But anyway! My point is this - while I will try and squeeze this recap into one post, if I think it's getting excessively long (and I think it will...) I might cut it into two parts...so please forgive me! But I hope you enjoy. And as a precursor:
WARNING: THIS POST MAY INVOLVE SOME MINOR MALE NUDITY. If this offends you, please do not read past this point. I promise you no full frontal...but I think there might be a butt shot? Just a heads up! I tried to mostly include towel shots!
Now! Onto the recap!
Many of us met up at a local train station to travel into the City together. It was highly entertaining, particularly since we were all dressed up quite early in the afternoon (the Hen's Wonderland actually began at 4:30 in the afternoon, so we met up at 2:50! Quite early to be so fancily dressed!). I'm sure it was entertaining for our fellow passengers. During the trip, I was decked out in appropriate Bride-to-Be garb :) The girls happily stuck to the "No Penises Allowed" rules...I was very thankful...And I LOVED my feather boa!
After getting out of the station at Kings Cross (leaving a trail of feathers everywhere we went) and being greeted by a freezing wind (thanks!) we eventually made it without much fuss at the Soho Bar and were greeted with a gorgeous entry and waiting Piccadilly Lounge and free champagne on arrival. The dark room means not the best photos, but trust me, it was gorgeous! Mirrored ceiling too...as the girls were excited about haha. We took the chance for an almost complete group shot. (Oh and met our hostess, Christine, in the bathroom!)
After a brief explanation of what would be occurring, the 6 Hen's Groups that were there were separate into 3 groups, meaning that for each activity we were paired up with another group. However, for the most part we were pretty separate in each room. The group that we were paired with was smaller then our group, however definitely made up for that in enthusiasm! Our first activity for the evening was Life Drawing and we heading to the Aviary. Here, everyone took a seat and was handed a pad and pencil, only for the Brides to be called up to "assist" the model to set up for his first pose.
Dum dum dum...
You can pretty much see my reaction to that below. While I'm quite happy to take an art lesson...I'm not so keen to have a naked man all up in my space. The other Bride though? She was all for it. I pretty much let her have that one and headed back to my seat, despite the offer of a "Re-Do". All good thanks, she can have that one...(I'm so glad they handed up free champagne first!)
The rest of the Life Drawing was a lot of fun, although I think the staff thought I was a spoil sport because I turned down the offer of posing with the model (again, not really wanted naked man's junk all up in my personal space, thanks!) which I think he was offended by. Like, they made a big deal out of it but seriously - it can't be the first time a Bride-to-Be has said no...get over it...we enjoyed the rest of the time, leave it at that! (the other Bride jumped at the chance...and her friends even had a cut out mask of her fiance's face for the model to wear. Which I thought was slightly...odd...and creepy...but each to their own!)
For the last (3rd) drawing/pose we did, we got two switch places 3 times, so that we actually did a "communal" drawing, and 3 people actually added to the drawing. It was interesting to see how they turned out! We (read: I!) got to take home all of the drawings, and it was quite a giggle to go through them the next day! We also got to have a group shot with the model at the end. We got him to cover up so that they were appropriate to show after (again, think we offended him...?) The other group opted for nudity and ended up with a naked man in their naps. And we have photographic proof of that too (although I'll spare you from that one!)
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| Bridal Party Shot |
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| Group Shot |
After Life Drawing we headed to what was probably my favourite class - Burlesque! A handful of my girlies are ex-dancers and it made us giggle the moment we entered the class and the instructor decided to take some group shots for us. Everyone was having a bit of a chat and all we heard was, "Girl. GIRLS! Well. If you aren't going to pay attention then this is just a waste of your time." My oh my did it take us all back to our younger dancing days...
We had a blast in Burlesque. Myself and the other Bride got pulled to the front so I only managed to catch little snippets of the girls dancing when I turned around but it looked like everyone had fun! We learnt a little short routine to Pussy Cat Doll's "Don'cha" then a longer routine to "Moulin Rouge". The longer routine entailed us pretending we were dancing inside a bubbling glass of champagne at one point, so the pictures where our legs are flapping around? Yep, pretend that we're elegantly splashing bubbles, will you please? hehe
There were many giggling moments in these classes and lots of chances for group shots, thanks to the instructor (who, despite her cranky dance teacher moments, really was lovely!). I really think this was my favourite class!
Our class class of the evening was Cocktail Making! We arrived downstairs in the Bar area and were greeted by our instructor (this time we had two separate instructors on either side of the bar...ours had awesome silver sequin pants on :) She was cool). We were told we would be making one of my favourite cocktails - Mojitos! Whoo! I was quite excited. Rather then making them with a traditional simple syrup though, we made them with brown sugar and muddled mint. It gave it a slightly different taste but was still delicious and good to know for those times when you can't be bothered to make up simple syrup (or don't have any to hand!)
Cocktail Making didn't take as long as the other classes and we had time to stand around and enjoy our cocktails and chat, and take plenty of piccies in the cool room! Below are some with my besties, and my sisters - old and new (or soon-to-be I should say!)
After the classes finished, we were taken to one of the Deco Lounges for food, which we have no pictures of because we were too busy stuffing our faces...but trust me, it was delish! We had the yummiest pizzas and awesome sushi. While we were munching, these three lovely ladies stole away to hold our table at the Argyle at the Rocks in Circular Quay.
Annnnnnd...I think that's probably a good stopping place for now. Phew. A little more tomorrow! It was such a fantastic night! :)
Wow what a unique day full of great events...:-) You had some great planners!!
ReplyDeleteThey did such an amazing job!! It was such a great night, I can't thank them enough!! :)
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