Bachelorette Parties Beware!
If you are planning a calm,…read moregentle reset with your girls for a bachelorette party I would look elsewhere. My friend, the bride, had organized and paid for all ($25/person, the drop-in rate) all 9 of us to attend a Saturday morning, 9 am gentle flow class more than a month prior to us going.
Fast forward the week of, the bride receives an email mentioning that the guide who typically offers the Saturday Gentle Flow is out of town, and as a result of the late change, they do not have another guide for 9am. She did offer us times on Friday, Saturday and Sunday noting that 5 out of the 7 options would be a private session for our group. The only time that worked with our plan of events was 7am on Saturday (one of the private session options) so as a group we all agreed and were excited to start our day with a gentle flow. Our poor bride, who I should mention is the sweetest, most go with the flow wants everyone to be happy kind of woman, begins receiving calls and texts from the owner asking if we really want to do 7am with a bachelorette party, she has to drive in and teach the class herself, and because it was now a private class it would be $78 dollars more! It was nowhere in the rescheduling email that it would cost more for the private session. The math was not mathing.
The night before class, we all ask the bride what she wanted to - we're girls girls, we ride together. She very much wanted to start the day with a gentle flow class. That was all we needed, all 8 of us were 100% in with the bride and promised to go in with open minds.
We arrive on time and walk in surprised how close together our 9 mats are to one another, there was no way if she had opened the class up to others to make it a non-private session even one more person would have fit! Again, we take a deep breath, try hard to have open minds and sit on our mats. Then the guide/owner opens her mouth...She does not start with a congratulations to the bride, in fact not once does she acknowledge or congratulate the bride, instead she starts with "wow I'm surprised you are all here at 7 am, usually bachelorettes have a hard time getting here at 9am." Then she sits on her mat and in a condescending tone ask "how is the elevation treating you all, nauseous? Headaches? Fatigue?" I laugh because clearly she is trying to figure out if we're hungover - which we were not! As I laugh she looks over, and without hesitation I let her know I'm always fatigued and tired, I'm a mom of a toddler. Another friend mentions that half of us are moms, the other half are teachers we are always all fatigued. The owner then changes the topic to see what problem areas we may be having, collectively we let her know that there are some tight hips, sore shoulders, and lower back pains. She lets us know she will guide us through a restorative flow to address those issues. Not the gentle flow we signed up for.
Like I mentioned the room was small. There were times that friends had their feet and hands on one another because there was no room. We were told this was okay, lean into your friends. With a foot in a face?!? That's normal and okay? Two of us were against a wall and couldn't even fully do some of the flows because our arms and legs had no room and no where to go because of the wall. The bride didn't even have the straps and blocks at her station when we started. We never did any typical yoga flow positions, no child's pose, no down, no warriors, no tree, and shavasana had two blocks under our backs that were very uncomfortable and not how I have ever ended a yoga class. In fact, there was really no flow. It was do this position with these blocks, add straps, etc.
Halfway through I noticed she was taking photos of us. We never signed anything allowing her to take photos of us. She never even asked for a verbal okay before taking pictures. And some of the positions she had us in while taking photos could not be flattering for anyone. I noted that and was planning on calling her out at the end. Luckily, at the end of class she mentioned she took photos "for us" and would air drop them to the bride. Two of these photos have ended up on her insta-stories this week. Obviously, these photos were for her own personal gain and not for us. Again, not one of us approved the photos being taken let alone used for her social media content.
And the kicker - remember how the math was not mathing. Well, in a very stern tone, she calls the bride at the end of class that they had things to finish up front, aka pay the unexplained $78. Again, our sweet, kind bride didn't want any trouble and just handed over her credit card.
Maybe she's kinder to corporate retreats or drop-ins, but if you're planning on going for a bachelorette party do not expect for your bride to be congratulated/made to feel special, instead plan on being judged and expected to be hung over.
