Bachelorettin' in Charleston

I've missed you, blog world! I've been driving all over the South (four states, to be exact) on a whirlwind trip to Charleston for my friend's bachelorette party, and I finally got back Monday afternoon. Exhausting, but so much fun. It was my first time in Charleston so it was fun to explore a new city, hang out with my favorite friends and go out dancing. But let's rewind about 1,300 + miles.

Wednesday afternoon my friend Rachel and I packed up the car (full of suitcases, snacks, a penis pinata—the usual) and drove four hours to Nashville, where we spent the night with bachelorette Lexi, her fiance Jamie and their fur babies, George (also known as the Great White Fluff) and Jennifer (Princess Shark). We woke up early Thursday morning to snow flurries and worried phone calls from moms, but the snow pretty much stopped falling by the time we left Nashville, and we had good travel weather and road conditions for the whole drive. The whole 10 hour drive. We seemed to be stuck in the Bermuda Triangle on the trip to Charleston—the GPS told us we had four hours left, and then two hours later we still had four hours left, or at least that's how it seemed. We also stopped a lot and went through a tiny mountain town with tiny mountain roads that I had to navigate very slowly. But we finally made it to our pink rental house in Folly Beach (about 15 minutes from downtown Charleston) just in time to unpack, reunite with our friend Stephanie who made it three hours sooner than us, and get back in the car, half of us going to the grocery store and the other half heading to the airport to pick up our fifth, Willow. I was very happy to find that our house was nice, clean and had sheets (it didn't have towels, but I brought some and had secretly been afraid it wouldn't have sheets) because I booked it over the Internet. (I highly recommend HomeAway Vacation Rentals, btw.)

Our house in Folly Beach.

Living room.

Sitting room area that opened out onto a big screened-in porch.

Outdoor area. It was too cold to go out there.

One of the three bedrooms. There was also a loft.

On the first day we walked to the beach, explored a little bit of Folly Beach (lots of it was closed for the off-season) and then drove into Charleston for delicious sushi and shopping on King Street.

There were fried oysters in that sushi!

A sake toast to Lexi, Jamie and puppies!

Rachel and Willow on King Street.

That night we played some card games in the house and walked to downtown Folly Beach for dinner at the Crab Shack. Rachel's steamed shrimp knocked my socks off. I think it's the best shrimp I've ever had, but maybe that's because I don't live on the coast anymore. I got oysters, of course. They were better than the ones we had in Savannah, but not very flavorful.Willow scored big with her oysters and found what we believe to be a little pearl.

My pearl-less oysters.

On day two we headed toward the market area in Charleston and had lunch and Bloody Marys at a rooftop bar there. I'm not sure what it was called, but the fried green tomato wraps with goat cheese were so good. Please ignore what appears to be my massive tangle of hair. Willow looks cute, though!

Stephanie with the bride-to-be

We walked around the market a bit to pass the time before our carriage tour of the city, and sampled Hyman's hushpuppies that some waitresses were handing out on the street. My kind of city, for sure.

Street puppies.

Carriage ride mule.

Rachel and Willow on the Charleston tour.

This girl was really good and had cool hair.

After the tour we stopped in a few more stores and then headed back to the house to get ready for that night. In the picture below, Willow is trying to bump up Lexi's hair. It didn't end up working because you can see the Hollywood Bump It through thin hair, but it looked really good on Willow. For some reason I don' t have a picture of it. Based on my scientific research, the Hollywood Bump It looks good on one out of four people, myself not being one of them.

Before the taxi came we did a small lingerie shower with lots of joke gifts like silver underwear, edible body paint pens and the like.

We went out for dinner at Coast and then walked a little ways to Trio, where we stayed all night dancing. There were two rival bachelorette parties there, but they were lame,as they did not have a pink wenis sticking out of their purses.

The next morning we got up, cleaned the house and hit the road! Where's your favorite place to road trip it? Have you ever been to Charleston?

A Bachelorette Bash in New Orleans

Recently, my main ladies and I celebrated my limited days as a bachelorette in New Orleans--so much fun, and my first time on Bourbon, even though I grew up about an hour and a half away. (The one time I walked down Bourbon during the day in highschool, a piece of toast--like toasted toast, not just bread--fell on my head. That didn't happen this time, but I now realize it could have been worse ...) I got to see some bffs I haven't seen in forever and hurricanes were had by all (well, almost all--the smart ones stuck to beer.)
The night flew by, and then bridesmaid Rachel and I were back on the road for our six hour drive home. Here are some highlights from the night, snapped by my wonderful MOH, sister and apparently fab party planner and Ashley.

Flavors included strawberry lemonade, and ... well that's all I can remember. But they were good!

Aren't these cupcakes adorable? They're from Frosting, a cupcake shop on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the area from which I hail. Ash picked up 18 of these babies, all in different flavors, to fill the eighteen slots on her cupcake stand.

Bachelorette accessories.

The set up. Not sure if you can see it, but the cupcakes are too big for the stand (there were so many that we didn't even get to sample all of them.) And yes, those are peen antennas in the center of the table. Bridesmaid Lexi rocked them all night and she looked pretty awesome.

Then my long lost friends Willow and Alex showed up in true NOLA style--rockin' to-go daiquiris they picked up just outside of the city for their drive in.

On our way to dinner at Emeril's NOLA Restaurant (which was delicious and everybody unanimously regrets not ordering the buttermilk fried chicken and bourbon mashed potatoes so get it if you go!) we took a group picture. I love these girls!

(left to right) Lovely lady Nikki (the fashionable wife), MOH Ash, bridesmaid Willow, fab friend Alex, me and bridesmaids Alisha, Rachel and Lexi all of whom deserve witty titles, but I'm too lazy to come up with some.

And so the night began.

First, we outfitted ourselves in bachelorette wear. Ash wore the leopard princess kitty crown (leftover from the lingerie shower Lexi hosted the night before--recap to come), while Willow went for a more roaring twenties look with her feather. Check out the peen antennas!

We saw Andrew's suit in the window of the J.O.S. A. Banks store connected to our hotel, and it was quite exciting. I had to pose.


There were so many other bachelorettes out in about, but this pink-haired lady was staying on the same floor as us. Notice she's holding cash in her left hand; I had a rainbow peen pop in my right hand, but I cropped it out to maintain my internet reputation. Shady, I know.

To sum it up there was dancing, drinking and late night pizza eating. And then we woke up to this:

The morning after. Poor cupcakes. But look, the edited penis pop makes an appearance!