But that's the end of the night, and I need to set the stage and go all the way back to the beginning. When we first asked Carrie how she wanted to celebrate her impending nuptials with her nearest and dearest, her requests were simple: keep her far away from male strippers (easy), and give her an opportunity to wear a floor-length hot pink ball gown she found in a vintage shop. That one was a slightly taller order. This was a dress that needed to hit the town and then paint it red (and hot pink). Only the best would do for a gown as fine as this.
When Stefanie and I first started planning, we decided we wanted the night to have multiple surprise destinations for Carrie. We wanted to start with dinner and drinks, take in some kind of show or entertainment, and then, finally, shut it down at the local gay dance club.
Lo and behold, in a wild stroke of good fortune, the night we reserved for the party just so happened to be the same night a burlesque revue was being held in our neighborhood! After that it was easy. Since Carrie is a very accomplished, wonderfully talented writer we decided to tie it all together with the theme of 'Steamy Romance'.
We started with dinner and pink cocktails at a local tavern where we played a couple of Harlequin romance-inspired games and introduced Carrie to her date for the evening.
(And yes, a tavern may seem like an odd place for a lady party, but this tavern had a back room that perfectly suited our theme and sexy fries on the menu. See?)
We wanted to give everything a very personal touch, so Stefanie doctored up some steamy and romantic reading material.
We played a couple of games that were personalized for the lovely couple. The first was a matching game - match the summary of the romance novel to its title. An example:
Joseph was the husband Carrie had dreamed of – handsome, powerful and wealthy. Until she overheard something that made her realize he’d ruthlessly seduced her into marriage for his own ends. She decided to go… Six months later the fugitive bride comes face-to-face with her husband once more. Well, he looks like her husband, he makes love like her husband…but he claims he’s her husband’s twin brother! (answer: Fugitive Bride)
We also created a personalized mad lib, with lines directly from the pages of our romance novels, for each guest to fill in.
The first two lines:
Illuminated by the orange-gold of the dying sun, Carrie saw a colossus of a man with an ebony _______________ between his thighs that he urged on with a joyful “_________________!”. It was Joe, the daredevil, the lover of women, the playboy. He had returned to her. (first blank: ANIMAL, second blank: VERBAL EXCLAMATION!)
After we were finished with the dinner and games we posed for some pictures with Carrie's date. Over the course of our evening, I think about half of the east side of Madison posed for some pictures with Carrie's date. I would imagine in our little corner of the world, there are a lot of people wondering why Fabio is suddenly such a popular facebook profile picture.
Finally, we presented Carrie with an envelope revealing the next destination and her ticket for the show.
And we were off! Leaving a trail of pink feathers and empty drink glasses in our wake we headed to the Barrymore Theater and part two of our evening.
to be continued...
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