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(All photos by awesome photographer, Matt Baume)
At first glance I wanted this bachelor party to seem like the typical — alcohol, greasy food, cigars, and sexy ladies shaking it. But a groomsman and I had the idea that as the evening wore on, it would evolve into something wholly different — a surprise musical roast, culminating in a special groom-themed burlesque performance. (What is “groom-themed burlesque?” We'll get to that later.)
After an entire weekend spent Googling ideas, I fired off a panicked email to Offbeat Bride sponsor and friend Laura from Rebel Belle Weddings. And now it was three ladies joining in on the dude party planning effort.
This is how Offbeat Megan and the Rebel Belle girls (Laura and Megan) pulled off the best damn bachelor party ever.
1. Find an awesome venue
I came to Laura with my plan, or… lack thereof: The surprise musical roast bachelor party. Within minutes she had me in contact with the perfect venue space — a bar in Hollywood called Boardners and their “secret speakeasy” space, that happened to have a small stage that we could use for the roast.
2. Find groom-sort-of-approved entertainment
Even though we planned this party without much input from the groom, he did have one request: “no strippers.” Ah, but he didn't say no burlesque dancers!
The girls from Rebel Belle created a video of vintage burlesque dancers to play on a loop on Boardners' projector screen (seriously, I now have a DVD called “vintage boobies”) and then they hooked me up with Courtney Cruz and the lovely ladies Devils Playground Burlesque.
First we greeted the boys as they entered the venue with our burlesque ladies in the form of this sassy cigar girl…
And two dancers up on risers shaking it to live tunes.
3. Time for the surprise roast (musical or not)
After a couple of hours of dancing girls, cigars, and drinks, I took the stage to welcome everyone to the bachelor party and then drop the surprise. What looked like a stereotypical bachelor party was, in reality, the surprise roast of the groom, Erik.
I kicked off the performances with a music video the bride had made, starring their dog. Next a few friends performed songs they wrote about the groom:
4. Close the show with a fun burlesque dancer
The final performance couldn't be just any burlesque dancer, since this was in actuality a roast. Inspired by Whedonesque Burlesque at the Offbeat Empire party, I knew I had to find a burlesque dancer with a theme that had something to do with Erik's nerdy interests.
I emailed the Rebel Belle girls with, “What would be amazing is if we could find a burlesque dancer who will perform as Miss Piggy and dance to Somebody's Getting Married.” It seemed like a stretch, but the next thing I know, Rebel Belle found me my Miss Piggy!
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Isabella St. Sinwell as Miss Piggy! (WARNING: The photos get slightly NSFW as you scroll.)
She was the perfect end to an awesome surprise musical bachelor party roast.
5. Combine the bachelor and bachelorette party at the end of the night
For the rest of the evening, we hung out, and drank, and talked about how amazing all the songs and the Kermit boobies were. That is until the bachelorette party met up with us and all the boys and girls closed down the bar.
planners: Rebel Belle
Any groom's girls ever organized a bachelor party? What did you do for yours?
About the Author: Megan Finley Horowitz
When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!
This is SO SO SO fun and creative – yay you! This was a great idea and I am a bit envious of all of this awesomeness. Well done!
I love this, and as a side note, your dress is amazing, Megan!
Thank you! It was like a last-minute buy from Target. I wracked my mind forever trying to figure out what a girl should wear to a bachelor party — I didn’t want to be sexy (that’s what my burlesque ladies are for), but I wanted to have fun in a “wild party” way. My solution: leopard print dress with sleeves. BOOM. Nailed it. And thank you for noticing. 😉
Ok I don’t have any experience with bachelor parties but this seems pretty awesome for any party. The musical roast is genius.
Job well done! That looked amazing, wish I was there. What a lucky groom to have such a creative and fun best friend. I will be checking out Boardner’s in the near future!
This is fucking amazing!!!!! And now I wanna see if my wedding party will do it. I bet their game since it’s a bunch of theatre majors! Thank you so much for sharing this bachelor party idea!
Wow, that looks like it was amazing. I was Best Man at a wedding about a year ago and I stressed so hard over throwing the bachelor’s party that I actually made myself sick. In the end all I did was have the groom and his friends (only one of whom I had actually met) over to my house for a night of playing table-top games. I think he had fun, but I also think he might have been hoping I would drag him to a strip-club. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, plus I couldn’t afford to pay for it, and it seemed too weird to ask people I didn’t know to pony up to help pay for the party.