Ashley’s Bachelorette Party in Nashville

Yes, I’m blogging a lot today.  I’ve been slacking because I’ve been slammed at work and I still am, but I’ve been slowly updating things in my very little downtime.  Today’s been the first day where I’m kind of in a holding pattern waiting on others, so I’ve been doing the blog posts I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Two weekends ago one of my very good and long time friends, Ashley Matherson, had her bachelorette party in Nashville. Ashley is marrying Brad in December. This is yet another one of my match-making products. I’ve known Ashley since I was in 6th grade and Brad and I worked together at my firm (though he left us a year ago to work for another company). They are so incredibly perfect for each other it’s insane. I love seeing them together.

Anyway, we had such a blast over the weekend. Ashley’s maid of honor, Allyson, planned so much for us to do. Some of you may remember that I lived in Nashville for two years before I moved back to Birmingham to be with Justin. I love the city just as much as I did back then, I just didn’t love it more than my future husband, so I moved back home. Allyson planned two tours for us to do that I had never done in the two years I lived there. It’s really true that when you live in a tourist city, you never do the touristy things that the city has to offer. See pictures below for our fun weekend!!!

We did a Sites & Bites tour which was INCREDIBLE!  We walked around downtown and went to numerous places to get little bites of food and to learn about the history of the places.  Such a cool tour and I suggest it to anyone in Nashville.

Ash trying some Pralines

Ashley and one of the bridesmaids Wendy

There was some kind of dragon boat race on the Cumberland.  It was a huge event…lots of vendors and people bringing their kids and pets to attend.

Our tour was teaching us some history on the Cumberland River

I can’t remember the name of this restaurant, but it’s Gavin DeGraw’s restaurant.  They are known for their hamburgers.  And they were EXCELLENT hamburgers!!  We also got a taster of beer.  I gave it to someone else.  I’m not a big drinker.

We actually went to this place twice.  First for the Sites & Bites tour and then again on the Haunted Sites tour.  It’s called Past Perfect.

There was a putt putt course upstairs…not really a course though.  Just one hole.

Allyson (matron of honor), Erin and Wendy

Me and Ash at Past Perfect

They were known for their infusion drinks.  I can’t remember what this one was, but it was delicious!

And what trip to Nashville is complete without a picture with Elvis??  The other random people in this picture are from the Sites & Bites tour…we did a whole picture of everyone.

This is at the Ryman Auditorium.  Loved hearing the history of that place!

This was our last stop and I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was so cool.  It was a candy store….and I have NEVER seen a candy store so big and full of candy!!!

Now this is on the Haunted Tour.  Again, can’t remember the name of the place (clearly I need to pay better attention) but it used to be a house where a woman was killed by being pushed down the stairs.  You can’t see the stairs but they’re underneath that Montana jersey.  The owners of the bar tell women to be careful upstairs because there have been reports of women being pushed down these stairs when no one is behind them.  People also have taken pictures and seen an “orb” in the photo.  No orb in my photo.  Boo.  Fun side note - this is the Alabama Fan bar in Nashville.  RTR.

Same bar - there’s also reports of an “entity” as the tour guide continued to call it, showing up in pictures behind the bar.  We took a pic of Ash hoping to see said entity in the picture.  No such luck.

We had the actual lingerie shower in the hotel room on Saturday night.  I won’t show pics of her gifts, but I will share these fun pics:

I told Allyson ahead of time that we should play this game.  We played it at my bachelorette party and Allyson and Ashley were both there and thought it was fun (see my bachelorette party post here).  Allyson asked Brad several question before the party and Ashley had to answer those same questions the way Brad would have answered.  If she got any answers different that what he gave, she had to put a marshmallow in her mouth (not swallow, just keep it in there).  Lucky for her, Brad’s responses were truthful so she got a ton of them right and even the ones she got wrong she didn’t really get wrong, it just depended on how you looked at the question.  When Justin was asked questions for my game, he purposely answered them with the most off the wall answers to try to get me to fail.  He succeeded.

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend.  Ashley and I drove back together and went to church at Cross Point (see post below).  I intended to meet up with my friend Lillian and meet her baby girl Maggie, but our schedules weren’t working out.  They just recently sold their house and had to find another house ASAP, so they were house hunting with the realtor the majority of the day on Saturday, which was the only day I was available to meet up with them.  I’ll have to go up there to see her again soon.  Meeting Maggie is on my 101 list.