Customized Girl, together with it’s sister site, Bridal Party Tees, has some incredible offerings if you’re considering making t shirts or keepsakes for your bridal party gifts, or if you are planning a bachelorette party.  I’ve tried making T shirts through VistaPrint (which were certainly workable), but found CG’s products to be of a significantly higher quality for almost the same pricing and with more options.  And just as importantly, the print quality was excellent!

I can’t share photos of my specific order just yet because it’s a surprise for someone special (but I promise I will down the road), but I’ll tell you this: I ordered a few different types of shirts- a men’s tee, ladies fitted tees, stretchy tanks and even a tote bag.  Each and every piece that I ordered arrived looking exactly as I had ordered it, and the shipping was super fast!  The fabrics are soft and comfy!  The ink was vivid and definitely not going anywhere!  And even though everything I ordered was a tad different, it all coordinated so well I couldn’t be happier!

One of the best things about these goodies is that they come in a variety of price points (unlike some of their competitors) and they always have some cute stuff in their sale section too, so you don’t need to bust out a bajillion dollars to have some fun.  And the customizing software is super-user friendly.  You can use their pre-made designs and change text, fonts, sizes, graphics, or you can start from scratch and make your own!

Aaaaand… it’s not just for girls.  They have options for men and kids too, so you can buy gifts for the whole bridal party (even baby onesies)!  All images in this post are, of course, from the websites, but you should definitely go check it out to see more!

Don’t forget to keep checking back in for the upcoming giveaway- it’s a great one!

Wouldn’t these be wonderful, affordable bridesmaids gifts?  Or perfect for an upscale out of town bag?  Personally, I always love wedding swag and have not stopped wearing my most recent wedding related item, a zippered hoodie from friend P’s bachelorette.  In fact, I *may* or *may not* have recently designed some tees for two different events I’ll be a part of in the near future, and I’m so excited with how they came out!  Here’s some of my favorite VP options!

And remember, if you order from VistaPrint, be sure to use Ebates so you can get cash back too!! 

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, they make tote bags and hats too.  What designs are your favorite?

Porn for Women: this book features hunky dudes doing things like asking for directions or saying things like “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.”  They also make a Porn for New Moms book.

Adult Mad Libs: Specifically made for Bachelorette parties.  Yes, really, truly fabulous!

What in the World Did I Do Last Night?:  I have no personal experience with this concept, I have no idea what you are talking about.

Words of Wisdom for the Bachelorette: This looks downright boring, but making fun of it might actually provide you with a new world of entertainment!

All images link to their source.

Well, I’m super excited because I recently attended an outrageously fun bridal shower there (all photos in this post courtesy of friend-bride-to-be)!  I knew that Dylan’s could throw private parties, but I always figured they would mainly cater to 10 year-olds.  And I was so excited to learn that they do much, much more!  Like showers and bachelorette parties!

Ready for the best part?  If you throw a party at Dylan’s, they do all the heavy lifting for you.  They provide you with invitations AND thank you notes, a private, decorated room, food that isn’t just candy (read: tea sandwiches, fruit, crudites) and of course a tasty dessert of your choosing! At the shower I attended, a bartender made tasty cocktails right next to a lovely dessert buffet, and ladies made the nicest-smelling cotton candy while we noshed and visited.  There was also a very tasty and lovely candy-land style cake on display.  As Rachel Ray would say, yum-o!

They will even offer you a professional photographer, games (we decorated cupcakes, played a celebrity couples game, and of course the purse game!), and post-shower courier service so the bride doesn’t have to lug all those gifts home in a taxi.

Perhaps the best part, other than all the other great parts, was that each guest got signature Dylan’s paint cans to fill with candy from the personalized candy bar- which had things like gummies, chocolate covered oreos, jelly bellies, and so forth.  The lids of the paint cans were personalized for my friend, and the guests were elbowing each other to get to the candy.  You really haven’t lived until you’ve seen 50 and 60 somethings elbowing over candy! 

Even if you don’t live near a Dylan’s, this seems like the kind of theme anyone could run with for a grown-up girl party! I think it is pure brilliance.  Friends take note, for my next big birthday, this is the place to throw my surprise birthday party!

