Hi there! Last week I wrote about the Jamaica bachelorette and I wanted to sort of keep talking about bachelorettes! So whether you are a Bride or a MOH, planning the bachelorette party is one of the most fun parts of wedding planning. When else are you going to be able to take your closest girlfriends on a little getaway and have them celebrate you?! Uh probably never. I am super excited for my bachelorette and its still months away! So before you can start thinking about all the fun activities to do at your bach, you have to first plan the Who/Where and How. There are sooo many things to consider when you first start planning this amazing weekend so lets get started.

• First off, decide if as the bride, do you want to plan it completely because you want it to be an exact certain way, or are you going to go the more traditional route and let the MOH plan it. I personally decided to let my MOH handle it. I feel like my MOH is my MOH for a reason and I trust her to make it the most magical weekend ever, and honestly its just one less thing to stress about while planning a whole wedding. But I will say, I am too type A for my own liking so trust me, I have given my MOH ALOT of input, because I don’t want to be in the complete dark about the whole weekend which leads me to my next weekend.
• COMMUNICATION: if you are letting your MOH/Bridesmaids plan the weekend, do yourself a favor and communicate with your girls. So decide if 1) do you want to be completely surprised by the weekend 2) do you want to give your MOH input of where exactly you want to go and is she receptive to that. and so on.
• My next tip for the bride on how to pick a location is to keep an open mind and be considerate. Maybe you have always dreamt about having your girls weekend in Las Vegas, and you are completely set on that. Trust me when I say your girlfriends will do whatever they can to make it happen but also be mindful of things like budget, what else is going on their lives? Maybe they can make Vegas happen but for only 2 days, or maybe they can do 3 nights but just not at the exact 5 star hotel you want to stay at. As for the MOH, also stay open minded on location, maybe you wanted to plan this huge weekend bash at a 5 star resort and go all out, but maybe the bride just wants something more low key like an airbnb weekend at a local small town. Ultimately the weekend is about the bride and there is nothing worse than the bride not enjoying herself because it’s not what she envisioned.
• Another tip in looking for locations is to think about the time of the year you want to go on the trip and what activities you want to do. If you are wanting to have your bachelorette let’s say 2 months before the wedding, and it happens to fall in January, then maybe Miami is not the most suitable place considering you were wanting a beach getaway. Vice versa, maybe you are dying to go to Miami in the late summer, well then you have to take into consideration that it is hurricane season then and how that could impact your weekend. That’s exactly what happened to me! I was so set on Miami on labor day weekend! It was around the time Harvey hit Houston that I had a conversation with some of my bridesmaids and it hit me that it would be prime hurricane season so we decided to change the location.
• Next up, research the type of trip with the budget you have. If the bridal party has been vocal about their budget for the weekend, that will greatly help and if not, what a great time to ask them. Once I decided not to go the Miami route, my MOH started researching all inclusive options, since planning started about a year in advance we figured this would be a great option to slowly make payments and have everything paid for by the time we got to the destination. Trust the professionals– my MOH was in contact with a travel agent and said we want to spend about X amount per girl and this is the weekend we are thinking. The travel agent will be honest and say either I don’t think that’s going to be possible with your budget or I think you have a nice budget to give you options so these are your options.
• My last tip is to research prime bachelorette locations. If you are thinking you want a more calm getaway then it may be best to avoid these destinations, and by prime destinations I’m talking about, Las Vegas, Nashville, Cancun, Miami, New Orleans, basically all the party cities. On the other hand if you’re the bride that wants to be in prime bach cities then those are great options! You def. won’t be the first bride tribe there and they will definitely make you feel celebrated! Another reason to research prime locations is because this will totally give you more ideas that you had not thought about. Perhaps your group of gals are wine lovers and Napa Valley comes up as bachelorette destination, but out of your budget, then you can maybe narrow it down to something closer to give you that experience.

So that’s about it for my tips on how to pick locations! I will add that I ran across this awesome site that does bachelorette reviews! It made me even more excited reading about other bachelorettes at the same destination that I am going for mine! Check it out 🙂 Stag and Hen Bachelorette Parties

Til next time!