Rant: Bachelorettes Can Be a Real Pain (especially in the wallet)

So, I had all these great ideas for my sister's bachelorette party. It all started with her desire to conceive a child as soon as possible after the wedding. I thought taking a private belly dancing class would be both fun and sort of a good-fertility-luck symbol, since I've heard belly dancing started as a way to prepare women for childbirth. I researched teachers, found one I loved in the town the party was supposed to be in who even had a studio we could use, and then everything fell apart. The wedding date had to be moved and that ended up changing where we would be for the bachelorette. Fine. Not to mention that no one else seemed to get why this would be fun to do (the bride was not consulted, it was supposed to be a surprise).

Then I remembered how much she loves the most local casino and thought, hey, why don't we go there for the weekend? Well, her fiance really doesn't like to sleep without her, so she doesn't want to stay away for the weekend or even a night.

My next favorite idea was to rent a karaoke suite, but they don't seem to exist around her. Saturday night isn't a great time to go to a karaoke bar, especially in a small city. Nix that one!

So, she requested a night of bar-hopping. Okay, totally cool, but to me that means we need a limo. I am not letting anyone drink and drive, my mother was killed by a drunk driver and the last thing we need during wedding week is a tragedy of any kind. She had given me a list of about 16 guests, so I found some party buses that could accommodate that many.

I decided we should start the night with dinner and chose a new fondue restaurant because a) there aren't many cool restaurants in her area, and b) cheese, chocolate, and women seemed like a winning combination. Everyone involved with planning was happy, the only thing was the restaurant was slated to open only 3 weeks before the party and was still under construction.

Luckily, I decided to hold off on booking anything because the bridal shower was a guest fiasco. Less than half the invitees responded and only 3 of my sister's friends showed up (and only 1 was a bridesmaid!). Let's just say I don't trust this crowd, and I know so few of them it's not like I talk to anyone if it's not wedding-related.

I sent out the invites and waited. The RSVP date passed and I hadn't heard from a single person except my best friend (who also is friends with sis) who I already knew couldn't come. Seriously, no one called. It took me five days to track down even the bridesmaids and I still don't have a phone number for 4 potential guests. I'm basically stuck at 6-11 guests as the count.

Still, that's enough to book the limo and I think I managed to snag the last stretch SUV in the area, now that we don't need a bus. I'm really scared we'll end up at 6, though, and that means I am probably going to have to cover most of the bill, which really freaks me out!

Soon after my phone rings. It's the owner of the restaurant telling me weather has basically stopped their construction and he probably won't be open on time.

So, I've got less than a month to get this thing together in a city I barely know that I won't be back to until the party itself, plus I have to go away for a week in the interim. It's amazing to think that I started working on this about a year ago and still am barely through the first lap!

Will I actually be able to pull this off somehow?

No Response Rant

Being a bridesmaid or maid of honor is certainly a big job. Even if the bride doesn't want much help, there are still dresses and shoes to buy, parties to plan, hotel rooms and beauty treatments to pay for. I get it, you've got a lot on your plate.

Still, that doesn't mean it's okay to skip the normal guest stuff. Seriously, I realize that the bride knows you're planning to attend the wedding, but you still need to send in that little card (or respond online if applicable). For starters, often the person you are responding to isn't the bride but her parents, and they may not really know who you are or be in contact with you. Secondly, those little response cards are a tool for plotting the seating chart and sometimes planning the meal (our caterer for this wedding needs menu selections by the week before, for example). If you aren't in that pile you can cause a lot of confusion. It's also bad enough that some guests will invariably need to be called for their responses but for a member of the bridal party to create all that extra work is just plain rude!

Same goes for the shower, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, day-after brunch, or any other parties you are invited to. Unless you are the person who is receiving responses (obviously, you know if you are attending or not) you should make sure to respond, even if you are helping to plan the party.

We ran into this problem with my sister's bridal shower. As maid of honor, I was the main point person on it with a lot of help from the mother of the bride (secretly, of course, for etiquette's sake) and a little help from a bridesmaid and two friends. The other three bridesmaids not only didn't show up but only one bothered to let me know she couldn't make it! Yup, true story. My poor sister had two members of the bridal party (including me), two friends of hers, and a whole bunch of her mother's friends attending her shower. Honestly, it was a lovely shower but I felt really bad that her friends were so lame about coming and so few let us know either way that we had to plan the party for anywhere from 15-40 guests! Do you know how hard that is?

If we hadn't been graciously offered the home of a family friend to hold it in it would have been a disaster.

Now I'm sitting here, five days after the RSVP date for her bachelorette party with only one response. Since I'm hiring a limo I really need a head count right away and it's making me very angry that I have to call everyone AGAIN!

So, here's a rule that needs to be lived by, when you get an invitation in the mail, check your calendar and respond immediately. That way you won't forget and you'll be making the lives of many people far easier. Oh, and don't forget to mark the date in your calendar while you're at it!