I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but figured I had to mention a bachelorette trip to Charleston, SC! It was a weekend full of the best food, chatting in bed, laying on the beach, and just general girl time. I loved the city and REALLY love the bride-to-be!
This weekend, I was lucky enough to help shower one of my favorite people with best wishes. My mom and I teamed up with the most creative mother-daughter duo (and some of our best friends) to host it at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In high school, we dreamed of getting married on this lawn, fake ceremony included. The architecture is gorgeous and the Texas sun reflecting on the pool is magic. It felt very apropos to be there celebrating an upcoming wedding with our best high school friends and their moms. I feel so lucky to have remained close to these girls, even though most of us now live in different cities.
My mom and I arranged the flowers, while Taylor & Carri painted custom pieces for each place setting. Taylor came up with the MOST clever idea of having the “AL” balloons in “BRIDAL” be different colors since the bride’s name is Alex. She’s good. They tend to throw amazing showers (I know because they threw mine :D). And the bride looked beautiful- can’t wait to see her in a wedding dress!!
Couples showers are so much fun. They are basically just a big party and I love that. So this past weekend some of Katie’s bridesmaids threw this amazing shower and it happened to be in my home! Dan and I love having people over and should definitely do it more often. Big plus: Dan suddenly turns in to a cleaning machine and is insanely helpful and MOPS. In our household, I typically do all the housework (minus hand-washing dishes) which is fine, but it’s always great when he helps. He takes cleaning direction incredibly well and is the best. (To be fair- he’s the greatest handyman and handles the bulk of all outdoor work, which when you have a big yard, with big trees, is a big deal). Long story, short we did a massive cleaning/ organizing spree and it was great.
Then we got to party! And I didn’t have to cook or bring decorations! So stress level was non-existent. Gerrit made an awesome spread with deviled eggs, pulled pork sliders, lox and cream cheese, candied bacon, and chicken and waffles (with Chick-fil-a nuggets, yum). Such a feast and am so grateful he spent all day in the kitchen. The girls brought beautiful flowers and cute signs and lots of pictures of Katie + Josh and everything came together so well. And they were sweet enough to leave the flowers so I’ve had glorious blooms in the house all week long 🙂 Plus Dan had recently kegged his witbier (my personal favorite) so that was on tap as well. So classy have a kegerator in our dining room 😉
It was a “stock the Bar” shower, so we gave them ingredients for one of my favorite cocktails.
They excelled at the Newlyweds game!! Totally ready for marriage.
Such a great feeling to have a full house, with top notch people, and one of the best reasons to be celebrating! These guys getting hitched:
This weekend we got to celebrate the fact that Miss Katie is getting married SO SO SOON! Chels and I had the honor of throwing the bachelorette party and it was a blast. And y’all know I love an excuse to plan anything, especially for someone I love so much.
We kicked off the weekend with brunch at Gratifi. Food was fabulous, per usual, and super affordable. It also may have been the best service I’ve ever had in a large group. When the server carded us, she wrote our names down as well so that splitting the tab up was incredibly easy. A +!! If you have a large party, go here!! And they allow dogs on the patio, which gives any restaurant extra points in my book.
Gift bags for the girls!
Getting pampered at Sweet Desire!! I messed up my toes as soon as I was done, ha. They fixed them… after scolding me for not being more careful. Whoops.
How cute is the bride?!?!?!
Chels came Friday from Austin and we crafted and shopped and ate grocery store sushi. I baked the cutest cookies ever- insanely easy recipe, incredibly tedious put together process. The dough as sticky and making tiny cookies is challenging. While they didn’t turn perfect, I was pretty proud of them. As far as crafting, I had seen an adorable “Cheers” sign for sale on Etsy for $50 and figured it’d be worth it to attempt to make it on our own. It definitely was.
After nails, we rushed to get the room set up at Hotel Icon using all our prep work. We loved the hotel- it’s right off of Market Square, downtown, and the rooms all have a historic feel to them while still be completely updated. I would have loved to spend some time soaking in the tub 😀 Plus, thanks to Priceline we got an amazing deal!
The whole group via selfie stick!
After we settled in, Katie opened lingerie (NO PICS!! Josh, you’ll just have to wait ;)) and we played a couple games. Throughout Katie’s life, she’s been fairly accident prone so we played a true/false game of Katie’s injuries. So fun. And we quizzed her on some questions we had asked Josh beforehand. My favorite question was “If you could get rid of anything of Katie’s, what would it be?” and Josh answered “Barrett”. Which is Katie’s dog. I was laughing out loud when he sent that. AND Erin’s bf brought up their new pup, Laura Bush (true Texans, y’all) and she was beyond precious. Cue 12 girls awing.
Best CUSTOM card by Sara. Katie’s face on a lingerie model. Basically the same body, amiright?
Then it was time for dinner at Hearsay. I really enjoyed my fish tacos, but the highlight of dinner was applying flash tats (I was able to find an off brand on Amazon for much cheaper and they were still great!).
Preface: NONE of us go out like this anymore (as in, bar hopping with tons of drinks and staying up until 3 in the morning). BUT it was party bus time! SO many memories from college on a party bus. It was very appropriate that this was the way we celebrated Katie (our president), with so many AXO’s in town. Lei Low, in the heights, was the first stop. Dan and I loved it when we went so I was excited for everyone to check it out. The only indication on the front is a neon “Rum” sign. The only tiki bar I know of in Houston. Drinks are very detailed and pretty darn good, although sometimes bitter.
Next stop: Local Pour. Super fun band playing. I loved the lighting in these pictures.
And of course, we had to hit up Midtown.
But mostly just wanted to stay on the bus because Erin’s party playlist was killing it.
Then it was the morning and we had all made our way onto the struggle bus.
The yogurt parfaits bar served in mini mason jars was an adorable idea but I’m pretty sure everyone just wanted pure grease after the night we had.
CHEERS to the best weekend with some awesome ladies. Can’t wait to celebrate together again at the wedding!!!
bewitchered 