Soon after my mate announced he was getting married, I got the call from him asking to be his best man. As honoured as I was to be in control of his final night of freedom, I also felt under pressure- I had to give him nothing less than the best day and night of his life, just so he knows what he’s missing once he’s tied the knot. Going out with all our mates on the evening pretty much organises itself, but planning an unforgettable event for the day? That is easier said than done.

Finding an activity that would deliver an intense dose of action, whilst also managing to send the stag off for married life in style, is easier said than done. I couldn’t ask anybody for help choosing anything either- that would be cheating, as it is a vital best man duty to take care of everything. Whilst searching online for great activities near us, I found the website for The Big Shoot. Suddenly, my search was over; this would be an action packed competition that we definitely wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

None of the lads had been shooting before, so this would be a completely unpredictable competition- and there was a chance the stag would be completely humiliated as we all beat him! Looking through the website, I was surprised to find out that there were tons of shooting ranges just a short distance away from us. We didn’t have to worry about travelling for too long before we got back into the city, so we could go straight from the site to the night out afterwards in just a few minutes. The Big Shoot offered great rates on local nights out as part of their package, so it was a no brainer to book with them.

I booked for the group to take part in a 50 clay shoot and just moments later, we were all booked in and ready to go. When I told the group, they couldn’t wait to get their finest country wear on- after all, it was better to wear than the fancy dress they’d be putting on when we hit the town! The stag was still in the dark about what we’d be getting up to, so we decided to buy him the most embarrassing country outfit we could find!

On the day of the stag, everybody was excited to be going clay shooting. Even the stag himself couldn’t wait, despite the awful clothes we made him wear to the site. When we got there, the staff were incredibly friendly and went out of their way to make the experience the best it could possibly be. Once we got onto the range, we were greeted by our trainer, who couldn’t have been better at teaching us to shoot. He was a great laugh and we had a lot of good banter with him- he made the day all the more fun.

When it came to smashing the clays, we had a whale of a time. I never expected it to feel so exhilarating when you hit the target for the first time and smash it to pieces- but it was a lot of fun. I’ll definitely be finding an excuse to get us all back together for another clay shoot sometime soon, as there is no feeling quite like the adrenaline rush when you’ve hit the clay bullseye. Hopefully it won’t be long before I’m booking with The Big Shoot again!

When my best mate finally plucked up the courage to ask his missus to marry him I was given the honour of being best man, which of course meant organising the stag party and stitching him up as much as possible in the process.

After getting the evening's entertainment sorted I wanted to book an activity that would keep the lads out of the bar for as long as possible, so I decided on a clay pigeon shooting experience. Even though none of the lads had been clay shooting before they were quickly won over by the combination of guns and blowing stuff up!

In total there were 12 of us in our group, and even though this was our first clay pigeon shooting experience we still wanted to look the part, which meant wearing as much tweed as possible. We arrived at the site looking like complete idiots but the instructors were up for a laugh and got us signed in really quickly.

After we'd signed in we were given a full safety briefing and shown how to handle the shotguns safely. Before the instructor took us out to the shooting stands we were given safety glasses and ear defenders to wear too, and once we were fully kitted up he showed us the trick to nailing the first clay. Because there were so many of us we were split into two smaller groups, and we took it in turns to face the clays, which meant there was the added pressure of the lads watching. Luckily I managed to blow the first clay to pieces which kept them quiet, and you can't beat the feeling of nailing your first clay.

The shooting ground had loads of different traps and shooting stands, and we faced clays that headed in pretty much every direction. I'd booked a 25 clay pigeon shooting experience which meant we took on five clays at five different shooting stands, and to say we were all first timers we ended up with some fairly impressive scores.

The lads loved our clay pigeon shooting experience, and even though the groom ended up at the bottom of the the scoresheet he definitely won't forget his big day in a hurry.