Come Sail Away

I love being home in New York with my husband, but sometimes you just need a weekend away with your girls (or guys in his case!).  I'm not an expert on marriage after only a year, but I know that it's these weekends once or twice a year with our friends that keeps us sane and makes us anxious to come home to each other.  After graduation, my ladies and I started a yearly tradition of doing one trip together a year.  No matter where we were or what was going on, we all picked one weekend to make a point of seeing each other.  Those first few trips brought us to Vegas as early twenty-somethings where we were showered with champagne and free bottle service by men young and old in the City of Sin.  But in the past few years, our efforts have switched as these yearly girls weekends have evolved into bachelorette parties and wedding weekends as each of us has started to slowly tie the knot one by one.

This year, my dear friend Randi is getting married in New Orleans, which will be my first trip out to the Big Easy (blog to follow of course!).  So for Randi's bachelorette I hopped on the Amtrack to head down to a beautiful spring weekend in Saint Michaels, Maryland. For those of you who have no idea where that is (which is most of you), it's a quaint little nautical town on the Chesapeake Bay, just 1.5 hours outside of Baltimore.  I was in awe driving across the Bay Bridge as we made our way to the festive little town.  The Inn at Perry Cabin is where the 8 lovely ladies stayed for the weekend, and the hotel was magnificent.  Coincidentally, it's also the site where some of the beautiful wedding scenes were filmed on the movie Wedding Crashers.

No, we're NOT singing "Girls just want
to have fun".....this is Def Leppard people

St. Michaels was literally a nautical wonderland of festivity.  I've never been to the area, and everything was so cute. The sidewalks were peppered with crab themed paraphernalia, the restaurants served the freshest of Chesapeake's finest seafood, and every establishment had just the right touch of authentic flare.  I could have stayed there for weeks, and even better was that I was surrounded by 7 smokin' hot ladies and some of my best friends in the entire world.

It would be an understatement to say that our group of girls brought a lot of attention to the town for the weekend.  Maybe it's because we all wore stilettos in a town of sandals and flip flops.  Maybe it's because we wore some of our finest cocktail dresses to the only bar in town.  Perhaps it's because we monopolized the karaoke station and entertained bar patrons with the sweet lyrics from Def Leppard and Coolio.  OR, maybe it's because we walked through another couple's wedding ceremony and were banned from returning to the dock until after the services. But it also could have been the fact that each lady had impeccably styled hair and makeup, despite the questionable weather forecast.

I've been to a few bachelorette parties over the past 6 years since graduating from college.  And each that I've gone to has been a perfect reflection of who the bride is and what makes her a happy.  While I'd like to also respect the bride and not divulge too much information the details of her bachelorette party, I will say that it was the perfect weekend for my beautiful friend Randi.  Instead of strippers and clubbing, we had sailors and champange.

My own fresh oyster!

No raunchy phallic shaped straws for this classy bunch of broads.
We all had matching gold charm necklaces and nautical scarves instead.  And Randi didn't wear any obnoxious blinking bridal veils or gaudy fake rings out to the bars....she just wore a captains hat with some understated lace instead.  This group didn't wear any matching t-shirts, but rather we paraded around town dressed like we were all straight out of a Vineyard Vines or J Crew catalog with a barrage of navy and white stripes.  And instead of limo transportation, we sailed for hours across the Chesapeake Bay snacking on wine and cheese.  We enjoyed fresh oysters directly from the Bay instead of questionable shots from bartenders.  I've uploaded a video of our captain hauling oysters in direction from the bay.  Check it out here!

Zeta Love!

As always, when these weekends come to an end, I'm reminded of how much fun I have with my ladies and how much I miss them while I'm all the way out in New York.  I am so thankful that we've all stayed in touch and we still continue to take time every year to go away as a group, and twice a year isn't too shabby for how busy we all are in our lives. I can't wait to see everyone again in a few weeks when Randi and Pablo tie the knot in New Orleans.  And I hope I'm lucky enough to go back to Saint Michaels again, because it truly is one of our country's greatest gems.