I’m back from Vegas, alive and in one piece! This past weekend with the girls was so much
fun, I had a blast and I just want to go back every weekend and do it all over
again. Vegas is such a vibrant,
wonderful, disgusting place. YAY!
When you go through the process of planning a wedding, it
opens your eyes like never before to the awesome greatness of your closest
friends and family. I honestly thought
we were just heading down to Vegas for a girls weekend, naming it my “Bachelorette
Party” and calling it a day, because as detailed before, I am not really about
the splashy, penis paraphernalia adorned bachelorette party tradition. These
girls had a very different idea – I was amazed at the careful planning,
thoughtfulness and love that was so evident in putting together this perfect weekend
for me. I am a very lucky girl to have
such amazing friends and family who are sharing this journey of getting married
with me! So read on to find out how it
all shook out!
We started off our trip by driving to Fargo, listening to an
awesome playlist made by Melissa which of course included many a boy band song,
and we chatted excitedly the whole way there.
Once we arrived, we promptly dropped our stuff and went to have dinner
with Mom and Grams before going out for a bit of shopping. And of course, we had to kick off the weekend
of drinking! At dinner, I was presented
with the weekend’s itinerary, and right off the hop I was blown away.
Gorgeous!
My MOH Tara is a scrapbooker extraordinaire, and
crafted these lovely itineraries herself.
Upon reading it, I was even MORE excited for the Vegas weekend, if that
was humanly possible. The ladies
arranged a full schedule of non-stop awesomeness, including a limo tour of the
strip and a trip to see the Chippendales!
So we shopped around for a bit, picked up a few last minute essentials
for the weekend, had a drink in the hotel bar, and went to bed WAY too
excited. I was seriously like a kid on
Christmas Eve.
Shopping in Fargo for some serious essentials.
We woke up the next day and went for lunch, and then headed
to the airport around 1:30 for our 2:45 flight.
The girls had made a reservation that evening at my favorite Las Vegas
restaurant, Stack Steakhouse, and my mouth was watering already. So nothing could have made my heart sink
faster than seeing “DELAYED” on the departures board next to our flight.
Whomp wahhhhh....
So with our 2:45 flight now leaving at 4:45, we headed
upstairs to the tiny airport bar, parked our butts there, and made a plan to
just drink, have fun and make the most of the next three miserable hours that
were putting an extreme dent in our Vegas time.
We were doing pretty good, we made friends in the bar as almost everyone
was in the same boat (except for the man in a tie sitting next to Tara, who was
more than out of place in a room full of Vegas vacationers, and we may or may
not have asked him if he left his Filofax in Conference Room B), and we had a
generously pouring bartender so all was good.
And just as we are approaching 4 pm and the light at the end of the tunnel
is starting to show, our flight was further delayed to 6:20. At this point, I’m starting to get
angry. WTF?!?! Don’t these people know that I have a Vegas
trip to begin? Anyway, after lots of
waiting, lots of drinks, and lots of pouting, we finnnnnally boarded the flight
and got on our way. And getting up to
our gorgeous room and seeing the view of the Strip and the Bellagio Fountains
made it all worth it.
View from our room. Bam.
The next day after a good night’s sleep (suffice it to say I
was NOT feeling well after the flight) we got up fully rested and ready to head
down to the pool. Tara and Melissa told
me to go into the bathroom for 10 minutes, and so I knew there was some kind of
surprise coming. I could hear them
sniggering and giggling through the door, and when I came out, I definitely had
to join in. They decorated the room with
balloons, Bachelorette Party signs, a sash and tiara, and the infamous Bradley
Cooper. They also put together special
Survival Kits for the weekend, which included a customized cup, penis straws
(natch), sunglasses, sunscreen, Tums and Aleve, bandaids....all the
essentials! Not only was it hilarious
and awesome but I was very touched by how much thought had gone into
everything. These girls went all out!!!
Fun!
How perfect! SO excited to wear this.
Such an awesome keepsake!
Bag full of essentials for everyone...
Meet Bradley Cooper.
