Bridal shower & bachelorette party

Where do I even begin?? This will probably be long, so brace yourself. This past weekend was the double party extravaganza of the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. I knew absolutely nothing at all about the entire weekend and I was so busy getting the house ready for everyone's arrival and keeping up with daily life that I had no time to think about what was ahead.

Friday Night
Because the shower was early on Saturday (11am) a bunch of the girls came to the house on Friday to spend the night. We had a completely full house and it was wonderful - me, my mom, Bryan's sister, Z, Ouiser, and Feather Nester.

When B and I were buying our dining room table a few years ago I stood in the store looking at it and tried to picture Thanksgiving dinners with our families, and nights of laughter and wine with my girlfriends. Growing up with a large extended (Italian!) family, stories around the dining room table over laughter and wine is such a crucial party of life that I felt like we needed a great space to do that. I wanted the chairs to be the kind you can sit in for hours and never want to leave.

That was just how it was on Friday night and it was truly a dream come true. We sat at that table from 6pm to midnight and never moved. We laughed and told stories for six hours and it was heaven - everything I could ever want out of life. All of my friends (and family) are so spread out, that to have some of them all together, relaxing for an entire evening was a simple pleasure that I will remember forever.

Saturday - daytime
Despite having that many women in one place, thanks to careful pre-planning, we were able to get ready and get all of us out of the house by 9:15am. We arrived at the shower early so the girls could set up and I got to watch as they kept setting out one fun thing after the next.

The shower was at The Rose Garden tea house in Binghamton and it was so precious - high ceilings, pink walls, tea cups everywhere. Very girly and sweet and perfect for a bridal shower. There were about 20 people there and we had lunch and then started the games and gifts.

We played a great game that made the gift-opening part of the shower much more tolerable. Not that getting gifts isn't great, but there's something strange about opening gifts while everyone has to watch. You get worried that everyone is so bored. But the girls conspired and had asked B all kinds of questions beforehand and had them all written out on cards. When the gift you gave was being opened, you read the question and I had to guess what his answer would be. It was very funny and a great way to keep everyone involved.

We received all kinds of wonderful gifts from the registry that I'm very excited to go home and use. And again, the whole process is a little surreal so I'm sure I have all kinds of cool presents that I forgot about. One of the few off-registry gifts was this amazing idea from my aunt that I fully intend to steal it! She spent the last year buying little decorative gifts (hand towels and other small things) for every holiday - Easter, St. Patrick's Day, July 4th, etc - and gathered them all together in a big Tupperware container. Such a cool idea!

At the end, we went outside and did the sweetest Puerto Rican tradition that Z brought the stuff for. There is a big decorated umbrella with tons and tons of confetti inside. The bride is holding it by her side and then she opens it and raises the umbrella above her head so she is "showered" with well wishes! I think there are some great pictures, but I don't have any yet, so you'll have to wait. There were so many great details from the shower, the favors and scrapbook and other fun stuff, that I can't wait to show you pictures of.

After that, we hustled into the cars and drove down to the Beacon train station to take the train into the city.

Saturday Night
God... how do I properly convey what happened on Saturday night? Again, I knew nothing, and again, the girls went all out. It blows my mind how much time and thought went into planning this weekend. There were so many logistics to figure out and so much to set up - I spent the whole weekend just feeling so loved.

Saturday night we pre-partied in our hotel rooms for a little while where I got yet more gifts - a tiara, a feather boa, some "love cuffs," a list of tasks I had to try to accomplish throughout the night, and some very cute little bride goodies from Victoria's Secret. After that it was time for our dinner reservation and I found myself at a place called Lucky Chengs - Drag Queen Dinner Theater.

Again, I just can't possibly explain what went down in those four fabulous and hysterical hours. I'll give it a go and when I see you at the wedding, let me know if you want the saucier details :)

After having a few drinks upstairs, our table was ready and we went into the basement to get ready for our show! There were two main bachelorette parties and then two smaller ones. We got to see a little drag show, hear our hostess insult the crowd and got served drinks in huge bowls with lots of straws.

After that it was time for the humiliation to begin... my devious girls bought me a "lap dance" from one of the performers and I was brought up on the stage, put in a chair and then given the craziest lap dance and tossed all over the stage. It was like a roller coaster ride - so crazy and so fast that I had no idea what was going on. I just kept looking at our table and everyone had the funniest expressions on their faces. Let's just say that my shoulder is bruised from the performance and I spent most of the day yesterday saying "can you believe that lap dance!!!" It was awesome.

I know we ate dinner in there somewhere, but it was so dimly lit and there were so many other things to watch that I barely recall eating. The other highlight of the night was when they called the 4 bachelorettes up on stage for a contest - the contest was to see who could give one of the "girls" the best lap dance. I was the third to go and spent the first two performances thinking "oh my god, I want to die, how am I going to do this?? I used to love this - I spent all of Feather Nester's bachelorette party dancing on a bar!"

But then I knew I had to beat Elise. Elise was 90lb bride from New Jersey who was all about herself - such selfish behavior is apparently what trips my very slight competitive lap dance urges and I "brought it." After the votes from the audience where some of my girls lost their voices and I saw more than one of them standing on chairs and pounding the table, it was called a draw. However, I feel I secretly won because as soon as the contest was over, the performer pulled me to the side and said "Girl! I feel like I know so much about you know! I have never had a show like that!" Oh yeah.... I totally won.

After that, our night at Lucky Chengs drew to a close. The were offering karaoke, but we passed. I refuse to sing in public - I consider it a public service that I'm providing by not singing. However, it did lead to the absolute funniest quote of the entire weekend when I told Feather Nester that there was no way I was going to sing karaoke and she replied "You licked a drag queen but you won't sing karaoke?!!!?" Correct. (For the record, it was her cheek - don't let your minds spin out of control)

Once the main part of the night was done, we wanted to go dancing. So we hit up Coyote Ugly for about ten seconds until we saw that it was much different from five years ago. When we were there for Feather Nester's party, it was all good fun, just girls dancing on the bar to 80s music. Well now it's disgusting and they were making girls take their shirts off, hand over their bras, and then making them dance on the bar in Coyote Ugly t-shirts. So we put down our drinks and left immediately.

But thanks to one of the girls who lives in NYC, we found a great place to dance and ended the night dancing and then eating breakfast food at the 24 hr. diner under our hotel. By 4am, we were all snug in bed.

So that's it. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I get them. And a HUGE thank you to all of my wonderful friends and family who spent so much time to give me an incredibly special and fun weekend - it was truly one of the best weekends of my life.