 .  .  .

While the bachelorette party is certainly a milestone for the bride, it is often a source of tension among members of the bridal party.  Here are a ten tips to make this process go as smoothly as possible, and to help keep the focus on fun rather than funds.

1.  Organize a casual get-together for the bridal party early in the process.

 I think it’s important for members of the bridal party to all know one another in a fun, social way before they have to start making decisions together. 

2.  Follow the leader.

Next, someone needs to take charge.  Generally, this is the Maid of Honor’s responsibility.  However, in certain cases, your Maid of Honor may be young or out-of-town.  In that case, the bridesmaids should offer to take care of the party, but it’s still the Maid of Honor’s decision whether or not to let them.

3.  Do not involve the bride.

Ask the bride very early on who she wants to invite to her bachelorette party, and confirm the party’s date.  The bride should not be involved in the bachelorette party after this.  The bride should not be made aware of petty disagreements, or decisions about what to do or where to go.  In my opinion, members of the bridal party should know the bride well enough to know her likes and dislikes.  (A drag queen club is not necessarily the best idea for a bride who likes to strictly spend her evenings with wine and a good book.)  Other than that, why add more stress to the bride’s plate? 

In my case, early in the process, my sister (Maid of Honor) complained to me that my friends (other bridesmaids) were being “mean” to her and shooting down all of her ideas.  While I understand that my younger sister’s automatic action is to complain to me about everything, this is not something that I was willing to get involved in.  I reminded my sister that she is the Maid of Honor, and therefore, the supposed “leader” of this party.  I explained that she just needed to be confident and establish herself as that leader.  In all honesty, I think my friends still think of her as the ten year-old girl trying to tag along with us teenagers.  She’s now a 23 year-old law student – she can handle it.  As soon as she did that, there were no more problems.  However, if I said something to my friends, I would have gotten in the middle of small conflict and made it a big one.  No need for that, and everything was resolved without me.  I haven’t heard a thing since.

More tips after the jump…

4. Start early.

Think of an estimated budget with the group and pick a destination early.  (I do not see anything wrong with doing this six-plus months in advance.)  Decide if you’re going out-of-town or staying local.  Decide if it’s one night or a whole weekend.  Obviously, weekends get expensive quickly, with travel expenses and so many more meals out.  Decide if this will be okay for your group.

After the destination is selected, do preliminary research.  Get an idea of where you want to go and what it is going to cost.  If you are going out-of-town, find a hotel and get its rates before you send the first e-mail.  If you’re going to a nightclub, get an estimate of the cover charges, etc.  When you send the first e-mail, asking everyone to save-the-date, there should be an estimate of costs included.  People need to know how much money they’re going to need if they RSVP “yes.” 

5.  Keep as many costs fixed as possible.

For example, if you’re going to a restaurant, call in advance and try to arrange a prix fixe menu.  If the restaurant is not amenable to that, ask if you can arrange a limited menu for your party, then pre-select appetizers and desserts for sharing and a few entrée options that are all the same price.  Also, you can ask the restaurant to limit the drink offerings.  They may include this in the prix fixe.  Otherwise, you can tell them to offer a selection of drinks to your group that are all about the same price, and maybe allocate two drinks per person.  While it may seem harsh to limit guests’ choices, it is important to set a fixed cost for dinner.  

6.  Collect money in advance.

While this may seem awkward, it is important.  There can be a lot of resentment if one person still owes money months after the party.  Create a breakdown of the costs – estimate, but hopefully, you will have mostly fixed costs and few variables.  Feel free to use Excel.  Send the breakdown to all the women attending, and request that they pay a designated person (probably the Maid of Honor) in advance.  You can organize this however you’d like.  Tell everyone that if there is money left over, you will distribute it back to them.  This way, one person pays for meals, drinks, and activities the entire night or weekend.   This ends up also saving a lot of time and awkwardness as there is no need to collect money from a group after each activity.

