{ Me + the best friends a girl could ask for }

It’s probably pretty clear from this blog that I am OBSESSED with weddings and am having THE TIME OF MY LIFE with doing a “wedding week,” now that we can finally share our wedding photos. And I’m particularly excited for today, because my bestie and co-Maid of Honor Katierose wrote a guest blog about throwing my bachelorette party in Ojai with my other bestie and co-Maid of Honor, Jacquelyn. Like a true bridezilla, I asked Katierose to write a blog about the bachelorette party (because it’s not like she did enough co-hosting my bridal shower, the bachelorette party and generally putting out fires right and left for the year+ of planning AND the wedding day itself.) She is a saint, and has become family since I met her performing together in the Groundlings Sunday Company, the same time and place I met Tony.

Before I let her dive in, I want to say this about my bachelorette party first: I’ve always wanted a sister. (In fact, when my brother was born, I just called him Kirsten for a year… I am (still) so, so sorry about that, Bill.) And although I may not have a biological one, I have found sisters in my friends. Kind of like “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” only we’re more like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Wine. I was so so so lucky to have all of my girls come together to support and celebrate me, with such a spectacular weekend planned down to the minute with Every.Single.Thing I love. The whole bachelorette weekend was a surprise, and it was above-and-beyond perfect, designed just for me. Thank you, Katierose and Jax, for knowing I am a wine-loving, sun-fearing snob who prefers fancy pampering over the traditional Vegas shenanigans. My bachelorette party was a dream come true. And now, here is my other better half (because she and Tony complete me), KATIEROSE!

{Co-MOH’s at work}

So a year ago, my co-Maid of Honor Jacquelyn and I were in the midst of planning two big to-dos for the bride to be. We both love Annie so much, and Annie loves weddings so much, that we really wanted to do our best to blow it out for her! And not to toot our own horn, but we totally led a parade of awesome through the classic Hollywood bridal shower and straight to the mecca that is OJAI.

As Annie has told you guys before, I read my horoscope pretty religiously. Susan Miller and her site astrologyzone.com are my jam. Annie took me to see her speak at the Soho House once, and it was a dream come true. Susan is amazing (but for you non-believers, yes, many times my horoscope is just general good advice.) Now, in the case of booking Annie’s bachelorette it proved to be the best, luckiest horoscope I ever did read! Susan said for April that if I needed to book travel I would have the best luck on April 25th. A few months prior I tagged along with Tonannie to entertain the possibility of the Ojai resort as a wedding venue. It was a #BESTDAY. So, when Annie got the news that she would in fact get to marry the love of her life in her dream location, at the Big House in Tahoe, I knew we had to use Ojai in our bachelorette party planning. The Ojai Valley Inn & Spa is one of the nicest places I have ever been. Like, even virtually. Like, go to their website and you might just squeal at the beauty of it all. And oh! The spa is only considered to be the best in the country. Naturally, it is booked sometimes years in advance. So waiting all of April to book a weekend in early June (during the music festival) would be hard/maybe super stupid, but Ojai is expensive and I figured I could use all the luck I can get. My plan was to call every couple days and see if our room was still available. And if it got too close I would just book it, no matter the date!

Ojai is REALLY nice… Oh brother. How will this happen?

I called and figured out all the option$. My plan was that we would book a bigger room (two queen beds with a little extra square footage) vis-à-vis plenty of floor space. We would check-in and I would just be my Jersey girl self and roll up with some blow-up mattresses and sleeping bags, shhhhhh, nobody needs to know! We would be sleeping at the pool and partying the nights anyway, right?? It will be fine, right? Well, as the month rolled by, the rooms started going bye-bye. They were being booked by the dozens. Until, one day, I called and there was only one room left in the whole resort. I panicked. I put the room on hold and sent an email confirming the bridesmaids. The next day I took a deep breath and called back to put half the room on my credit card. Well, the room was GONE! Booked from under my feet. Dammit all to hell!!! Why am I such a crazy astrology/superstitious/mercury retrograde/full moon warning/numerology reading/California nut job who ruins lives!!! I need to get my shit together!

