Combined bachelorette party/bridal shower
 

I'm my cousin's (un)official bridal shower/bachelorette party consultant and I have a question for you gals (and guys too):

How many days before the wedding should a bachelorette party/bridal shower be? It's going to be difficult to do it the weekend before (or two weekends before) because everyone is from different places--I'm in Toronto, the bride and her sister are in NYC, another gal is in DC and two are in the Boston area. The wedding is going to be in NYC.

Another issue is this: We are going to be spending the day at a spa (likely, anyway. The wedding is over (US) Thanksgiving weekend, and I might not be able to book anything!!!), so what should I do about gift storage?

Thanks :)

Hmmm... when my sister got married we had the best of intentions to go to a spa like the day before the wedding. However, we had the reception on our farm and were too busy sweating our butts off, putting up the tent, setting up table, chairs, dance floors, etc., and making the food to go.

But I digress. I would take into consideration the amount of effort you are going to have to put into getting ready for the actual event. If the venue is taking care of decoration, set up, etc., and all you pretty much have to do is show up, the I would say the day or 2 days before would work. Think of how great it'll feel to go to the rehearsal all pretty and relaxed! However, if there's a lot more effort than that going into the big day, I would suggest 3 days or more before.

Are you talking about the bridal shower gifts? I've never been to a day spa before, so I don't really know, but I would check with the spa and see if they have a changing room they would let you use for storage.

Hope this helps!

I've never heard of combining a shower and a bachelorette party. I don't think it's a good idea.

I'd have to agree.
There's a lot of people (i.e. family members, older family friends, etc) that you'd invite to the shower but not the bachlorette party.

I'm in a wedding the first weekend of March. We had the shower a few weeks ago, and we're having the bachlorette party on the 19th of February. Wanted her to be able to have fun and not be worrying about last minute wedding details.

Don't let the bride take it over. I was the maid of honor for my friend & I had a "naughty" bridal shower planned for her with all our close friends in their 20's & early 30's. She decided 2 days beforehand to invite all her aunts, mom, grandma, mother-in-law, & other female members of his family. They are ultra-conservative so I had to backpeddle & call all the girls & tell them no kinky stuff like we had originally planned. Then for her bachelorette party, I had a night planned at a club with male dancers when she decided to take it out of my hands (again) & we ended up going to Wild Bills which is a western themed show for families. I was angry b/c she had told me to give her dirty parties for young women only then she decided not to at the last minute which left me :mad: . If I would have known that she would take over, I would have let her plan her own parties. Whatever.

Update: There might not be a bridal shower, because the older generation doesn't seem to be too interested. It's probably going to be the bridal party and another girl.

We're still doing a spa thing, and I'm currently looking at the Aveda Institute in SoHo. I don't want to spend too much on this event, so less expensive spas would be good. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which spas to contact in the NYC area?

Thanks :)

Here is a link to some day spas in NYC. I hope that this helps.

Thanks :)

You're welcome. I find that www.newyork.citysearch.com is a good resource when I am looking for a restaurant so I thought it might have info about spas.

Some other great resources about all things NY:
New York Magazine
Time Out New York
TONY's restaurant and bar guide
Village Voice