(As an aside, if you are going away for the weekend, it is not necessary to collect money for hotel or travel costs.  These costs should be included in your estimate, but not paid for by one person.  People should make their own travel arrangements and put their own credit card down for the hotel when they arrive. )

I recently attended a bachelorette party where the Maid of Honor sent everyone a breakdown of the costs the week before the party.  What was unusual was that she set up a PayPal account for everyone to pay her in advance – talk about a seamless idea!

7.  Make sure you have activities for the entire duration of the party.

This mostly applies to bachelorette weekends.  During the day, it may seem easy to think that the group can walk around for a few hours then grab lunch somewhere.  Most people do not want to walk around for a few hours unless they are visiting actual sites. 

See if there is a tour of the city you can go on.  For example, in NYC, there are Mystery Theater Tours of the City.  We did this for one bachelorette party I attended.  You walk around a selected area of the city (South Street Seaport / Chinatown, Greenwich Village), and are met by actors throughout the walk.  The actors provide clues, and at the end, the group tries to solve the puzzle over drinks.  This theater is also great because all of the clues are provided over food or drinks.  I would definitely recommend this for New York, and am sure that many other cities have similar offerings.

8.  Plan fun, unique games.

Plan a lot of games for the evening.  Many should be planned in advance, trying to get other members of the group involved too.  I attended a bachelorette party where everyone was told to bring a sexy item (under $20), wrapped anonymously, with a clue for the bride.  The bride had to guess who brought what, and take a shot for each wrong guess.  It was a lot of fun.  Asking the groom trivia questions in advance, for the bride to then answer the night of her bachelorette, is also a lot of fun.  The possibilities are endless – just have fun with it!

9.  Monitor the bride’s drinking.

This may seem silly, but too many games that involve shots may end with a bride sick early in the night.  Make sure the bride, and everyone else, paces themselves.  My good friend got pretty sick at her bachelorette party – before we went out to dinner – and missed everything, including the visit from Beetlejuice of the Howard Stern show. 

10.  End with a favor.

I think people like getting something small, whether it is a t-shirt or something else, to take home.  It’s a nice way for the Maid of Honor (or entire bridal party) to thank all the guests for attending.  A great favor idea is boy shorts from Custom Ink.  They were a big hit at a bachelorette party I recently attended.  The bridal party was also very inventive, and included a play on the bride’s future last name.  Very creative!

image source

The ladies also purchased for me the all-important “bride” veil and garter set, which I am modeling below.

Of course, everyone was mega jealous of my bridal tiara, so I let the girls each have a moment with the veil.

The next morning, we all awoke to mostly-mild headaches, and this gorgeous backyard view!

I made friends with the sheep and donkeys who lived out back.  Fred and Fiona, the donkeys, were loud, proud, and loved to eat sugar cubes.  The sheep had less personality, but they were super-cute too.  Especially the one who was missing an ear (and had stitches on his face- apparently the poor little guy keeps getting his face stuck in the fence)!  Fred gave me kisses, which helped me miss J. a little less.

Sadly, some of the previous visitors of the barn had stolen (yes, stolen) the barn coffee maker, and so we made a trip into Frenchtown for some coffee.  Beware the bride who hasn’t had her coffee.  The girls made me wear the tiara around Frenchtown, obviously.   But for some reason, the people who worked in the coffee shop were not amused.  Not even a congratulations!  Maybe they hadn’t had their coffee yet either…

Once in Frenchtown, we decided to take our coffee and the veil for a walk.  On the way, a lot of inanimate objects asked us if they could wear the veil- and of course, we obliged. 

After we were sufficiently caffeinated, we returned home to get ready for our day (a spa surprise for me)!  Pictured below is bridesmaid C. pretending to be in an LL Bean catalog.  I know this photo was taken as a joke, but its actually my favorite of the entire weekend!  With her is the owners’ sweetheart dog.  We called him Budd, but we have no idea what his real name was. 