Well, it turns out it’s policy at the Ojai Valley Inn that you can hold a room for 24 hours, and the concierge was mortified. He knew it was me who had called SEVERAL (million) times and eventually bit the bullet to reserve the room. Maybe he felt bad about it being rented out from under me, maybe he understood the importance of Maid of Honoring, maybe he had been to an awesome bachelor party and wanted to be of service to the party gods, or maybe he was just SUPER GOOD AT HIS JOB, I don’t know, but what I do know is he said, “Can you please hold… Actually, no, can I call you right back?” He did just that. It turned out that, yes the room I’d reserved had been booked. And all the standard rooms and fireplace suites were gone, but they shouldn’t have been… I put a hold on one and it was their mistake, and because it was their mistake they were going to give me the next available room at the same rate. The next available room was THE SPA PENTHOUSE!!!!!!!!!

{See the tower? Our “room” was basically the whole floor up there}

BOOKED IT!  APRIL 25th!!!!!

THANK YOU, SUSAN MILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{Our view}

You guys, YOU GUYS! This room was OFF THE CHAIN! Two bedrooms, a full living room with a fold out bed, 5 fireplaces, 2 private decks, our own hot tub outside, private entry into the amazing spa, private entry to the two spa pools. The universe could not have bestowed its generosity on a more thankful broke actress – amazing amazing amazing!  Thankful thankful thankful!  EXCITED EXCITED EXCITED!!!!!!

Jax called a couple times to confirm. I called to confirm, and had them send me something I could print out just so I could hold it in my hands and make it real. We just couldn’t believe our luck! We didn’t tell a soul just in case it all fell through and we ended up at the Motel 6 trying to sneak onto the Ojai property for garden snooping/day drinking. But, it actually worked out. Like, it worked out SO HARD.

{As we drove up the winding property, we saw this couple HOLDING HANDS WHILE BIKE-RIDING. That is how idyllic this place is.}

Dinner was divine and with our belly’s full of wine and handmade pasta, we shuttled our way back to our HUMBLE ABODE. Tee-hee!

SURPRISE! There were truffles and two bottles of champagne in ice waiting for us! One of the bridesmaids, Barbara King, had an old high school buddy working at the resort. She had Facebook’d him and said we were coming and he sent over the treat – with a card saying the next day we could enjoy TWO CABANAS at the main pool – with his compliments! Cabanas at the OJAI MAIN POOL?! That is like one trillion dollars. Complimentary CABANAS!!! #COMPLIMENTARYCABANAS (try saying that 3 times fast, and now say it just once after two wine tastings and two bottles of champagne!) DREAMS COME TRUE. Thank you Barbara King’s friend and Facebook!

{Our #COMPLIMENTARYCABANAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!}

The next day, Saturday, SPA DAY! Tony, being the dreamboat that he is, treated Annie to a spa treatment. Some of the other girls also spa’d it up in the saunas, with hot tubbing and sugar scrubs.

The others headed over to our #complimentarycabanas at the main pool, where we met up with friends who drove up from L.A. for the next chunk of hang time! (i.e. Drinking and eating and dancing and swimming and tanning for those who can, and extreme SPF for me, the bride and any other ghosts among us.  Sunglasses, sun hats, sunscreen.)

Now, in the whole weekend, we never had any sexy scavenger hunts or strippers but we did have our friends Jason and Todd, who are gorgeous men, join us at the main pool. I asked Jason if we could borrow his husband who was sporting some sexy briefs, so we could stage some hilarious photos with Todd as “Fabio” = “Toddio” to just make it seem a bit more bachelorette-esque and risque! The photo of Annie’s hand grazing “Toddio’s” wash board abs is a joy to behold! TOO BAD SHE REFUSES TO LET ME SHARE IT!!!!!!

{Our “stripper” + his husband}

The whole day was wonderful. The scenery beautiful. The pool perfect. The drinks delectable and the company of friends, incredible. What a day!

