Night of black and gold

All week I've been frantically checking the Interwebs for the official photos of my brother's wedding to get here. There have been some (gorgeous! amazing!) teasers posted on Facebook, but the big reveal hasn't happened yet. What has happened, though, has been a slow trickling of rather hilarious bachelorette party photos. Let's jump in, shall we?

Since my sister-in-law (!) Nicole is originally from Pennsylvania and her oldest friends/half the wedding party had to travel fairly far to get to the wedding, the group decided to fold Nicole's bachelorette party into the wedding week so that everyone could be there. We settled on Myrtle Beach, about an hour south of Holden Beach, the wedding location. Our first stop was nails. Two funny things about the salon:

1. Two straight Caucasian dudes, one 35ish and one 21, did our nails. 
2. The salon mascot was a duck named JJ who wears a charm necklace with his name on it and gets his nails painted by the staff. Here's JJ with the salon's owner, who we think married Straight Dude #1 and is possibly the sister-in-law of Straight Dude #2.

Nicole has such a great group of girls. Eight of us had nails done at JJ's and stayed overnight in Myrtle. I knew I was the going to be the oldest of the crew, but I was apparently also "Most Barren." Eight girls here with an average age of 27... representing seven kids! Crazy.

Being barren and devoid of other responsibilities and all (kidding), I was in charge of accommodations. I found a great deal at the Anderson Ocean Club online, but you never know how these things are going to work out... needless to say, its largess and amazing views made me happy.

We piled into cabs for our first stop of the night, where the top of my dress might make you think I was wearing something pretty risque...

...until I straightened up and you realized, Nope! GRANNY LENGTH ALERT!

This group has had SEVEN KIDS, remember? (I declined to post the group shot in bikinis on the beach so as not to depress all of you.) So back to these dresses... my fellow lady in knee-length black Megan and I discussed that acquiring new "practical" black dresses that we could wear again and again would mean longer hemlines but also a longer closet lifespan. This is well and good... but couldn't I have at least hemmed a couple of inches off? And in Megan's credit, satin + strapless offers a little more vavoom than jersey scoop neck. Moving on! (By the way, that was the "attitude" shot... in case you didn't get that from the pouting.)

We had a truly terrible dinner, but who attends bachelorette parties for the food, anyway?* Another half dozen of Nicole's friends joined us for the evening, and in our group shot after dinner, our waiter decided to work for the first time all evening and pose with us. Your tip is your inclusion in this photo op, sir!

Our first stop (and last stop for some of us) was Crocodile Rocks, a dueling piano bar where we were seated front and center and the object of much piano playing-attention. Nicole was stunning in her gold sequins, and pulled on stage for things that will remain protected in the Bachelorette Code of Honor.

I love this shot of Nicole with her Maid of Honor Kristi:

Here's me, looking surprisingly bright-eyed. First, becuase we're deep into the night. And second, because I'm notorious for "are they or aren't they?" closed eyes in photos.

This recording of events would not be complete without a discussion of my dear sister Lisa. As some of you might recall, she has been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for the last three years. So while the primary goal of our group was to show Nicole the night of her life, the second goal of the group was to enable Lisa in her need to get a little crazy. Due to her concern about appearances, I will not include the photo here of her happily drinking at the hotel while the breast pump worked away, but I do want to salute its cuteness. Never has a girl so deserved a night on the town. We asked, and Lisa delivered. Gamely.

Here's where the night ended for the siblings of the bunch. I won't get into details (Bachelorette Code of Honor and all), but suffice it to say, my sis gave the night everything she had. While the rest of the girls went dancing, I packed up my over-mommed and over-served sis and took her back to the hotel. (Lisa has no recollection of this photo being taken, by the way. But isn't she cute?!)

The next morning, a Myrtle Beach sunrise... and a whole lot of work to do back at Holden Beach to get ready for the Reggae Rehearsal Dinner. To my sis: even if your Thursday meant that you could not help me with Friday's manual labor under the direction of Mimi, I'm so very glad you had a great night.

 And to my shy and unassuming sister-in-law, you rock my world.

*Full disclosure: my bachelorette party was at Nobu.