediocrity, but we like to distinguish the Average Guy from the “Super Grooms” out there. We’re not really into the whole Super-Groom thing—those guys who freak out over stationary, read more wedding magazines than the bride, and talk about things like “table decorations.’ Weird, right?

At The Plunge, we’re not trying to make every guy the best groom he can be. We’re trying to help them survive the process.

How has The Plunge been received by the bridal industry and brides in general?
The death threats have slowed to a trickle. We’re starting to get less hate mail. Actually, we’re not joking. (Well okay we’re joking about the death threats.) When the site first launched, we did get a few emails from Bridezillas along the lines of, “HOW DARE YOU!??!”

Then… something weird happen. Brides started telling their grooms about the site. Brides started reading the site. Hell, brides even started writing into our Ask the Expert column, seeking our perspective. We realized something: we struck a chord.

Plenty of people—brides and grooms alike—want advice that’s not loaded down with the puffy, overly-serous, self-important dogma you see elsewhere. We have an article “How Wedding-Porn is Brainwashing Your Fiancée,” and both men and women seem to get it… because it’s not just funny, it’s also sort of true.

As for the bridal industry? A mixed bag. On the one hand, we take plenty of cheap shots at other wedding publications. It’s who we are. So there’s probably some resentment. On the other hand… we don’t like to publicize this, as it sort of flies in the face of our whole shtick… but somehow, shockingly, a lot of the bridal sites seem to like us. At least, they claim to, as we’re now syndicating our content to several different wedding publications.  (Let the backlash and cries of “sell-outs!” begin!)

Any big plans for 2010?
Bachelor party in New Orleans. Trip to Vegas. Consumption of a staggering amount of bourbon. And for the site—yep. Lots of stuff in the pipeline. But as much as I hate to sound like an NFL coach being coy about the game-plan (“We’re just looking forward to Sunday’s game…”) contractually, I’m not allowed to say much. But I’ll put it to you this way—there’s a good chance you’ll see a whole swath of new content on The Plunge that’s not, necessarily, about grooms…

Which 3 famous people (alive or dead) would you invite to a bachelor party?
1. Frank Sinatra circa 1964
2. Vince Vaughn circa 1998
3. Jesus circa 32, so that he can instantly absolve any sins.

What FireFly Group Events package would you pick for your bachelor party?
We’d have to go with root-beer making. That sounds awesome. (Seriously, we have to ask… Do people really choose that? You guys have some badass stuff, some really great stuff. And then… root-beer.)

If the root-beer making class was all filled up, we’d do a combo of:

1. White-water rafting – Raging Rivers (although we’re tempted to choose your package called “The Plunge”)
2. Vegas Hangover.

Our favorite bachelor parties are the ones that combine the 1-2 punch of outdoor activity and drunken stupidity. White-water rafting and Vegas would seem to do the trick. This would be a long weekend, obviously, but we’d rally.
What’s your most outrageous wedding or bachelor party memory?
Bachelor Party Rule #12: never confess outrageous memories, especially in a public interview.

But. Let’s say I have a “friend” who, in a Vegas strip club, accidentally went to the upstairs room… which was filled with the male dancers. You’d think this friend would immediately run downstairs, right? But wait. Consider.  The same qualities that make normal strip clubs a terrible place to meet women—few female customers, dancers who aren’t interested in anything but $$$, drunken dude douchebags—make the male-strip clubs a great place to meet women. The girls are all drinking heavily, laughing, flirting, with zero other straight-dudes in the room. So my friend was able to meet, flirt, and, ah, get friendly with all the non-stripper girls he wanted, as he had zero competition.  But don’t tell everyone or you ruin the secret.

It’s the morning after the bachelor party, there is a tiger in your room, you can’t find the groom, what do you do?!!
Shoot the groom, eat the tiger, call the bride. No, that’s not right—shoot the tiger, feed the bride, eat the baby. [In other words, I’m still drunk.]

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Thanks for the answer’s Jeff, the check’s in the mail!