13 Non-Basic Ways to Throw an Epic Vegas Bachelorette Party

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Anthropologie's bridal brand, BHLDN, has a great selection of wedding-ready gear. Brides can shop from countless gowns for themselves or their bridesmaids, and find fabulous accessories to match.

Shop from a collection of gorgeous, unique gowns guaranteed to make your guests shed a tear of joy. While this is strictly for brides, Lovely Bride also has a brand of bridesmaid and wedding guest dresses.

Deck your bridesmaids out in the chicest dresses yet with Birdy Grey. With tons of silhouettes, every person in your party is sure to find something they'll love.​

Choose from any one of Revolve's jaw-dropping dresses and you'll be the talk of the wedding (well, besides the bride and groom of course). With so many colors, styles and prices, you're bound to find something amazing.

Curate A Playlist

The vibes this morning are crucial! And while it’s highly possible that you’ve already put a lot of work into creating the perfect reception playlist, I suggest you leave this one up to your bridesmaids. Have your maid of honor create a Spotify playlist and share it with everyone in your bridal crew. From there, they can add songs that remind them of you or that you share a special memory with! You’ll have the most fun guessing who added each song to the playlist and running down memory lane before you do the same down the aisle.

Keep Everyone Snacking

You all have a long day ahead of you and keeping up stamina will get you to the finish line. Book catering to deliver a breakfast and lunch combo buffet in your bridal suite. You’ll likely be getting started pretty early in the morning and don’t want anyone feeling famished. Items like croissants, fruit salad, charcuterie spreads, and crowd favorite chicken nuggets will be a great start to keep energy up.

Have A Little Libations Bar

Give the girls the opportunity to let loose and shake off the nerves, but be careful not to go too hard! An aesthetically pleasing drink bar will take your getting-ready space to the next level. Stock it with an assortment of bubbly, juices, and liqueurs that everyone in your group will love and that’ll be worthy of the ‘Gram, of course.

Take Stock Of Plugs And Mirrors

During your final venue walkthrough you’ll want to count how many plugs you can find! Take into account how many bridesmaids you have and how many people might be charging their phone at the same time. If you don’t feel like you have enough plugs for everyone to share, get on Amazon and order an extension cord! Also take stock of how many mirrors there are in your bridal space. You want everyone to feel like they have room to get ready, so if the mirror supply is limited, invest in some travel mirrors!

Remember That Delegation Is Your Friend

You’ve heard it already, but your wedding day is a LONG day. Some people might get a little antsy without a mission, so delegate, delegate, delegate! Ask everyone to capture certain footage throughout the day, so then everyone gets to look back on how much fun you had through varied perspectives at the end of it all. Let someone else be in charge of making sure food and drink are stocked. Give someone the task of making sure everyone is ready for hair and makeup at the right time. Everyone there has your back, so don’t be afraid to give them something to do!

Get In Eight Full Hours

Melatonin, anyone? Anticipation will likely be high the night before, but you have to do your best to get in eight hours of beauty sleep. Without it, you’ll be running on pure adrenaline and the crash will be hard by the end of the day. Start winding down sooner than you think you need to and treat yourself to a cup of chamomile lavender tea. You’ll thank yourself on the dance floor the next day.

Get Some Comfy Robes And Slippers

Everyone will be so thankful to arrive and see a pair of fluffy slippers and silky pajamas, or a flowing robe set out just for them. Changing into the outfit will really make what’s happening set in and get the day rolling!

Make A Hair And Makeup Schedule

This is so important! Some people might suggest just letting the day flow how it will and whoever is ready for hair and makeup can go, but I highly suggest against it. Make sure that everyone has a specific time to be ready for the chair and I promise: Your hair and makeup artists will appreciate it.

Leave Room For Error

At least one thing will inevitably not go quite the way it’s supposed to. That’s why I highly recommend giving yourself a little more time than you think you need. You never know what might go slightly wrong and throw your schedule off. If you leave room for error, you leave yourself space to adapt and work through it!

Hire A Wedding Planner

The number 1 tip for making sure you have a calm wedding day is hiring a wedding planner (or at least a day-of coordinator). Their job is to take that stress from you and make it their problem. Not only will they know how to fix and handle any issues that arise but they’ll know exactly how to create the best timeline for the day. If there’s anything you’re trying to decide if you need or not, this is one you should put on the need list.

Yulin Kuang's Journey To "How To End A Love Story"

Some people seem to be born knowing they're destined to right, but some of us stumble into it and realize, "Hey, I'm pretty good at this." For Yulin, her journey to her debut novel How to End a Love Story takes the latter route. Her first dream, you make ask? To be an Olympic figure skater.

"...that didn't pan out so I turned to storytelling," Yulin admits. That pivot led her to set her sights on becoming an author as she began honing her creative writing skills via your classic marble composition notebooks. If you're still wondering if she kept some of them, the answer is yes!

The screenwriter and author then found herself drawn to other aspects of writing and film. She says, "I eventually fell in love with screenwriting and directing while in undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, and I spent my first decade post-grad concentrating on my filmmaking career."

Yulin Kuang's Approach To Filmmaking

It's a reason why her hard work and the stars aligned for her to adapt Emily Henry's Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation.

When I ask what helps her approach the book-to-film trajectory, she credits writing fan fiction. This feels similar to Christina Lauren's own experience, further proving that fan fiction deserves the utmost praise for helping some of the best literary and film minds who ultimately birth what I could only describe as masterpieces.

