My Bachelorette Weekend in New York City
It has officially been a full year since my four best friends and I spent an amazing weekend in NYC celebrating my bachelorette weekend. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to go to New York City and see a Broadway musical for my bachelorette party. I was lucky enough to have bridesmaids who loved me so much they made my dreams come true.
My maid-of-honor, Emma took care of literally everything. She booked us a cool AirBnB in Brooklyn between Greenpoint and Williamsburg, she got us tickets to Frozen on Broadway and she even had matching shirts made for all of us!
Emma, Julia and I flew out bright and early on Friday. We grabbed an Uber and made our way to SoHo to browse the shops. We did some research ahead of time and found an app called Luggage Hero that lets you drop your bags off at a specific location and pick them up later. We dropped ours at a dry cleaner and we were a bit wary to leave all of our things at first, but everything was safe and we had no issues in the end. It definitely beat carrying our suitcases around all day while we shopped.
At this point it was 10am and we were all getting a bit… hangry. Our hanger grew exponentially once we realized that most of the shops and restaurants in the area wouldn’t be open for another couple hours. We finally found a place nearby that had good reviews on Yelp and said it was open, but when we arrived it was closed. We decided to just go to the next open place we saw. That place was Bistrot Leo.
We loved the vibe of Bistrot Leo in SoHo.
Bistrot Leo is a cute little restaurant connected to what seemed to be a swanky boutique hotel. The ambiance was perfect for a girls-day brunch and the food was delicious. We toasted my fast-approaching wedding with mimosas and dined in style. About halfway through our meal, the song La Vie en Rose came on, solidifying that moment in my heart forever. La Vie en Rose happened to be the song Eli and I had already picked for our wedding and hearing it in that moment filled me with so much happiness and excitement. It was the perfect way to start my weekend.
The girls and I walked around and popped in-and-out of stores for the remainder of the morning and afternoon. I made a small purchase in Kate Spade (a sticky wallet for my phone case) and Julia bought some super cute pants at Madewell. We weren’t really in it for the purchases so much as the fun of being together. We ended our time in SoHo at a cute bar called Little Prince where I had a delicious Manhattan, my signature drink.
The Little Prince had fabulous drinks and a ton of beautiful botanicals.
We were meeting up with Kenzie at the AirBnB at 4pm so we grabbed our luggage, called an Uber, and made our way to Brooklyn. Once we got settled in, Julia, Kenzie and I walked to a nearby liquor store to grab some wine and champagne for the night. Kenzie also bought us a ton of snacks - she must have known how much I love chips. When we got back to the AirBnB, Emma had decorated with cute balloons and fun bachelorette-themed things. We ordered pizza from a nearby pizza place, Archie’s Delivery, and just chilled and played fun games with good wine and even better company. It was such an easy, fun night.
The next morning we got up decently early to shower and get ready for brunch and the show. We immediately popped champagne and jammed to Lizzo while we got dolled up. Another Uber took the four of us to Verde on Smith where we met the third and final member of our group, Karlie. Emma picked this particular restaurant based on their excellent reviews and the fact that they offered bottomless mimosas for two hours while you dine. The food was great, the mimosas were even better. They offered classic, peach, mango, raspberry and pineapple. I opted for raspberry for the most part. We definitely took advantage of the full two hours and the term “bottomless”.
Next, we took a ride over the iconic Brooklyn Bridge and arrived at the St. James Theater where we had tickets for Frozen, the show I had chosen. If you know me, you know I am a HUGE Disney lover, and I had wanted to see Frozen since I learned it was being made into a Broadway musical. It did not disappoint. Frozen was cute, romantic and even a little emotional. It was different enough from the movie that it kept you engaged and the actors were AMAZING (Patti Murin, I love you.) There were so many fun special effects and magical moments, it was like stepping directly into the story. I bought a cute little Sven ornament so I will remember the experience every Christmas when I decorate my tree.
After the show was over, we grabbed a quick coffee and Julia found a fun bar near the theater called Dutch Fred’s. The vibe of Dutch Fred’s is very art deco - right up my alley. They had really fun, interesting drinks and we got a couple orders of yummy fries to snack on. At this bar we played a game where I had to answer questions that Eli had previously answered and see if we aligned. If I got it right everyone else had to drink and if I got it wrong, I had to drink. It was a great way to include Eli in our girls-only weekend.
We then went back to our AirBnB and changed for our night out. We had evening reservations at a restaurant called Sanfords in Astoria. I had a delicious steak and another glorious manhattan. After a couple drinks with dinner we decided to walk to a nearby bar. To be honest, I have no idea what the next two bars were called. My girls did the navigating and I was mostly focused on not freezing to death in the New York November cold. The next bar was definitely upscale. It was kind of crowded but It had a cool vibe and the entire place was lit with candles. Because the brick walls bounced sound like crazy, we only had one drink before moving on. The next and final bar we stopped at was very much a dive bar. There were a lot of locals at this place who found it really funny that we wandered in for a bachelorette party. Everyone was so welcoming and maybe a bit too nice when it came to buying me shots. This is also the bar where we had our biggest laugh of the night. We were all gathered around a hightop table and had just gotten our drinks when the song Pony by Genuwine came on the jukebox. Julia got extremely excited and started bouncing up and down on her stool. She bounced so hard in fact that she fell off of her chair, tipping over the entire high top and spilling a full round of PBRs over everything. We burst into peals of laughter, Julia loudest of all, while the rest of the bar looked on in horrified silence. To this day, whenever I hear Pony, I can’t help but picture Julia taking down our table with a fresh round of drinks because she was so pumped about a song.
Everyone was getting tired after a long day of fun, so we headed back to get some rest.
Emma, Julia, Kenzie and Karlie made my bachelorette weekend truly special and I will be eternally grateful for the memories we made. While I haven’t been able to travel or even see my besties as much as I would like this year, it’s so great to be able to look back and smile at the fun times we had!