Kate Middleton has followed the example of her fiancé, Prince William, by opting for a distinctly low-key hen night.

Miss Middleton secretly celebrated her final weeks as a single woman with a handful of her closest friends several days ago. And, like her future husband, she stayed well away from the public eye by shunning the traditional night on the town.

Organised by her younger sister, Pippa, who will be maid of honour at the royal wedding, Miss Middleton’s private party was understood to have taken place at the home of a friend.

A source close to Miss Middleton said: “She has already had her hen night, but it was certainly very low-key. There isn’t such a tradition attached to hen nights as there is to stag parties. It was done privately. Not all of Kate’s friends were there, and she will be catching up with other friends over the coming weeks.”

Miss Middleton, 29, was thought to have been joined by friends including Olivia Bleasdale, who shared a flat with her and the Prince at St Andrews University, and Astrid Harbord, who was once romantically linked to Prince Harry.

Exactly what they got up to was likely to remain a closely-guarded secret, but Miss Middleton had never been known to take things to excess. Former schoolfriends had described how Miss Middleton would never join in when they had drinking games in their dormitories, and was never seen drunk.

Gemma Williamson, a classmate at Marlborough, said that when groups of girls sneaked out of school to go to pubs in Reading, Miss Middleton preferred to stay in, because “it wasn’t her thing”.

Even at university, Miss Middleton was only an occasional drinker. “Kate would like a glass of wine, but she couldn’t really handle her drink,” one contemporary said. “She would get giggly after a few glasses, and then she would stop.”

Miss Middleton’s hen night was understood to have happened several days before Prince William’s stag party, which was held on Saturday. While the Prince was partying with his friends, Miss Middleton spent the weekend with her parents at their home in Bucklebury, Berks.

One possibility is that she took the opportunity to meet her friends while the Prince was visiting Australia and New Zealand earlier this month. A spokesman for St James’s Palace said: “This is not something we would comment on. It is a private matter.”