This may be the only photo we got of the entire bachelorette party together--but some guy we didn't know jumped in the photo!

When Angie opened her first bachelorette present, she sighed in relief that we had spared the mother of the groom from this gift exchange.

We started Angie’s bachelorette party in adjoining hotel rooms in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ducking under curling-iron cords and dodging hairspray streams, we reminisced about the last time we had all gone out in the same town before. It had been two years before at the last group wedding. On this night, we distributed bachelorette paraphernalia and tied a sash around the woman of the hour. Pins with fun messages denoted us as her entourage—I pinned a button on my dress that read “Too Hot.” Wrigley put the same one on her butt. People noticed.

When we made it to the first bar, we had a round of shots. This was a great way to start the evening: Aside from the obvious social lubrication, a shot’s name often serves as a topic of conversation for any guy in the bar. The best strategy for acquiring more beverages, aside from being the gal in the tiara? Feign inability to take a certain shot so that newfound friends feel obligated to buy you another and “teach” you a thing or two. “Clearly you’re not a redhead.” “Clearly you’re not Irish.” “Clearly your name isn’t Jose.”

Throughout the evening, every guy in the area seemed to be a bachelor. A shocking number of them were celebrating their own bachelor parties. But men at bachelor parties don’t wear tiaras. They don’t have diamond rings on their left finger that women can slyly check for. Men should have an “I’m engaged” branding equivalent: a fancy watch, an engagement-man bracelet, or some special style of facial-hair grooming. Our other bride friend commented that she gets hit on as much with her engagement ring as she did before it was there.

“Sometimes it’s the opposite of a deterrent,” she explained.

And deterrent was just what we needed by the time we reached the second bar. The dance floor was filled with men—my boyfriend calls them “circling sharks.” It was impossible to escape the dance floor without hitting the bicep barrier that was the perimeter. To be fair, plenty of them were just regular guys out on the town like us—fortunately, the normal ones are pretty easy to spot. We managed to ignore the sharks because we were just there for the dancing and the fun. And we succeeded. Until those lights came on (and we all became pumpkins), boy, did we dance!

Katie, a local bridesmaid-to-be, writes occasionally about planning for and being part of three (and counting) friends' weddings in one year. To follow her adventures from the beginning, click here.