Anytime I think about our trip to New York, I miss it!!!  I had such a great time with the ladies.  So we’re now on Day 2, where we woke up, got ready, and headed over across the street from our hotel to Shake Shack.  I don’t want to overhype it, but they hands-down have THE BEST BURGERS I’ve ever tasted.  My siblings, fiance Justin, and I had it the first time we went to NYC so we pretty much made it tradition to go to Shake Shack at least once every trip we make out there.  This is trip #2 for me so it was a must in our itinerary!  Lines can get SUPER long, but we got there right before it opened so it wasn’t too bad (yes, there were people in front of us).

BM Celeste made it to NYC for a day! Love her! (Don’t mind the sign above in the background…)

Good friends Linh, who lives in NYC, and Molica, who flew to NYC and stayed with Linh, met up with us at Shake Shack.  Take a look?  How can you not start drooling?!

After lunch, BMs Jona and Sheryl went to the New York Public Library, where they felt honored to study (especially because the Sexy and the City Movie was filmed there):

Source

The rest of us headed to SOHO for some shopping!  We started at Dean and Deluca, where my sister and I had to get green tea for my mom.  I saw they were selling peony bouquets so I pointed them out to the ladies:

Cousin Vanessa knew I love peonies so she surprised me with a peony-scented bar soap!  It smells quite nice.  My favorite shops in the area are Zara, Mango, Top Shop, Madewell, and Uniqlo (where I bought like 50 pairs of jeans).  After shopping and studying for the two, we went back to the hotel.  Celeste had a flight back to Virginia to catch (wasn’t that so sweet of her to fly just for a night to see us??), while the rest of us got ready for dinner and a fun night of partying.  My sister dolled me up:

We had dinner at Supper, an Italian restaurant in the East Village.  Coincidentally, there was another bachelorette party right next to us!  After dinner, we took pictures outside, everyone was handed out “tasks” to fulfill throughout the night, and we headed to 49 Grove where cousin Lourdes hooked us up with free entry and bottle service.

We were right by the bathroom, which was kinda weird but it worked out because it made it easy for the girls to grab guys to fulfill their tasks!  What tasks you ask?  Well, some included:

1) Get a guy’s underwear and have him autograph it – Fulfilled.

2) Have a guy propose to you – Fulfilled.

3) Kiss the cheek of the ugliest guy in the room – Fulfilled.

Another funny thing – cousins Vanessa & Lourdes’s brothers John and Chris kept hitting them up trying to hang out with us.  John probably would have went with us to the Gossip Girl tour except he couldn’t find parking when dropping off Vanessa.  Finally, we let them hang out at 49 Grove, so here’s a pic with my honorary bachelorette party members:

I was dancing til three in the morning.  I’m usually the grandma but I was telling them that I got prep from going to Vegas twice before the trip!  We ended the night… or morning… eating Halal food from a food truck then playing “Pin the Macho on Channing Tatum”.  And yes, since I’m the bride, I made our honorary members play as well!

With about three hours of sleep, we got up and ready, packed, and some of them headed their way.  The rest of us didn’t make it to the originally planned brunch spot, so we went to John’s Pizzeria nearby.  Our last stop before the airport was Macaron Cafe, where our Gossip Girl tour guide got us macarons.

Our departure was bittersweet.  I definitely missed Justin and Otis (our pug), but I knew I would miss hanging out with all the ladies in New York!  I’m still amazed how many ladies actually showed up!!  I’m sooo thankful to my MOH/sister Marj and my BMs for their planning and all the ladies (and gents) that came!!  Like I said at 49 Grove – if this is any indication to how fun the wedding will be, then it will be AWESOME!!!  The decor and details make the pictures, but the people make the experience and memories.  Less than two months away and I’m super excited!

So all 9 of us met back at the hotel room, where I found cute decor all set up!  Teal/turquoise beads and margarita glasses (we had champagne though), zebra-printed napkins, and my crown with a veil attached:

Red velvet cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery:

The goodie bags:

Cartoon penis balloons (thank you BM L):

And most importantly: 

From afar I thought it was actually Channing Tatum’s hot bod!  Back the goodie bags – April couldn’t make the trip so she put together these awesome giveaways for all the ladies.  The label mimicked the Gossip Girl logo!  The goodies included a blooming bag, hand sanitizer, penis straw, and lube (it is a bachelorette party, after all):

So what the heck is a blooming bag??  Why, let me demonstrate!  It goes from this:

To this:

I can hear all the “oohs” and “aaaahs”!  I first heard about it on Sasha Souza’s Sparkliatti post on her Favorite Things for Weddings, then told April about it.  She’s quite the sneaky one isn’t she?  Well, all the ladies were quite sneaky throughout the planning process!

So after we got a little settled into our rooms, we walked a couple blocks to Pio Pio Peruvian Restaurant, which had THE BEST ceviche I ever tasted!  My other cousin Lourdes and BM Ro’s sister Michelle met up with us.  During dinner, I was also given my first set of “tasks”:

1)  Grab the next guy that passes me and have him give me a kiss on the cheek – This was sort of hard since I was facing the ladies who were against the wall, but we summoned the manager who was happy to help.

2)  Have a guy give me a massage – Our waitress pulled one of the waiters to give me a nice shoulder and neck massage.  I really needed it from such a long day!

