It was midnight when Courtney Everette drove to the airport to pick up her husband in the summer of 2009, and she found what she expected. Tre Everette was burnt out and tired from a weekend at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where he and friends had celebrated what was to be a major life event for him and his wife.
Tre, 35, of Woodlawn, hadn't spent the weekend in a private poolside cabana as a last fling before impending nuptials. He'd already done that years before. His wife was seven months pregnant, and this was his "dad-chelor" party.
"I did not want him to go," Courtney Everette said, laughing. "I didn't think his impending fatherhood was an excuse to go sit on a beach."
But after laying a few ground rules-he couldn't leave the country, and his friends would have to pay for the whole thing-she agreed to let her husband have one last fling with the guys before parental responsibility set in. So-called dad-chelor parties, also known as daddymoons, diaper kegs and man showers, are becoming increasingly popular for fathers-to-be. The pregnancy website thebump.com reports one in five male users in a recent survey say they've been to one. Though the name suggests a raucous, booze-soaked celebration reminiscent of the pre-wedding tradition, several Chicago-area dad-chelors say the occasion isn't what you might expect.
"It was full-disclosure," Tre Everette said of his party, which replaced club-going and gambling with several days of soaking up the sun. What happened in Vegas didn't even need to stay there, he said. He told his wife everything. "For Vegas, it was really low-key."
The point was to spend time with friends, some of whom already had kids, and get some perspective on how his life was about to change, Everette said.
"It's the kind of thing where guys can share the war stories of being a first-time dad and assure everybody it would be OK," he said.
It's a trend Chris Easter, co-founder of themanregistry.com, an online resource for grooms, has noticed as well. Five years ago, he started the site to, among other things, serve the growing population of men he saw having "man showers," or pre-wedding male gatherings where gifts like kegerators and grill tools are commonplace. At the time, he said it was a considered odd, but his website's growth has proved the idea has moved to the mainstream. He said he sees dad-chelor parties building that same following.
"The principle is the same thing [as a bachelor party]," he said. "They align perfectly. It's a big lifestyle moment, it's celebrating the end of one chapter and starting another."
Twin brothers Matt and Martin Klara, 31, hadn't even heard of the concept when they began planning dad-chelor parties for each other in 2011. It was Matt's idea to plan one last day of camaraderie for his brother as his wife's due date approached. It started with a haircut and a shave at a barbershop, went on to a brewery tour, included a private BBQ dinner at Chicago Q and ended at several of Martin's favorite bars. It also included a sentimental gift from the group of 20 guys who attended-a copy of Walker Lamond's "Rules for my Unborn Son." Each of the men wrote his own rules into the book. (Example: If you ever want to know the absolute truth, ask your uncles.)
"You don't get many chances to be kind of sentimental with friends, so it was nice to have all that in one spot," Martin Klara, of Oak Park, said.
In return, Martin planned a dad-chelor party for Matt when he found out Matt would become a dad several months later. It was a similar affair, with Martin giving Matt an autographed copy of the book he received months before. The events sparked something of a tradition for the two, with Matt, of Lincoln Park, tweeting advice and tips from the Twitter handle @dadchelor and both planning two more parties for friends.
Matt said he catches flak for promoting the idea of the parties, especially from people on Twitter who assume a dad-chelor party is a mirror image of a bachelor party. He is quick to correct that sentiment.
"It's not about leaving your pregnant wife at home and getting drunk and running around the city for the night," he said. "It's about going out and having a memorable experience in your city."
Bachelor party vs. Dadchelor party
Both guy-only events celebrate a major shift in life events, but there's some different thinking that goesinto planning dad-chelor and bachelor parties. How can you tell them apart?Mostly by what you will, and won't, be doing. A breakdown:
Well though-out gift?
Bachelor party: No
Dadchelor party: Yes
Strippers?
Bachelor party: Yes
Dadchelor party: No
Drinking?
Bachelor party: Yes
Dadchelor party: Yes
Blacking Out?
Bachelor party: Yes
Dadchelor party: No
Scented Candles?
Bachelor party: No
Dadchelor party: No
Contact with significant other?
Bachelor party: No
Dadchelor party: Yes
mswasko@tribune.com | @mickswasko