The Anatomy of The Bachelorette Party

I am not a connoisseur of bachelorette parties. I think I have now been to two: my own and my friend Marie's that took place last weekend in DC. There might have been others, but honestly I must have fried those particular brain cells long ago. I can't recall one.

Mine was perfect. I met my closest friends at my favorite wine bar. They made me wear a flashy bride button and I wore the fake veil for about a nano-second. I still have all the banners and playing cards and such with which they decorated  wine bar (one day, maybe I'll take up scrap booking?). After snacks and cake and wine, we headed across the street to another favorite local haunt and that was it. No crazy stunts or stripping men or dancing or bar fights.

This bachelorette party was like in Opposite Land compared to my bachelorette! The night started off early with the bridal shower. Signature cocktails were consumed, games were played and presents were opened. Ribbons were intentionally broken as they want to have kids, pronto. The bride cried when she opened her KitchenAid Mixer and I cried because she was crying. I cut myself off after two (okay it was three) signature cocktails. I had to pace myself.

We had a short period of time between the shower and heading out for the bachelorette party. I took a "disco nap" for the first time in over a decade. Maybe not such a good idea, because it made me super groggy until I was able to find a cup of coffee! No matter, for we met up with the bride, her umpteen friends, and our snazzy, giant limo (I think it was a Hummer?). 

Bar #1 was a bust and we quickly moved on to a place called Tattoo. I didn't think we would be able to have any kind of fun because it was so crowded, but we finally carved a spot out for ourselves and danced the night away. I was ready to go for the long haul (the coffee kicked in for sure!), but the bride was three sheets to the wind by the time 1am rolled around and so we headed on back to the hotel to get the bride some much needed grease-by-way-of-pizza. The following photo was posted on Facebook and I think it summarizes the evening perfectly.

Note to self: that "lightly" shimmering eye shadow? Oh. My. God. Just say no. I'm throwing it out, like yesterday. My friends should tell me that my eye-shadow looks like I wrestled a stripper and stole her glitter. And the "dewy" Paula Dorf blush? Yeah, that makes me look like my eyeballs have sunken into their sockets. Why must my face look so pointy? I had taken off my pink tiara and my mask at this point. I should have left them on. Yikes. I look like a fuddy-duddy with my jacket and beads, but I didn't want to hold my jacket, so just kept it on. If you knew the Club Kid I used to be, you'd understand my self-deprecation.

The best part of the whole night was watching the bride get her groove on with her "Party Posse." It was wonderful that so many people came out to help her celebrate! At one point in the evening, she met a groom who was there for his bachelor party. Over the thump of the music I heard her scream, "When are you getting married? Isn't getting married THE BEST?!"

And she's right. Being married is the best. I just can't wait for her to experience it!

So what are your B-party plans? Are you going to throw it down like Marie or will it be more reserved, like mine? Do you think there are any pros or cons to either choice? Just know this, you must wear a stupid-something on your head. Must. It is a right of passage, regardless of whether you end up knuckle-dragging drunk or asleep by 10:30pm. Wear the veil or the mask or the tiara or the massive glasses, like Marie did. It is your one bachelorette requirement and will make your friends super-happy.

Comments

[Sarah N.]

Last summer I attended the bachelorette party for a new friend. It was... about as steretypical as you could get. There was a stripper, champagne punch, sitting around opening presents, penis-shaped EVERYTHING, condoms and bananas... the works. And then after the shower/pre-party/stripper, we had a Bachelorette Scavenger Hunt, split into teams, and went out downtown until 2am. Holy moly.

Meanwhile, my bachelorette party was organized by some college girlfriends of mine. We had dinner and drinks at a little local pub on a Tuesday night (two days before my Thursday wedding), then went back to our hotel for facials, manicure/pedicure treatments, and a lot of wine.

I'm glad to have experienced the ridiculous bachelorette party, and I'm even more glad that it wasn't mine! I loved my quiet night in with my friends and a large bottle of wine in my pajamas. I've been dating my husband since high school-- this wasn't one last debaucherous night, it was celebrating my marriage. Perfect!

[Jamie]

Sigh....I don't have time for a bachelorette party. Seriously. We got engaged and I moved to a new state to be with him. I'm still getting the hang of my new job. It's crazy tough and I have many weekend obligations for it. So weekends I'm not working are filled with driving back to the town where we are getting married and doing appointments. Add to that some sick relatives that we've been helping on weekends where I'm not working and we aren't doing wedding stuff and I've got every weekend from here until June totally booked. I don't have many friends here yet, most of my old friends live several hours away and are broke/unemployed and can't make the trip and I don't have time to drive to them. My maid of honor doesn't care, one bridesmaid is 4 hours away and dealing with a chronic health condition, and the other just moved half way across the country for an awesome new job and doesn't have vacation time built up to take off any more time than the wedding.

I have been told that this is very sad, but I actually don't care if I have a bachelorette party at this point. It would just be one more thing to schedule and I don't have it in me right now to put one more thing on the calendar.

[Louise]

@Jamie - I almost didn't have one either! It was kinda thrown together at the last minute and it ended up being the perfect thing. I don't think all the hullabaloo is necessary (particularly if you don't have time for it), but I will say that a night out with the girls right before I got married was the bomb-diggity.

[irisira]

Mine, like yours, was more reserved. Instead of fave wine bar, we went to my fave tequileria and drank copious amounts of margaritas and ate delicious Mexican food. Then, we made the very unwise decision to go to the Biergarten. Not because the Biergarten is a bad place - on the contrary, I LOVE IT, that's why we went there, but because tequila + hefeweisen are a REALLY AWFUL combination. I didn't party like crazy, but I felt like I did the next day ... along with my MOH and two of my other close girlfriends who stayed for the "long haul" (whose boyfriends were all lovely and wonderful and contributed in escorting us home/driving us around/etc.). (Long Haul was, like this party, about 1am.)

It was awesome, even though I was pretty sick the next day.

[Cindy]

I'm not much of a big drinker and I wanted to take a little bit of a different approach to my bachelorette party. So after doing some research I talked to a fiend who told me that her photographer offered boudoir bachelorette parties. I went and looked at their photos at warwickboudoir.com and I was very impressed. I called and they told me all the options and even gave me a discount, as I was the bride to be. I got my 5 best girlfriends and we took some super sexy photos. The best part is that I got to use the photos as a wedding present for my husband on our wedding day. All my friends loved it and 2 of my friends are mad that I got to this killer idea first.

[Pam {mixedupdesign}]

This is my second marriage and being a little older, and presumably wiser, I didn't want the wild drunken night and craziness (which I didn't have the first time around either, but there was a stripper). It was a small group of close friends. We went to a nice steakhouse for dinner then hit a popular lounge for some fancy cocktails. It was pretty low key to that point. But at some point, we got our second wind, and at 2am decided it was time to par-tay! After we closed down a 5am bar, we went out to breakfast and watched the sun come up and finally went our separate ways around 6am. Although we were at it for 12 hours, we managed to pace ourselves enough that no one was on the couch the next day. We all had so much fun that night, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

A little side note...the best part was my fiance passed out in a bar at 1:30am during his party. I don't understand why guys have to start at full steam. But the girls totally ruled this time :)