3)  Kiss a bald guy in the head – All the bald guys at the restaurant were either really old or on dates so I waited til the next night to fulfill this one.

After dinner, I ran into BM Celeste at the front of the hotel who’s flight just came in from Virginia.  She got dinner for herself and we went back to the room.  We ate the cupcakes and the yummiest heavenly banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery and played a little “icebreaker” to get to know each other better.  BM Ro’s sister stayed a bit then left.

So on today’s post, we started off with 9 then went to 11 at the restaurant, 12 at the hotel for dessert, and then back to 11 ladies for a good night’s rest!

As I’ve mentioned previously, my bachelorette party weekend was in New York.  I was surprised that so many of the awesome ladies in my life were able to attend!  Four of us – me, MOH Marj, BM Jas, BM L, and cousin Camille – flew together on a red-eye to get to JFK at 4:30am.  As we waited for BM Jona coming from Arizona and BM Sheryl coming from San Francisco to arrive from their red-eye flights, we chilled at the Baggage Claim area.  BM L and I spotted Neil from SYTYCD.  He’s so cute!  When we got to our hotel, we checked in our luggage and got ready in the bathroom since check-in wasn’t til 3:00pm.  We had breakfast/brunch at a nearby cafe and headed to Gossip Girl tour meet-up spot, where BM Ro and cousin Vanessa met us.  On a tour bus, we went to all these different spots where scenes from my favorite show were filmed, including the MET steps:

We even stopped by Henri Bendel and Dylan’s Candy Bar, where we got yummy cupcakes from Crumbs Bake Shop:

Our tour guide gave us a macaron which was ”uh-maze-ing” [as our guide would have said it]:

We ended at the Empire Hotel, which in the series is owned by ever-so-dreamy The Chuck Bass:

After the 3.5-hour tour, some of the girls split to run errands.  The rest of us made our way to the studio of fashion designer German Valdivia, where BM Sheryl and I tried on some $3000+ dresses while the other ladies watched and sipped wine (you know, nothing out of the norm):

BM Sheryl’s brother is friends with the designer so it was really nice of them to welcome us with open arms!  We then headed back to the hotel, where the rest of the girls we split up from earlier were and lovely decor was set up!

Stay tuned for Part 2 where you’ll see the lovely decor, the giveaways, and more ladies show up!  Have you been keeping count so far??

Is it me or does being a bride make one dumber??  Besides the fact that I’m making spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in all my posts (my apologies because it is a total pet peeve), I can’t seem to perform simple calculations and my common sense is no where to be found.  Case in point…

My sister and I just received the package with her MOH dress and my cake-cutting dress.  She had already tried it on when I went to my parents’ house, where the dresses were delivered.  She told me there’s something wrong with the shoulder tie part, so I told her to try it on again to show me.  Well, she tried it on and the shoulder tie part was awkward-looking.  We took pictures to show Michelle that the pleating of the front of the dress didn’t quite measure up to that of the back of the dress:

Notice the extra material hanging like blah in the first picture?  We got really nervous and we tried not to panic, thinking there’s plenty of time to get it fixed.  So we contacted Michelle and she responded back with:

“I believe the front shoulder tie is suppose to be over the right shoulder. That way you can see the gathering on the waist all the way around.”

Uhh… a big DUUUUUHHHHHH!!!!  I don’t even know what my sister and I were thinking to not take that into account!  My sister responded back to me, “we are idiots.”  So the next day, I went to my parents’ house, while my sister was still in Irvine, to try on the dress for her and make sure it looked nice with the shoulder tie over the CORRECT shoulder:

Besides the fact that the dress is big on me, a lot better right??  This is probably the biggest of many stupidities (so far) that came along while planning for my wedding.  I have no idea why I’ve become like this and I hope it’s not permanent!  I haven’t been really stressed or anything like that – I’ve even gotten comments saying that I’m such a calm and relaxed bride.  I think there’s just something about being a bride and planning a wedding that makes someone lose some brain cells!   Anyone feel/felt this way?  PLEASE tell me I’m not the only one! =/

I’m back from my bachelorette party weekend in NYC.  It was soooo much fun!!   I’ll recap later since I have to pick up where I left off from last week.  So I made an appointment at Mon Amie Bridal after I decided to purchase the original lace dress.  At my appointment, my consultant Vicki mentioned that I came at the perfect time because if I came the next day, we would have to do a rush order on my dress since the designer can take up 6 months to make and ship it.  My sister/MOH, mom, and dad came with me again as I FINALLY said yes to the dress:

After saying yes to the dress, we were able to take pictures.  My consultant Vicki took that one as my sister was brushing her hair off her face.  I’m on an 8-inch pedestal so I look really tall (I kind of like it!)  And here’s just me totally happy the dress drama is over [*crossing my fingers]:

I feel more like a bride now that I have my dress!  Anyone else feel such a relief after finding THE ONE?

Hello all (two of you… j/k)!  Still gotta write about finally saying yes to the dress and getting a cake-cutting dress, but I’ll continue next week because I’m going to [in my singing voice] NeeEEeeW YoOOoOork!! Concrete jungle where dreams are made of!  [end singing voice]  If you didn’t catch that, I’m going on a weekend getaway to New York City for my bachelorette party starting tonight!  I’m not sure what’s in store, but I know it does involve Gossip Girl…

Til next week, XOXO.