Spray me happy

The day before my friend’s wedding was a crazy one. If you remember, the night before was the bachelorette party. We stayed up past 1am talking about all things girl and just about none of us slept throughout the night. There were some who didn’t have their cell phones on silent, so it was a bit painful to say the least. After chowing down on a less than stellar hotel breakfast, the bride announced she was getting a touch up spray tan and asked if anyone wanted to join in.

Knowing how white I am, I immediately jumped on board along with 3 others. The big debate was: to shower or not to shower before.  The debate didn’t last long when I looked in the bathroom, only to find every single towel on the floor, used and abused.

No shower.

My greasy smelly self…along with 4 others, hopped in our cars and drove the 45 minutes to the woman's house to get our tans.  I was excited! My first real true all natural spray tan! We all waited our turns as each of us got sprayed down by her. A few things you may like to know going in…

- you have the option of getting your birthday suit sprayed in its entirety
- upon said spray, you have to stand in your birthday suit for at least 5-10 for it to set
- if you’re with your friends, you and your friends will be standing around in your birthday suits making jokes
- wearing elastic, underwire or anything binding is prohibited as it will ruin the evenness.
and what could be the most important
- you can not shower for at least 4 hours after getting sprayed

So that means you will be walking around town as your tan sets darker and darker, because you have errands to run for the bride, with a nasty grease mop on top your head, in loose clothing, without deodorant. I’d say that’s a win win for everyone involved.

We did get to hide for the first 2 hours in her sister’s bedroom at their parent’s house. But afterward had so many things to do, leaving the confines of the room was necessary.

We finally rushed to the lodge where she was getting married and had 20 minutes from the moment we arrived to shower, scrub off as much as possible and be at the rehearsal. As I was relishing in the fact I was about to shampoo my hair, I realized there was no lather. I squirted more in my hand, rubbed vigorously on my head and, nothing.

I put conditioner in both the travel bottles.

Precious minutes were ticking by as I frantically grabbed the hotel supply and washed away the grease. Even though I pride myself on putting on makeup in 8 minutes flat, I did it even quicker that night as all of us bridesmaids were running late.

We ran up the hill to everyone waiting for us and the rehearsal finally began…with my hair dripping wet…in the cold Carmel Valley evening. I scraped that puppy back in a bun and didn’t think twice about it… ok, that’s a lie. Who doesn’t worry about the lumps and bumps when you don’t have a mirror?!

The rehearsal dinner was set to take place at a local cantina and after we practiced walking, we headed out for some great food. The food was amazing. The best chili rellenos I’ve ever had and of course I ate way too many chips and salsa to fully enjoy my plate.

It was a chilly chilly night, but thankfully they had heaters every 4 feet of each other. I’m pretty sure we all would have frozen to death without them, but the evening was wonderful. Everyone around were so great to talk with. The other bridesmaid and I were thoroughly enjoying our ‘glow’ after our showers.

The evening got only sweeter when they brought out the best ice cream any of us had ever had. Our bellies were stuffed to the brim but that didn’t stop any of us from indulging with knives, we were too eager to wait for spoons. And of course the evening was beautifully topped off with G-man’s arrival with a hug that lasted 5 minutes straight in the middle of the parking lot.

A belated apology to all cars who had to go around us and for eliciting many awkward stares.

But it was worth it.

The tan was worth it, the hug was worth it…everything was well worth it. Pin It Now!