Yulin says, "Fan fiction is where I first learned you could play with characters originated by someone else to discover what you’d make them do in your own version." Although it would be easy for anyone to snap their fingers and have their first pitches accepted by everyone, she learned to lean on what writing fan fiction taught her.

"Early in my career, I would pitch on book-to-film adaptations and I’d be like, 'Change nothing, just shoot the book!' And I wouldn’t get those jobs, because I didn’t have a clear “take” and because you can’t actually just shoot a book – adaptation is an art form unto itself. So onceI started approaching adaptation with more of a fan fiction mindset – 'What is my take on these characters and this world?' – that helped me approach the book-to-screen trajectory more successfully," she proudly says.

However, this doesn't mean she never questioned if she could still find ways to create new ideas. "...in 2021, at a time when everything else I was working on was an adaptation, I found myself wondering if I had anything original left within me," she remembers.

It's natural for creatives to experience moments of doubt, but Yulin has been able to turn the tide and discover untapped ideas in her mind. Just don't expect her to set her own expectations about any adaptations she's working on.

She says, "Know that I am an avid reader of romance and a frequent consumer of this genre across mediums, and I will be bringing everything I know going into these adaptations. But more specifically to Beach Read, which I have more creative ownership over as the writer/director."

How Yulin Kuang Relates To Her Main Characters In "How To End A Love Story"

And since How to End a Love Story is truly Yulin's own creative body of work, it makes sense that main characters Helen and Grant have pieces of her personality as well as her characteristics.

"I gave Helen all my hopes and insecurities from high school and gave her the alternate universe path where I had pursued publishing instead of Hollywood. I examined what might have happened if I’d grown into certain qualities I’ve actively tried to grow away from," she says of Helen Zhang.

Right away, readers get the sense that Helen is a whip-smart and hardworking, but her penchant for being cautious about her success also peeks through. Though she's written highly successful YA (read: young adult) novels, Helen waits with bated breath for the moment people will call her bluff. She's relatable because many of us wonder if we're simply cosplaying as versions of ourselves who've reached any level of success.

On the other hand, there's Grant Shepard. He's seemingly this cool, calm, and collected screenwriter who has a complicated past with Helen. Yulin says, "I gave Grant a lot of the qualities I’m proud of and/or have coveted as a working screenwriter, and I certainly relate to many of his thoughts on screenwriting and the current state of our industry."

The more the reader learns about Helen and Grant, the more it becomes obvious that there's more to them than meets the eye. Sure, they are complicated...but who isn't?

"At their core, Helen and Grant are just two kids from Jersey trying to make it in Hollywood, and of course I relate deeply to that," she says.

Yulin Kuang's View Of Rom-Coms

Based on Yulin's genuine interest in romance novels and the fact she's well-versed in adapting them, she knows what it takes to make rom-coms flourish. Her first take? "Romantic tension is key to any romance – I always need to know why our couple can’t be together now. The second that tension is gone, so is audience interest," she points out.

This explains why we can't get enough of reading books about it, listening to albums dedicated to it, or watching films that depict all levels of romance. Still, there are some people who approach the genre with a side eye.

"There seems to be a natural human suspicion of things that make us feel too good – like, 'That can’t possibly be good for us, that’s just candy!' I wonder if it’s something evolutionary at work," she says before doubling down. "You can’t argue with the fact that people absolutely fucking love rom-coms, and I will die on the hill that a well-earned happily ever after is both harder to achieve and more narratively satisfying when it’s pulled off successfully."

She's the type of writer who really appreciates a big kiss that's handled correctly onscreen, but she's also not afraid to "groan every time it's fumbled." But, she knows everyone still won't see romance the way she and so many others view it, but she doesn't really care.

"Ultimately, I don’t concern myself too much with changing minds that don’t want to be changed.There are enough smart people who recognize the power and value of rom-coms, and I’d rather spend my precious time creating art to surprise and delight the people with good taste."

Need I say that this is yet another reason why How to End a Love Story works so well?

How Yulin Kuang Wishes The World Would Celebrate AAPI Month

As much as she's vocal about screenwriting and rom-coms, Yulin also has thoughts about the way society-at-large talks about BIPOC creative artists. "There’s a real, 'This is important, eat your vegetables,' vibe to things. And while that might be true, it’s not the most appealing way to market or discover art," she says.

She admits this could be due to how many diversity-in-film panels she's attended. As a Black woman, the conversations I see every year during Black History Month seem to have a certain "Let's check this box so everyone can be happy" vibe, so I can imagine attending panels about diversity and inclusion can start to sound repetitive after awhile.

Yulin doesn't hold back when she says, "I’m a little jaded when people ask me diversity questions at this point. I don’t want to attract the kind of readers who are only showing up to be supportive of my Asian-ness. It’s a bit like showing up to a date where someone says, 'I’m so excited that you’re Asian!!!'" This is an analogy I can so get behind because it makes a lot of sense!

It's one thing to have representation, but I like to think it's always obvious when people are approaching the conversation in a way that 'others' BIPOC people. We're literally not asking for a trophy, but more so an acknowledgement that we shouldn't be excluded from conversations, spaces, and careers or treated differently.

This sentiment is shared by Yulin who says, "That’s the thing about me that I didn’t do on purpose, and while I’m glad you’re excited, I hope there are things that I did do on purpose that you find exciting, too" and feels there is a way to be a genuine ally.

"...support AAPI creatives by all means, and perhaps begin by celebrating us as individual artists even after the designated month ends. And where applicable, talk about our work like it’s candy, not vegetables. I’d rather be irresistible than important," she states.

Take a page from Yulin Kuang's book and pick up a copy of How to End a Love Story today! You won't regret it!