It's always super exciting when one of your besties is getting married! My girl Katie is going to marry the love her life Cameron in April, and I've finally gotten around to posting about her bachelorette party back in October, when myself and 11 other friends of Katie's joined her in Las Vegas to celebrate! It also happened to be Katie's 30th birthday so she wanted to go out with a bang.

We stayed in a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom suite at Elara by Hilton at Planet Hollywood. It was pretty nice to have all 13 girls in 1 place as opposed to separate hotel rooms. And I was obsessed with the light switch that rolled the blinds up and down :)

We all flew or drove in from Austin TX, Minneapolis MN, Los Angeles CA, and San Diego CA. We had not all met each other, since Katie was born and raised in Wisconsin but has been out in San Diego for the last few years and was bringing her groups of friends together. We were all super excited to get to know each other so we spent some time in the suite meeting and catching up before heading out to the pool for the day.

My old college roommate Theresa has an Etsy shop (that you NEED to check out - her materials are so soft, comfortable, and affordable), and so I had a tank top for each girl custom-made, paying homage to the Queen Bey. I had full intentions of snapping a shot of each girl in her shirt, but unfortunately it never happened. 

After a few drinks and shots and some vitamin D, we went back to the suite and spent some time telling each other who we are, how we know Katie, and what she means to us. Oh man, there was laughter, there were stories, there were TEARS of happiness and gratitude. It was touching. And out of this came the hashtag #chinacabinet. Let me explain:

True friendship is a treasure to be valued, and what do you do with treasures? You take care of them and treat them good. You keep them in a coveted place, like a china cabinet, and when you take them out of the cabinet, no matter how often or sometimes how little, you are reminded why you cherish and adore that friendship. It's very clear that all of these ladies cherish and adore Katie for who she is and what she brings to the relationship. And what's not to love? She's an amazing thoughtful friend who sees so much good in people; she's motivated, beautiful, adventurous, loyal, honest, and wise. She takes the high road always. I'm so honored to be a part of her life and her bridal party!

Aaaaaaand then JUST as we were getting ready to leave to go to dinner, the fire alarms in our suite started going off. Holy hell it was loud. The maintenance guy seemed to think that our hair spray set off the fire alarms but I'm not believing that ;)

Dinner at Beauty and Essex was amazing! I had the paprika spiced salmon dish over sriracha-curry sautéed cauliflower and kale in lemon yogurt sauce, and a side of broccolini. Ohmygod it was to DIE FOR!

After dinner we headed to the nightclub Light and hung out in our own booth all night.

The next day when we finally woke up, we had brunch at Morel's French Steakhouse. I highly recommend this place as well, with it's phenomenal menu and authentic french decor, including some pretty interesting art. Try the banana and mascarpone stuffed french toast or the dungeness crab oscar benedict, and do yourself a favor and order bottomless mimosas! All of their options were reasonably priced for the quantity AND quality. 

We lounged in our hotel suite the rest of the day until it was dinner time, and we headed to Sushi Samba. I LOVE sushi and this place does not disappoint! One again, we chose a place with amazing decor and ambiance which set the stage for our last dinner as a group. We devoured our sushi and were in a food coma when we set out to take our LOVE picture. Look at that beaming bride-to-be in the white!

The next morning I awoke and left while everyone was still sleeping wherever they had decided to pass out. What better sight than hungover bodies strewn about the suite to prove that it was a successful bachelorette party for Katie and her best girl friends? I took a moment to drink it all in, snapped a picture of the rising sun, and headed to the airport and back to my family.

Now, the countdown begins, with only 103 more days until Kruse becomes Montgomery on Sunset Cliffs in San Diego overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And I couldn't be more excited to stand by her side! 2017 is going to be an amazing year!