We headed back to the SPA PENTHOUSE – WHERE WE WERE STAYING – (JUST IN CASE Y’ALL FORGOT THAT PART!) to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was at Annie’s favorite Mexican spot, Agave Maria’s. We had pitchers of margaritas and all the tacos one could dream of, and then we had a “Annie selfie off,” where everyone posed like Annie in a selfie and it was great fun! Some light roasting of our comedian bride.

After terrific tacos and tequila, some of our L.A. guests headed back home and the rest of us, back to the SPA PENTHOUSE! I still can’t believe it. I am Irish and I am lucky, but this was some “The Secret” shit. I don’t know if you ever heard of “The Secret” or the Law of Attraction, but I totally Secret’d this whole weekend. I didn’t know how it would be the best thing to ever happen, I just knew it would be! THANK YOU OPRAH! I mean, how could it not be the best time ever when the guest of honor is the sweetest, most generous, most fun person! And you know what, Annie deserved it!

When we got back to our five fireplaces, the slumber party started! While everyone was at the pool earlier, a group of us decorated the room with pink streamers and balloons and fun glittery girlie decorations! All the ladies donned their cutest PJ’s and there were GAMES!! (It’s a thing… I know people hate ’em – games – well, I love them, even when I know it is probably torture… But when everyone is equally embarrassed, that’s when all the inhibitions leave and it becomes just good old fashioned fun!) We played a few “tried and true” games, but I really like to come up with new stuff (like the “Groom the Groom” game at the bridal shower.) This party’s theme was an old school slumber party, so I wanted the games to be at least PG-13, (like our impromptu stripper, Toddio.) Remember how when we were 13, just the suggestion of sex could make us giggle?  Well, that was the goal!  We started out with an underwear guessing game. Each girl brought a “little lacy something” for the bride and she had to guess who gave her what, it was lots of laughs with no wrong answers!

Next, we played this insane relay game that is nearly impossible to explain.  It involves eating a powdered donut off a string on your knees with no hands, and then tying panty hose with grapefruits around your waist. There’s another grapefruit on the floor and without using your hands, and only moving your body, you swing your hips (and grapefruit ball) back and forth bouncing it against the other, across the room and across the finish line. It is suggestive and ridiculous and the most hilarious thing to attempt and watch someone attempt. When I finished explaining it, everyone starred at me like I had like 12 heads.

{Literally. 12 heads.}

Then Julia, our preggers bridesmaid, jumped up and said, “Okay! Hand me some pantyhose and grapefruit. I don’t get it, but I am in!!” Thank you Julia, for being so positive. And girls, wasn’t that game a bundle of laughs?!! Don’t you want to play it again?  Wait, no?  Like, not ever??

Finally, we played a laid back game of “Never Have I Ever” with the lights off, the fireplace glowing (and some glow in the dark balloons!) Until we finally washed our faces, put in our retainers, braided our hair and went to sleep.

Sunday morning everyone cleaned up, packed up and headed home.

{We put Barbara’s daughter Matisse, the flower girl, to work with balloon-popping + clean-up}

Annie and I were able to stay a few more hours. We enjoyed the spa pool, the setting sun and a terrific dinner in town while we re-capped the luxurious fever dream of Annie in Ojai.

{Editor’s Note: When my husband is not around, I force Katierose to photograph me}

#AnnieInOjai – It has been almost a year since, and I still cannot believe it was so perfect.

Now, if only I could “The Secret” myself a movie career and a house in Tuscany. I mean, I obviously have strong powers. Or, I am just super lucky. You know what, with a friend like Annie, I am the luckiest.

And also, THANK YOU, SUSAN MILLER!!!!

Katierose Donohue is a Harvard alum, Groundlings Sunday Company alum, a brilliant actress AND my best friend living in L.A. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter  for hilariousness and epic dog pics, and watch the award-winning short she produced, stars in and co-wrote on Funny or Die!