Bachelorette Party 101

A bride, her BFF's and The Boom Boom Room. What could be better?

By Jessica Solloway

I just got back from my best friend Steph's bachelorette party. We had an awesome time, so I thought I'd use this week's blog entry to give you guys some tips if you're attending a bachelorette party or helping to plan one.



1) Location, Location, Location: Choose a destination that's affordable and easy to travel to. Those $3,000 weekends in Vegas are so 2006 and a lot to ask of your most-likely-broke friends in this economy. So consider a place that's not far from where the majority of the guests live, but still feels like a getaway. We went to Newport, Rhode Island, an adorable town, just a three hour drive from New York City. Steph's cousin found a huge, beautiful mansion walking distance from town and was even able to bargain for a better deal than what was listed. Remember to use the recession to your advantage, people! It never hurts to negotiate.

2) Eat, Drink & Be Merry (for less money): To cut costs on food and drinks, we stocked the kitchen with goodies in bulk from Costco and went out for one nice dinner. While we had a blast at the restaurant, some of the best times from the weekend were BBQing and hanging out by the pool, relaxing, and reading gossip magazines. But let me warn you ... hungry girls + chips and dip in supersized quantities = diet disaster. But it was fun! We also found ourselves dancing it up at a local gem, The Boom Boom Room. What more can I say...

3) Send Your Love: If you can't attend due to other commitments, a thoughtful way to be part of the festivities is to send something special, like a bottle of wine, champagne or dessert to the table as a surprise. 

4) Personalize the Party: The weekend is all about the bride and it's important to make her feel extra special. Our resident "super bridesmaid", Michelle, had some adorable, creative ideas. (If you're a bridesmaid, you must check out her new blog to find out more tricks of the trade). She served "Steph-atinis" (delicious pink champagne drinks), and created a game called Steph-ardy (which got a little too cutthroat if you ask me - there was a lot of screaming and cheating) where we could choose questions from a category about the bride and compete with one another to prove who knows her best.

5) Dress the Part: This is the time to really embarrass the bride and deck her out from head to toe in bachelorette party gear. So go all out with this! She should be covered in blinking shot glasses, feathered tiaras and other things too inappropriate to write about here.

6) Help Her Honeymoon In Style: As another fun activity, we all bought the bride gifts for her honeymoon and when she opened them, she had to guess who they were from. Aside from a little mishap with a fake lottery ticket where she thought for a fleeting moment that she won $20,000, our bride was very happy with her gifts. From cute cover-ups to sunscreen, and of course some racier items, she is now fully prepped for her big trip.

It was a great time had by all, and definitely got me excited for my own bachelorette party in August. I can't wait to have all of my best friends together for a weekend. If you have ideas for bachelorette parties, please leave a comment!