Wedding Update #49: The Bachelorette/”Bachelor” Parties
First, I just want to say right away that “Bachelor” is in quotes because Kris did not really have a bachelor party. He didn’t really want one, but I wanted him to at least go have dinner while my girls brought me out. So basically Ray took him out and they had dinner and did a couple other nice “guy hanging out” things. I’ll let Kris describe more details if he feels like he needs to. After all, this is my blog, not his. 
Once again, our day started at the airport. It was so nice to have a ride with the limo driver there waiting for us! He handled taking all our luggage, which was a nice treat - since we have experience with dragging our luggage through the train and stations, and that was an adventure! Anyway, it was a hot and humid day already at 5:30 in the morning! When we arrived at my parents’ house I was too excited to go to sleep, and I wanted to open all the packages of things I had ordered over the past few months just to check to make sure everything was here. I finally did fall asleep, and Kris and I slept most of the day. When we woke up, we spent a lot of time unpacking and reorganizing our gear. We had just enough time to shower before our respective rides arrived.
I said hi to Ray, then goodbye to the guys. I put on my shoes and then Val did my makeup. She does such an awesome job - I know I’m going to look awesome on my wedding day! Jerilyn arrived and changed, and we were ready to go to dinner. Our first stop was one of my favorite local restaurants, the Garlic Rose in Cranford, NJ. Laura surprised me with a “Bride to be” tiara and veil, which she said I had to promise to wear. Val followed by pulling a feathery white boa out of her purse, and I was so excited that I said, “No problem!” and put both items on right away. We enjoyed some “bridal” blue sangrias (white wine with blue curaco) and the infamous garlic spread while we waited for our entrees. In between courses, my mom and bridesmaids also surprised me with a few more gifts - lingerie, sunscreen, aloe, and a beach cover-up!
After dinner we dropped my mom back off at my parents’ house, and met up with Laura’s friend Jackie, who is coming to the wedding with her. It was so nice to finally meet Jackie (or re-meet her, I may have met her when they were much younger) after all these years of her and Laura being friends and seeing all sorts of pictures of them at various concerts and parties together.
Our next stop was The Breakfast Club 80 in Old Bridge, NJ. We were a little surprised at being the first people there, but we had a table reserved because Val had called ahead to arrange for our bachelorette party to be there. It was great to have a place to put our purses and just hang out while we waited for the place to get jumpin’. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to go to a place called The GARLIC Rose before going out clubbing, but once again we were lucky to have some time to freshen up before anyone else was there.
Laura and Jackie were the first to get one of the club’s signature drinks - The Incredible Hulk in a fishbowl! While the drink was visually appealing, it was a bit too cumbersome to bring onto the dance floor, which was another great reason for having a reserved table. I used my voucher to get a free drink, so I opted for the Pretty in Pink drink. It too came in the small fishbowl. By this time Jackie and Laura had finished off their drink, so they went to the bar and got the 80 oz. fishbowl of the Pretty in Pink also.
By this time there were plenty of people on the dance floor, and one of my favorite songs from high school came on. It was “One Time Love” by TKA, which is this crazy song Marisa, Ray, and I used to listen to when we first tried to go clubbing back when we were 18. We had so much difficulty finding a place where all three of us could get in that we just had fun driving around and instead had a club in Ray’s car! Anyway, I dragged everyone else onto the dance floor and we just went crazy. Most of the songs were ones everyone knows the words to, although there were actually a couple I’m surprised that anyone else in my little group actually knew. Needless to say most of the place was singing along as they were dancing, and went absolutely NUTS when “Bad Medicine” by Bon Jovi came on (remember this is a club in NJ). I had a blast. 
Although I didn’t get another drink (Jackie offered, I’m sure the other girls would have too - I was just having too much fun dancing to get anything to drink, and in retrospect it probably would have been better for Laura & Jackie not to have gotten the Pretty in Pink or should have gotten the smaller size, because it was just too sweet, and between the three of us we could not polish it off before we left), and no guys really hit on me (I’m actually really happy about that!), I did have a great time. I had one guy ask me why I was wearing a crazy tiara and boa, so I pointed at the crown’s words, and my ring, and he got really excited and said to me, “Oh wow! Congratulations!” He then took my hand and spun me around twice, very gentleman-ly and courteous. It was quite nice actually.
The only “down” parts of the evening were that I was a little bummed that so few people came, but thinking about it, there weren’t many people on the guest list to begin with. I know more would have been there had it been shorter distance-wise or better timing. Then there were the skeezy guys - aren’t there always a couple??? There was this one like 40-something guy who kept trying to dance in on Jerilyn and Valerie (who ironically are also engaged). Jackie noticed the guy too, and we gave each other the same “ew!” look about him. I had to keep grabbing Jer and Val’s hands to spin them around or something to get them away from that guy because I’m really conscious about these things. Then there was the guy who came over to our table and kept trying to talk to us. He asked why we had a table reserved, so I showed him my crown and ring, like I did with the guy earlier in the evening. He then asked how old I was - I lied and said I was 30, but he still said, “You’re too young!” I have no idea how old he thought I was. I grabbed Jackie and said, “Let’s go to the bathroom,” to try to get the guy to leave. I felt bad I abandoned the rest of the girls with him, and he asked Val some questions, but luckily one of the roaming girls with shots in the test tubes came over and he finally left. Jackie and I quickly ran back and apologized for leaving.
Everyone was really tired, so we left kinda early. Of course I’d had a long flight, but Laura and I had also had a long day with her dog (which I will write about after the wedding and honeymoon). Val had also had a long day with her new puppy, and Jerilyn wanted to go meet up with her fiance`. I had one more guy sincerely wish me good luck as we were leaving which I thought was so nice. Once we got back to the house we got Val set up in the den since she was staying over and had a bit of girl talk before I headed upstairs. Kris got home a bit later, but he and Ray had gotten stuck in all sorts of traffic coming back to Jersey from NYC. We both had a great time - this week is going to just fly by so quickly!
Obviously I had to post-date this since it was so late when I got back!
