Bachelorette Party Basics

I have attended, or helped to throw, many many bachelorette parties.  And they've been pretty darn fun if you ask me.  I've gotten it down to a science at this point.

My latest Tablespoon post was full of ideas and recipes for throwing one.

Check it out here.

The perfect bachelorette party has a few key elements. These can be tailored to any group of girls...adjust this list to an at-home party vs a night out on the town, a nonalcoholic party vs a boozy bash, etc. 

Here is my recipe for the perfect bachelorette party:

1. Fun food and drinks

Millions of appetizer and drink recipes here. Great place to start your planning.

2. Something fun for the bachelorette to wear

You want her to stand out!  My favorite simple, non-embarrassing ensemble involves a feather boa & tiara. 

Though you can go the traditional route and have her don a veil.  (We decorated this one with some colorful fabric flowers.)

Or an embarrassing handmade t-shirt. ;) (All in good fun of course!) 

3. A little game

This post explains my favorite bachelorette party game. 

4. Dancing!

5. Party Favors

My favorite? Ring Pops! Fun and easy.

And that's it!

Here's 2 bachelorette parties I've shared here in the past that had all the necessary elements: (check them out if you haven't seen them already!)

the hot pink bash

the black lace affair

Since I've been all about disclosure lately... here's a picture from own (a million years ago).

Yes, my friends made me wear this embarrassing shirt around Las Vegas.  (I cannot believe I am sharing this!)

Happy Friday Everyone! 

Real Party: Hot Pink Bachelorette Bash!

Kelsey & John are getting married in May.  

We celebrated Kelsey with a night out last Friday.  (Party #1 of 3 of my busy busy weekend!)

The night started out with dinner & drinks at a fabulous restaurant called Barrio in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.  I highly recommend this restaurant for groups! They were so accommodating and let me show up early to set up the table.  The food was delicious and the drink menu was incredible.
(The only problem with the restaurant was the dim lighting - pictures were difficult!)

My favorite project for this party were the centerpieces.  I enlisted John (the groom's) help. I asked him for a few little sayings and incorporated them into the centerpieces. 

I had 3 centerpieces lined up down the long table.  

John gave me perfect things to put on them. One was a sweet message to Kelsey that he had said when they decided to get married: "I'm not asking you to marry me because we have no problems. I'm asking because we can solve every problem together."  {melt...}

The other was a silly message: "I promise to have and to hold for rich or for tall, in times of sickness or extreme hunger."  {Kelsey is quite tall & she has a tendency to forget to eat...and then wind up starving}.  :) I love how well John knows her. 

And the third was the first words they said to each other the night they met: 

"Two olives and a twist?"  "Yeah, so?"

This is so perfect! They are both so sassy, which is one of the reasons why they clicked so well.  We were all convincing her all weekend that they had to offer a martini with "two olives and a twist" as a signature drink at the wedding!

The centerpieces were a hit, and Kelsey cried when she saw them! Mission accomplished! 

Check back later this week for DIY instructions.

I purchased these fun & sassy drink coasters as Sur la Table, and had them at each place.  

(Sorry, no good picture!  You can kind of see them if you look closely here.)

And for party favors, I used my favorite bachelorette party favor: Ring Pops! 

I tied them with a cute tag, and placed one on each plate.  

These are always a hit!

We also played my favorite bachelorette party game.  

All the guests bring a pair of panties for the bride-to-be.  The panties should represent something about the giver.  The bride-to-be has to guess who each pair is from.  Each wrong guess led to a sip of Sangria for Kelsey. 

I love this game because the bride gets tons and tons of new panties, ranging from sexy to cute & comfy. Its also a fun way to learn about other guests you may not know, and its definitely a great way to get people laughing!  Plus, you have to embarrass the bachelorette a little bit, and holding up panties in a restaurant is a great way to do that! :)

After dinner, we headed to Havanna Social Club to dance (one of Kelsey's favorite activities) the rest of the night away!

This is another venue I would highly recommend for a night out in Seattle.  They were also so accommodating. We were able to reserve a great table right on the dance floor, which really made the evening perfect. 

What a fun night! I cannot wait for the wedding!

Disclosure: The makers of Ring Pops graciously sponsored the party favors for this party...however I was planning on using them anyway.

Inspiration: Hot Pink Bachelorette Bash!

Friday night of the 3-parties-in-3-days weekend was a Bachelorette Party for my friend Kelsey.

I'm a bridesmaid in her May wedding, and I can't wait!

Here's the inspiration board I created when planning this Night-Out:

Photo credits: 

Zebra Blume Box by Lemiga Events

Martini glass with baubles & feathers by Social Couture

Any bachelorette must: Champagne!

A feather boa is much preferred over a cheesy veil as far as I'm concerned

Fun, sparkly chandelier from Plum Party

Kelsey's wedding colors are pink & gray, so for the bachelorette party I wanted to play off that but add a little spice, so I went with hot pink, silver, and black. 

Check back tomorrow to see the fun party details!

Real Party: Black Lace Bachelorette

Remember these? 

We had the party last weekend & I've finally gotten all my pictures organized. 

What a fun night!

We started here, for some drinks and a little game. 

 This is my favorite bachelorette game lately. All the guests bring a pair of panties for the bride-to-be.  The panties should represent something about the giver.  The bride-to-be has to guess who each pair is from.  Each wrong guess led to a sip of champagne for Drea. 

