CADE H. was raised in Woodstock, New York, and the twenty-nine-year-old admits he's a product of his environment: “In many ways, Woodstock lives up to its reputation as a haven of free thought and all the stereotypes you have about hippies.” Growing up, Cade had a core group of friends whose families were similar—their parents were children of the '60s and somewhat counter-culture. “So it was not surprising that we would have fairly unconventional weddings and bachelor parties,” he explains. “And the traditional bachelor party—where you need to have your last fling before you are trapped into marriage—seems pretty outdated.”

I was the first of this group to get married. And when my friends started planning something for me, it was pretty obvious we were not going to do the strippers-and-gambling-in-Atlantic-City kind of thing. For us, doing something like that would have been so demoralizing, because we consider ourselves a creative group of guys, who are always trying to do cool things together, like Burning Man . The only reason to do something like hiring a bunch of strippers would have been because it was completely unexpected. In fact, they did joke with me, like “Oh we're going to go to the ‘Legs and Eggs' breakfast at the Foxy Lady in Providence . It'll be crazy.” Obviously I knew it was a total crock.

Going into it, all I knew was that it was going to be a long weekend on the East Coast, and it was not going to involve any women. They also told me to bring clothes heavy enough to be in the elements. So I figured we were going to do some kind of camping, because we're all country boys.

They picked me up in New York City and just said, “We're heading North.” We got off the highway at the Woodstock exit. My folks still live there and they have about forty acres of land, and there is nothing on it except for a tiny cabin. We drove to this cabin, and when we arrived they actually blindfolded me. And this was the only part that was a surprise: We went into the cabin and they positioned me in front of the fireplace. I opened my eyes, and on the mantle was an architectural drawing; it took me a second to figure out what it was. I was like, “These are trees, that looks like a bridge.” And I looked around the cabin and there were tools everywhere, and it all came together: “Oh, it's a treehouse!”

Now we are all a pretty handy crew—and one of my best buddies is an architect—but of the ten guys there, this is definitely not everyone's idea of a great time. But they know I love to build stuff and, for a while, I was obsessed with this book about treehouses. So they knew I was going to love doing this. And it was totally fantastic!

The next morning, we hit the ground running. We spent three-and-a-half days up in the trees, putting this treehouse together. And when I say treehouse, I don't mean like a little kid's treehouse; it is basically a ten-by-ten-by-ten cabin with a huge deck, two doors, functioning windows and retractable steps to climb up. It is fully sided, fully insulated, with hardwood flooring and wood paneling.

At one point, I think on the Saturday night, one of my friends was like, “Cade, I'm sorry we didn't really get drunk.” And then he asked, “Does anyone have any dirty stories about Cade?” And we sat around the campfire for about five minutes while people were like, “Hmmm. There was that time when you got drunk and hit on my sister.” And that was as naughty as it got. The cool thing is: it wasn't just about that weekend, it's a gift that I'm going to be able to use whenever I want to. (At least until the building inspectors find it and make me take it down.)

That weekend was so much fun, it inspired us. And the next time one of our buddies got married, we tried to one-up my weekend. For Rom's party, we went through the same kind of process, “What does Rom love to do?” Now Rom happens to be very competitive and he's the most athletic of all us. So we decided to have a weekend of competitions, basically divide the bachelor party into two groups and have what we called, “The Rom Challenge.” Because my friends had done such a good job for me, there was a fair amount of anxiety about living up to that and I knew if I didn't do for Rom what he had done for me, I was going to feel really shitty. But it all turned out great.

Now we're on our third one, and it's getting really out of hand. I bet this happens to other groups of guys, too, where the first one has a really fun bachelor party and then the other guys feel like, “Oh, I have to pay him back for how much fun that was.” And it snowballs, and they get more and more of whatever they do.

So the third one is coming up July 4 th weekend. My friend Jonah is getting married and the weekend is called, “The Jonanza.” We've plotted out a Choose Your Own Adventure map of Northern California ; we have all of these intersections where we can go left or right, north or south, starting at the Golden Gate Bridge . And we have researched the hell out of what is going on in Northern California that weekend, including a rodeo in Folsom, the Napa County Fair with a pie-eating contest, there's archery classes and go carts, cool little caves and a great winery that has a crazy back room. All these things that we could be dropping into. We could never do them all in a weekend, but they are all along the different routes.

Throughout all of this, we're going to be filming it, and then we're going to splice it together into a movie to show at his wedding. And again, part of what is so fun about it is that the whole thing is very reflective of Jonah's personality.

And the next one after that? Who knows who is going to get married next—but I'm sure the bachelor party will be equally silly and crazy. If we just take whoever it is to Vegas and get him laid, I think he would feel pretty shitty. So we'll really have to step it up.

Burning Man (n) a weeklong art and music festival held every year in the Nevada desert; the event's motto: “No spectators!”

Choose Your Own Adventure (n) a popular children's book format from the '80s that's made a campy comeback