Bachelor Adventure on the Cheap

Have you ever seen a
 more wholesome young man?

~ Edd
My two best friends are getting married! That’s amazing! One hitch, neither of them chose a best man or maid of honor that is used to planning parties. Let's face it, the only reason I'm not maid of honor is because Leshia (arguably) looks better in a dress than I do. Cue the montage music ladies and germs, it’s about to get ugly in this piece. While I definitely didn't do it alone, I'm going to toot my own horn and say that I was instrumental in the success of these parties, but more about that in a minute. Get it? Toot my horn? Instrumental? I'll see myself out...

I wanted a sense of adventure with Rob's bachelor party.  He's a Marine, and he puts up with a lot of shit, and only gets to be here on weekends. I knew we'd only get one real day, so we needed to make it count. In the end, we raged for 19 hours for less than $200 per person, and Rob paid for nothing.

Visit our instagram for more photos

We began at 7:00 AM by flexing our imaginations. Rob plays Dungeons and Dragons with me and two of the other guys in the party. I'm the Dungeon Master, so I run the game and make up the world, etc. I asked the other "Battle Party" members if they were up for it, they agreed, so I got started. Of the 9 people playing, 5 had never played before, and D&D can be a bit cumbersome in the beginning. I pre-made a few character templates and changed them just slightly so they were all extremely similar as far as game mechanics, but different enough to not feel like everyone was the same guy. I did all the math, and made an excel sheet to keep track of all the numbers for all the characters. In an effort to make it simple, I just had them tell me what they wanted to do, and I figured out how best to do it. I would just ask, "What does the dice say?" and then look it up on the sheet and describe how things happened. It was similar to how Geek and Sundry does it. To read the epic tale of that morning, click here.
The bride was awesome and bought tuxedo t-shirts from 6 Dollar Shirts. There were ten guys total, so she got a bulk discount. Most people would've stopped there, but that's not how to she rolls. She went to Joann's Fabrics and got stencils and fabric paint and painted our freaking  nicknames on the back! When the guys got there, we ate breakfast, cooked by the best man, and went to the back room. There, they found a folded, custom shirt, a character sheet, and a name card. Their characters were named after the nicknames on the shirts, a fitting theme for the day. I'll post the details of the game in a later post, but for now we'll just say that everyone loved it, and since the shirts were a gift, this cost them nothing.
Breakfast  and D&D: $2.78 each

After DnD, we did an escape room, and exercised our reasoning skills. Wilmington, NC has a thing called Encore Deals, similar to Groupon, but for local places. Several months before, I saw a deal for 1/2 off a local escape room for up to 10 people. Perfect!
Escape Room: $13.89 each

Once our minds were awake, we sacrificed our stomachs to the god of bar food at a local place called Tongy's Shmackhouse, the groom's favorite place to eat. A few days prior, the best man gathered our orders and called it in of time and let them know what we were doing. By the time we got there, it was only about a 5 minute wait before we were eating and drinking. Groupon came in clutch, helping us cut the cost WAY down. The Voucher didn't cover alcohol, so after 3 pitchers of beer and more food than most of us could eat our grand total was:
Lunch: $13.11 each

While battling through the inevitable food coma, we needed to push our bodies to the limit on our next adventure, Battle House tactical laser tag. Months before (In case you're slow... this took planning ahead of time. Sorry, you lazy turds.) the website Save30 had a deal to save 30% off for up to 10 people. One of the groomsmen knows the owner—it's called networking, and it's awesome—so we got 4 weapon upgrades for free. Since the groom is a Marine, he obviously enjoyed being good at something, and if you've never tried it, this shit is FUN. It's like paintball without the mess.

Laser tag: $30.33 each

"Now do a silly one!" ~Every white family ever

Next we went back to bride's place to shower and suit up. We're some bourgeois bitches, and we like feeling pretty, don't judge us. We also took the time to take our Happy Hour Vitamins. If you've never heard of these, they'll change your damn life! You literally pop out of bed at 7:00 AM the next morning, ready to go! It's black magic, I tells ya! Last year, Riss and I got a party bus for my 30th (her 29th) birthday. During that pretty epic night, among other things, the bus broke down. We didn't give two shits, but we ended up getting a discount on a future rental. We cashed it in for this. We used that discount, plus the already lucrative military discount from VIP Limo to get about 25% off the cost of the shuttle pictured here. I went to Costco earlier in the week and picked up a case of Sam Adam's Octoberfest for the journey, my gift to the guys.
Limo + tip: $77.79 each

Once in the limo, we put our livers to the test, going brewery hopping. Wilmington has a figurative SHIT TON of breweries, and we made our way to as many as we could before most of them closed. We started, however, at a little bottle shop called the Brewer's Kettle for some additional bottles for the cooler, some smokes, and dinner. A bottle shop with food, you ask? Hell no! The best man had called the day before and ordered pizza from the best place in town, Pizzetta's, and had it arrive just minutes after we did. We bought and smoked some cigars, ate drank and were merry. Then we moved on. We're all friends with the staff of Waterline Brewery—again, networking—and so we got the VIP treatment, and were allowed to take some pictures with the equipment and stuff in the back. Word of advice, if you're going to befriend an entrepreneur, pick a brewer.

3 Huge Pizzas: $8.33 each
Beers: Varied by person, I spent probably $30 total and was good and sauced

Yeah, it's blurry. So were we.

Rob has a proclivity to "nap" whenever he's drinking. And by "nap" I mean that the little bitch falls the fuck asleep every single goddamn time we go out. Every. Time. So, as soon as his wittle head began to nod, I knew it was time. There's only one thing that can rouse the sleeping marine: titties. It was the final test of strength, the strength of our resolves. It was strip club time. Once arrived, our AWESOME chauffeur got us in for free. The best man bought Rob a private dance, and all was right with the world. Upon asking a nice stripper, I learned that it was only $110 to have the groom-to-be dragged on stage, made fun of mercilessly, and molested by no less than 3 dancers. True to form, the boys didn't hesitate! We were given a piece of paper and told to list the 3 girls we wanted, and a little bit about the groom. The manager told us, "The more shit you put down here, the more I'll roast 'im." Challenge accepted! Poor guy, we even used Dungeons and Dragons against him. But he really got the last laugh as he motorboated 6 titties at the same time. I guess you take the good with the bad sometimes. There's a life lesson there somewhere, I just know it.
Groom on stage: $12.22 each
Groom's reaction: Priceless

After Rob left the stage, our mission fully accomplished, we left the club. We had the limo for just enough longer to take most everyone home, and we went back to the Bride's empty house to sleep it off. It was after 2:00 AM, over 19 hours after it all began. Many a toast had been slurred, many a stripper had been ogled, many a beverage imbibed. It was a great day. It was an epic adventure, and it was everything my buddy deserved. I talk a lot of shit, but I honestly could not have done it without the help and organization from the bride and the best man. The bride's ideas and support were amazing, not to mention the shirts and happy hour vitamins she provided, and making her house a suitable staging area for the night. The best man put together the most intense spreadsheet I've ever seen, including who had prepaid for what, who owed what to whom, a detailed itinerary, and even a ranked list of breweries we needed to visit, and which ones to skip in case of time constraints. With us 3 co-conspirators, Rob never knew what hit him until he was already in it!

Grand Total: $158.45 each, not including whatever you spent at the breweries.