Bachelorette Week: An Unexpected Charleston Bachelorette

It’s Sincerely, Jennie’s bachelorette week, betches! Haha, sorry for the enthusiastic start, but that’s how excited I was with each wedding festivity leading up to the big day. The excitement is coming back to me as I write about it.  I already talked a bit about my Charleston bachelorette party, and you can read about why I chose the city here. This week I want to share some bachelorette party tips, outfit ideas and musings about the people who are there for you to celebrate your special day.

I’ll start this week’s theme with a bit about my Charleston bachelorette party, and how it didn’t turn out like I thought. But, it’s just an example of how the wedding planning process isn’t always smooth. You’ve just gotta roll with the punches, because it will all lead up to something great if you let it!

P.S. If you are looking for a white dress, this one is no longer in stores but I’ll be sharing links to available dresses in tomorrow’s post.
To begin with, just choosing a location and date for my bachelorette party was hard. Luckily, I had a great MOH who was always on my side, and pushing me to do what I wanted. She took a poll to find out when the most girls would be available to travel, and I put out the idea of Charleston. Plane flights were expensive, but we had chosen a time around Spring Break so flights to nearly anywhere were expensive. My MOH’s very good advice was that there will always be people who can’t make it, or think the cost is too high. Do what makes you happy (within reason) as long as you are OK with possibly a fewer people coming than if it were a cheaper trip. We moved forward with Charleston, and five women RSVPed yes. I thought six was actually going to be the perfect number, and MOH Rania booked an AirBnB for us.

I arrived in Charleston the evening before everyone just because I wanted to get as much out of my bach party that I could. My flight had a layover and it was not smooth sailing. Storms had occurred earlier that week and pushed back a lot of trips, affecting mine, too. In fact, my mom informed me my dad’s flight from the Midwest through Atlanta had been cancelled, and the earliest he could get home was in 2 days – Saturday. What rough luck, I thought. It didn’t dawn on me that my friends could face the same future.

I woke up Friday morning, the day everyone was supposed to get in, to a call from my MOH. Immediately, I had an idea of what had happened, if she wasn’t on her flight and calling me. Her trip was cancelled indefinitely, and two others had heard the same news. I was sad, but felt most upset for the friends who had taken off work, paid for a trip and planned their family’s schedules around it! I tried to accept that my big Charleston bachelorette party had shrunk to a group of three. It was going to be me and two friends who’d never met before!

Anna, Sarah and me, the lucky few whose trips weren’t cancelled!

Luckily when I met up the two ladies whose flights hadn’t been cancelled, I found them at a wine bar laughing away as if they were old friends. Phew, at least we’d all get along. From there we checked into our Airbnb, which was actually a perfect fit for just three people. It was the most charming coach house. I was really sad my MOH couldn’t be there to see how great her reservation was!

The weekend turned out to be a relaxing vacation, something people usually don’t say about bachelorette parties. We scrapped most of the plans we’d made for when there were six, and just went with the flow. We did a lot of walking, taking in Rainbow Row and the waterfront, and saw downtown Charleston on a carriage tour. We even got to visit the new Skinny Dip store – twice – which had delicious coffee and frosés to be enjoyed in the sun on the rooftop.

As far as what we planned, there are many guides to a successful Charleston bachelorette party out there. I won’t try to recreate the wheel. Sarah and I are both followers of Gal Meets Glam, so we referred to her Charleston guide.

Steve knew this, and to cheer me up he reached out to GMG asking if her husband ever does freelance photography, and if he wouldn’t mind taking our photos to try to cheer us up? A blog assistant responded and very politely explained they aren’t freelancers. I had a good laugh when Steve forwarded me that email. What a sweet thought he had.

All in all, the Charleston bachelorette party wasn’t what I expected. But it was still great quality time with two friends, one of whom I rarely see since she lives in NYC. Plus, the failed party earned me some sympathy with friends, who went out of their way in the following weeks to make it up to me. But more on that later this week. Tomorrow, I’ll be back with a roundup of some of the best white dresses for your upcoming bridal activities.