Drea was amazing at this game! I can't believe how many she got right! 

The best part is the bride gets tons and tons of new panties, ranging from sexy to cute & comfy. Its definitely a great way to get people laughing! 

Then it was off to dinner here. 

Party favors were "ring pops" with purple tags and black ribbon, which we handed out at dinner.

And we had purple cupcakes, of course!  Remember my shoebox method of taking cupcakes to a restaurant?  We did that again, and covered the box with black lace. We turned it over to make a "platter" & left it at the restaurant when we were done.  I also ordered black lace baking cups from Etsy.  Drea's cupcake had a special glowing ring in it. 

Then it was glow sticks for everyone, and off to dance until our feet wanted to fall off...I believe Drea described it as feeling like she was walking on pins when we finally went home. :) 

Invitations: Black Lace Bachelorette Party

My friend Lindsay (my best crafting partner) & I spent our Sunday making some invitations for an upcoming Bachelorette Party. 

We are so happy with the finished product! 

 Drea is using purple as one of her wedding colors, so we started with deep purple paper. 

We folded it into three panels, and added a little black lace.

We punched holes down the sides and wove shiny black ribbon through.  

The final touch were the little purple rhinestone stickers-- a little bling to tie in the purple color.  

The insert slides out and contains all the details of the evening.  

We hope they'll get all of Drea's friends excited for the party!  
Thanks to Lindsay for taking pictures for me! :) 

Creative Centerpiece Ideas

I found some very creative ideas for centerpieces on Rachael Ray's magazine site: Everyday.  

These are made from Jello! 

There are so many possibilities for this: So many colors, so many fillers. 

Perfect for a kids party.  The DIY instructions are here.  

Costume (or any brightly colored) jewelry clustered in cocktail glasses. 

Perfect for a bachelorette party, girl's dinner, little girl's birthday party, etc. So fun!

The DIY instructions are here. 

Topiaries made with shredded paper.  Put all the scraps from that paper shredder to work!

These all-white beauties are perfect for winter.  A bright, multicolored version would be perfect for kid's party. 

The DIY instructions are here. 

Topiaries made with colored pencils! Too cute!

Perfect for a kid's party. Especially one of the rainbow parties I've seen around lately. 

The DIY instructions are here. 

Potted asparagus bundles.  

Nice for a rustic, earthy meal. 

The DIY instructions are here. 

Thanks to Rachael for all the ideas! :)

Shower Game!

One of my friends is in the midst of planning a  Bachelorette Weekend.  She put together a fun little game for guests to play with the bride-to-be.

The bride-to-be is a fashionista...Warning: this game is only for those who are serious about fashion!

My friend was nice enough to let me share the game with you!

I love ideas that move shower games beyond toilet paper wedding dress competitions...

This game would be fun for a Bridal Shower, and Bachelorette Party, or even just a Girls' Weekend.

Download yourself a copy!

Designer Quiz

And then get the answers...No cheating!  ;)

Designer Quiz Answers

How did you score?

Real Party: Bakin' Bachelorette

I have to tell you about a fun party I attended recently. 

Bride-to-be Lisa loves to cook.  So, when it was time to plan a celebration for her upcoming nuptials, her girls had the perfect activity in mind.

The night started with a private baking class. 

This culinary-genius-of-a-man teaches numerous classes in San Francisco. He did a private party for Lisa and her friends, where they learned how to make tarts.

Class description from the website:

Precious Tarts and Pastries

Beautiful European style pastries await you. Students will learn to make delicate, crisp and lightly sweetened tart dough and techniques to roll out perfectly even pastry to fill individual tart shells. Together we will make fruit tartlets filled with fresh vanilla pastry cream, glazed to give shine and garnished with shaved white chocolate.

Check out all the classes offered here. 

 

We had a light dinner to start the evening, and Sangria cocktails. 

Of course, I made a banner for the occasion! 

 

Remember, custom banners are available in my etsy shop!

 

We learned how to make tart dough (which was delicious- look at all that butter!), and vanilla pastry cream.

 

Then came the decorations...

Aren't they beautiful!?

 

Here's a couple tips and tricks for tarts that I learned:

1.  The key is to roll dough out very thin.  Use 1/8 inch thick flat sticks on either side of the dough, and roll until the rolling pin is flat on the sticks. 
2. Melt jam in the microwave and apply with a pastry brush to make fruit toppings shine.
3. Chocolate shavings over fruit make a perfect topper for tarts.   Hold a chocolate bar with a kitchen towel (to avoid melting the chocolate) and shave with a standard vegetable peeler.  If the chocolate is just slightly warm, the shavings with be longer and more curled. Cooler chocolate will result is shorter and straighter shavings. 
4.  If you are making a tray of tarts to serve at an event, decorate them all the same.  A variety of designs will look childish at a classy event. 

 

The bride-to-be had a fabulous time. 

Here she is, piping the tart cream into the little flaky shells.

 

As any good bachelorette party should: the night ended with a little dancing, and a lot of attention for the bride-to-be.

Even if there is not a similar baking class available in your area, this bachelorette party can serve as inspiration.  Getting the girls together for any kind of baking adventure before hitting the town is a fun addition to the standard bachelorette traditions. 

Congratulations Lisa!