Next, we went to a spa nearby!  It was a lovely space in a gorgeous location, and had the added bonus of becoming a surprisingly hilarious activity.  The spa had prepared snacks for our group, and I got to get my massage first!  So while I was blissfully being massaged, I was unaware of the spa-drama unfolding nearby.  The owner of the spa was giving bridesmaid T. a hard time for considering canceling her appointment (T. was feeling quite sick) and so MOH and sister B. stepped in and said some appropriately passive aggressive things to said spa owner.  Meanwhile, super slow mani-pedi lady is talking smack about spa owner to R. and C. in the mani-pedi room.  Fortunately for me, all I had to do was sit there and giggle and enjoy my fully relaxed state of being.

Since we didn’t get any photos of this hilarity, I have taken the liberty of recreating our spa time through dramatic pictures:

After the spa time, I returned to the barn to get ready for dinner, while bridesmaids C. and R. drove quite a distance to pick up much loved friend A.!!  Unfortunately, my car’s navigator decided to take them the long route, so it took them a long time.  And that’s just one more reason why I appreciate my girls!

We all went out to dinner that night at a wonderful restaurant called Marsha Brown, which is located in a converted church.  They made menus just for us, and gave us our own private room in which to eat.  The food was, of course, outstanding and perfectly cooked.  C. and R. chose a delicious wine to accompany the meal.  And we all (except for B.) ordered steak for dinner, because we are such delicate flowers.

As you can see, the decor was stunning…

And as dinner progressed, we got sillier and started sharing the veil again.  C. and R. also decided to play paparazzi, in a hilarious game of photographing half-faces and partial-tables.

For dessert, we were served creme brulee and carrot cake- my two absolute favorite desserts!  And yes, I ate it all, and yes, my stomach hurt for two days after because of it.  But it was SO worth it!

You can see in the photo below, all of us showing off our resulting “food babies.”

After dinner, we returned home, where one final surprise from my bridesmaids remained…

My bridesmaids gave me a huge box of “emergency goodies” that included a back massager, an eye pillow, chocolate and prosecco, candles, a few things that might not have been appropriate to give at the shower (followed by more giggling), and The Psychology of Romantic Love, which I’m currently reading now- I’m a sucker for armchair psychology, and this book is a good one!

All in all, I had an amazing weekend, and the next day at the shower, I was again overjoyed by the generosity and thoughtfulness of everyone who has helped make this time so special!!

Powerpuff girl images free, courtesy of vector junkie

My bridesmaids found literally the most perfect possible place for us to stay- a converted historic stone barn on an 88 acre farm in the hills above the Delaware River.  It had a dramatic living room with a glass ceiling that kept us warm while allowing us to enjoy the feel of the original high ceilings.  The ground floor (former home of the animals) had an enormous kitchen with a barn-beam table, and the entire place used reclaimed barn wood for things like doors and cabinets.  Ping pong, rocking chairs, musical instruments, tennis courts, swimming pools, hiking trails, wood burning stoves- I’m telling you, it was country swank like I’ve never before seen, and the most supremely appropriate place for a relaxing ladies weekend.

image source (click here for information if you, yourself, would like to stay here)

Oh and did I mention that this fantastic barn is situated next to a gorgeous stone home where the barn’s owners live?  And did I mention that the owners are American heroes?  No joke, the husband was on a US Olympic team that took home gold in 1964, and the wife fights forest fires.  I want to know how I can have their life.  Actually I just remembered, if you can afford it, you can have their life (the property is for sale).

I arrived at this lovely location with my sister, and the remainder of the group was waiting to greet me with gobs of delicious snacks and even more delicious wine.  Pink prosecco, dry riesling, some cabernet sauvignon, and we were ALL set.  The ladies also got me a fabulous tiara that said “Bride” (the only telltale b-party sign of the weekend; thankyouverymuch to my ladies for respecting my wish to NOT have to deal with phallus shaped straws, inflatable anything, or lifesavers on T shirts)!

When I said loads of delicious food, I was not kidding!

Much mayhem and foolishness ensued that evening, and we all awoke the next day just a teensie bit under the weather.

I relax and enjoy my first glass of vino for the evening.

Future Sisters in Law Unite!

After a few glasses of wine, B. calls us all old and we force her to sit in the high chair!

After a few more glasses of wine, we decide that dried herbs can double as party hats!

Slightly suggestive bride, overtly suggestive cake...

  M0re recaps coming soon!