Pre-wedding Episodes: The Bachelorette Party

It had been a very busy month, with all the wedding preparations, a visit from Mark’s best friend and his family, our usual jobs and maintenance and our planned move to the villa. My good Belgian friend Rosy was about to arrive with her husband the following day and our heads were spinning. The boat was still a mess, needing a good cleaning and more organizing had to happen. We would move to shore on Thursday in anticipation of our wedding party, it was Monday. The previous week there were some rumors about a bachelor/ette party for Mark and me, but we had always changed the topic and discarded all that “nonsense”.

Our morning of fudging around was interrupted with a visit from our favorite cruising friends Sim and Rosie (yes, all my best friends are called Rosy/ie!). “All of us have been thinking and concluded that you two should have a bachelor/ette party!” Now, every bride-to-be would be totally excited about such a proposal of free fun and enjoyment, organized by dearest friends. I just looked at my dearest friend with big, questioning eyes… “Why? When? Why now?” I mumbled excuses about too many things going on, good friend arriving soon, not liking the idea of Mark spending his night in one of the many strip clubs on the island of St. Maarten. Mark really didn’t care, but wanted me to have a good time, a fun night out with the girlfriends. We settled on Wednesday night, so we could spend our first evening with the Belgian friends on Irie and attend salsa night in La Bamba.

Wednesday evening came along. Rosy wasn’t feeling great, so she stayed on Irie, while her husband Peter was all ready to go and joined one of our cruising friends to shore. Mark and I had a few things to wrap up and joined the crowd at the Yacht Club around 6pm, where the party had already started. A cold beer and a big rum&coke were waiting for us to initiate the night. After the usual chit chat, our big group divided into men and women and both sexes went their own way to get reunited later at La Bamba beach bar. My girlfriends decorated my head with a string of fake flowers. Job well done, except that all the plastic roses had huge thorns. We decided to move the string around my waist instead, so I wouldn’t look like Jesus Christ, dripping blood all over my face. Now, I just got poked with a needle every step I took. One has to suffer a bit on her bachelorette evening, or hen do as the British call this event.

The girls made their way over to Jimbo’s, a Mexican restaurant in Simpson Bay Marina. Right in time for happy hour and soon enough, two grand mojitos in wonderful tall glasses filled my hands. The girlfriends splurged as well with signature cocktails. We found a quiet table outside and talked about what only women on a group date talk about. Some balloons got involved and the scene turned quite rowdy. We blamed it all on the alcohol content in our drinks. The “big man” Jimbo swung by our –by now- loud table and we (I) assured him that we would not steal his pretty glasses…

When the time was right, all of us moved to one of the dinner tables for an assortment of Mexican dishes. Wine was ordered, but I moved on to ice water, a smart choice. No matter how hard anybody would try, this one never gets drunk beyond remembering or puking! Not even on her bachelorette party. Luckily nobody was really pushy, rather drinking the stuff themselves! We all had a good time and then around 11pm or so, joined our other halves at La Bamba, where they already resided.

Unfortunately (or funny) enough, it was karaoke night in the beach bar… Enough alcohol had entered our bodies, to get every one of our group on the dance floor. Even Mark! Bad music or not. Peter and Liz sang a song and the atmosphere was high up there! Our whole gang of friends had a really great night out, and I’m sure the others enjoyed it at least as much as the two of us. Now, at 2 am, the biggest challenge was to get out of bed in time to pick up our rental car six hours later.

(Photos courtesy of Rosie Burr and Sam Frampton)