So after all the snickering subsided, we headed down to the
beautiful pool for some much needed relaxation and sun soaking. The Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan Hotel
is awesome, and I highly recommend this hotel to anyone going to Vegas. The view is awesome, the ($15) drinks flow
freely, the pool has lots of different areas to sit and the music is a good
time. We spent about six hours there,
drinking and chatting and laughing, and then tore ourselves away to head to our
room and get ready for the evening. By
this time, we were slurry and giggly (natch), so we made a couple questionable
decisions including purchasing three hot dogs, numerous random drinks from
Walgreens, tacos that were so spicy I thought I was going to burn a hole in my
stomach, and a bunch of snacks for the room.
Hey, it’s our vacation! Don’t
judge.
Love this pool. Cheers!
So we went back to the room, blasted the music, and got
prettied up for our limo tour and Chippendales evening! I got to wear my sash and crown (LOVED it)
and my new Kardashian Kollection dress I bought in Fargo. Once we were all dolled up, we headed down
for the limo tour with our drinks and began the night o’ fun. First stop: the Las Vegas sign! I have been to Vegas five times previously,
and I’ve never been to the sign so I was so happy we got to go there. There was a bit of a line and it was hotter
than balls out there, but I managed to escape without a melted face and now I
can check that off my bucket list!
Yay!
We returned to the limo, continued drinking and told the
limo driver to take us to a cheesy wedding chapel next. So we drove down the whole strip and got to
look at the whole thing, and then ended up at A Little White Wedding
Chapel. As soon as I saw the sign a few
bells went off (no pun intended) as I know I’ve seen that name somewhere
before. Sure enough, we had arrived at
the wedding chapel where Britney Spears said I do, for her infamous 55 hour
marriage. Ahahaha, yay. So we took some pictures there and took a
look around. It was very small, and
super casual, as they even let us walk in on a wedding taking place!
Pink Cadillac!
Checking out some randoms getting married...
After that we zipped over to Fremont Street and drove
through downtown, and then headed back down the Strip and towards the Rio,
where the Chippendales were waiting. I
have to say, this show was insane. The
decibel level in there was easily on par with some of the craziest boy band
concerts I have ever been to. And what
it is that reduces us self respecting, classy women to screaming pervy crazies,
I have no idea. But man was it a
blast! There were so many other
bachelorettes and birthday girls there, and we even made friends with a
fabulous gay man in sequined suspenders that was more excited than any of us. I will say though, that it is very hard for
me to enjoy these types of shows because the dancing is AWFUL. I know they are not hired for their dance
talent at all, but come on boys, step it up.
Their choreography could use some cleaning...I know a few dance teachers
that would be more than willing to take that job!
Lots of this....
...and a lot of these.
That night we were walking zombies because we hadn’t had
dinner and we were drinking all day and night, so we had a drink in the
gorgeous Chandelier Bar in our hotel and then headed out for some late night
bad food. We walked the strip for a bit
and caught a fountain show, and then came back and crashed in bed. An awesome day!
So many sparkles! My fave.
The next day it was back to the pool for more extreme lazing
and drinking. Even though it was
overcast, it was still so glorious that we couldn’t even tear ourselves away to
go shopping, so I didn’t even set foot in a shoe store. Sacrilege, I know, but I was having too much
fun to be locked away in the stores! Aaaaand
I was probably too tipsy to shop and make logical decisions about footwear, so
that wouldn’t have ended well. After a
long day at the pool and many drinks (including a new invention of ours
involving passion fruit vodka, water, and muddled fruit) we went for dinner at
the Aria Hotel and then headed out for some drinking and gambling and more
Bellagio fountains. Goosebumps! Love those fountains. I did pretty well on Blackjack and then lost
it all on craps, which is weird because it’s usually the other way around. We stayed up late and had a ton of fun on the
strip, and I didn’t want to go back to my hotel because I knew the next morning
we were leaving. Boooooo.
GAHHH LOVE
So after a packed weekend we sadly gathered our stuff in the
morning and said goodbye to Vegas. What
an incredible time I had, it was so fun!
And we promised to travel with each other every two years at a minimum
because it was such an absolute blast that we need to repeat it. So if you want to party with three old
hotties in Vegas in 2033, you’ll find us drinking in the Cosmopolitan pool. ;)
Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!
~M
