Before the Big Day: Great Ideas for Fun Bachelorette Parties in Grand Rapids

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage! Grand Rapids is a great place to host your wedding ceremony, with many and varied venues, expert planning help and lots of options for bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and the like.

Before you say your vows, of course, you’ll want to get your friends and loved ones together for a Bachelorette Party. Make sure everyone has fun by including any of these activities:

Get Pampered

If you’re up for a hot stone or deep tissue massage, Grand Rapids delivers with luxurious spa treatments at several spas. Just northeast of downtown, at The Woodhouse Day Spa, your group can indulge in full or partial day packages, massages, hydrafacials or mani-pedis. Tanaz Hair Boutique and Day Spa in Cascade offers similar spa packages and services. 
 
If you prefer a downtown spa, pamper yourself and your friends at Celeste Spa and Salon at the Amway Grand Plaza, or the JW Marriott’s Seraphina Spa, which has sumptuous offerings. Of course, you can make an entirely luxurious evening out of it by staying downtown, too. The Amway Grand Plaza and JW Marriott, connected by skywalk, are elegant, upscale options.

Take a Craft Beverage Tour

Grand Rapids is not just Beer City, USA – it’s also America’s Craft Beverage Capital, according to USA today. You and your guests can discover why on a guided tour of local breweries, distilleries, cideries, meaderies, wineries and/or bars. Gail Andrus Travel Winery & Brewery Tours, Grand Rapids Beer Tours, Raise a Glass Wine & Beer Tours and Tours Around Michigan offer public and private tours that let you sample the best local beverages – and you don’t have to worry about driving!

Tours Around Michigan will also customize a tour especially for your group, featuring any combination of its historic home, art, beverage, church, riverfront, gardens and ghost story itineraries.

Take a Class

Laugh with each other while you learn! The Local Epicurean and Thought Design offer a wide range of cooking classes, Tandy Leather will teach you the art of leathercrafting, Eastern Floral will walk you through the details of floral design and Sweet Details covers the finer points of cookie decorating. These are great bonding experiences, especially beneficial if there are people in your group who don’t know each other well (or at all).

Get in Touch with Your Artsy Side

At Wax Poetic Candle Bar in the charming Eastown neighborhood, you can select from more than 60 clean-burning fragrance oils to create a custom hand-poured candle. Their candles are a perfect memento and are earth-friendly, too, made with soy wax, organic cotton wicks and clean burning fragrances. 

You’ll combine art and science at The Aroma Labs in downtown GR, where you will be guided through the process of creating your own signature scent by combining different fragrance oils. You can then incorporate your scent into sprays, body oils, bath bubbles, diffusers and more. The Aroma Labs can accommodate up to 24 people and you can bring in your own food and beverages.

If picking up a paintbrush is more your style, book a group session at the upscale, relaxing Brush Studio or Wine and Canvas, where instructors take you step-by-step through creating your own beautiful painted canvas or wooden sign. Both studios have on-site bars that serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and allow you to bring in food.

Another way to explore your groups’ artistic side is to get your hands dirty at The Mud Room, located at Knapp’s Corner. You can choose between throwing clay on a potter’s wheel to create your own vessel, painting an existing piece of pottery, painting a wooden sign or fusing colorful pieces of glass into your own unique creation. 

Go on a Selfie Tour

Downtown Grand Rapids is filled with art – which means it’s packed with cool spots to take selfies and make sure everyone goes home with a personal memento of your party. May we suggest the self-guided Rad Women Electrical Box Tour? It includes 26 boxes painted with colorful portraits of influential women located all over downtown Grand Rapids. There are also downtown mural and sculpture tours. In between selfie stops, enjoy a meal at Beacon Corner Bar & Coast Fare, Bistro Bella Vita, House of Wine, Max’s South Seas Hideaway or any of downtown’s 150 restaurants.

Make it a Movie Night

Celebration! Cinema lets you book a private showtime at its Studio Park (downtown), Rivertown, North and South movie theatres. You can see any current movie, so check the release schedules for an upcoming romcom and plan accordingly. Concession stands will be open and you can arrange for pop and popcorn for your entire group, if you like. 

Sing up a Storm

K-Rok Korean Barbecue & Karaoke Soju Cocktail Bar in downtown Grand Rapids rents private karaoke rooms for up to 12 people at a time, so you don’t have to sing in front of strangers. (Though the ridicule from your friends may be even worse.) You and your guests can also enjoy authentic Korean cuisine. K-Rok is one of 25+ local establishments offering regular karaoke nights.

Have Fun at a Drag Show

Groups with a great sense of humor and spirit of adventure can have a ball at a drag show. These fun events feature adult humor, amazing drag queens, fabulous cocktails and good food. The outfits alone are worth the trip! 
 
Whether you attend a Michigan Drag Brunch or a Beauty Beyond Drag production, the shows often sell out, so make reservations for your bachelor or bachelorette party well in advance. Don’t forget to bring cash! Tipping is highly encouraged at these entertaining events, so you’ll want a wallet full of $1s and $5s.

Host a Tea Party

High Tea GR offers a classic British tea-time experience in the Uptown neighborhood of Grand Rapids. The elegant tea room can be rented for your bachelorette party, with the restaurant supplying a pot of tea for each guest and tea trays piled with sweets. You can bring in cake and decorations to personalize the space. Uptown’s Brown Butter Creperie & Café can also be rented for private events and private crepe-making classes.

Dance the Night Away

Let loose on the dance floor at 20+ Grand Rapids destinations featuring a wide range of music genres. Most offer food and drink to keep you replenished in between music sets. The Twisted Bull in Kentwood offers mechanical bull rides to complement its boot scootin’ boogie lineup of live country music every Friday and Saturday night.

Make Your Escape

From a locked escape room, that is – the city’s six escape room companies offer a variety of themed experiences requiring your group to work together to solve a mystery within a set period of time. As the name suggests, Amped Virtual Reality features virtual escape rooms as well as multiplayer games that let you escape to different worlds together. If you’re hosting a fall bachelorette party, you can head to local family farms to see if you can escape from corn mazes without help – and while you’re there, you can pick apples and pumpkins, shop for farm goods and gifts, take hayrides and more.

For a different kind of escape, play any of 600+ board games at downtown GR’s House Rules Board Game Lounge. You can enjoy craft beverages and bites while you engage in friendly competition or collaboration.

Make it an Event

Make your bachelorette party memorable by scheduling it to coincide with one of Grand Rapids’ signature events. You and your group can join in the fun of World of Winter, America’s largest winter festival, fall’s ArtPrize, the world’s most attended art event, or any of our cultural festivals and celebrations, which take place almost weekly from spring through fall.

If a music event is more to your liking, check the schedules of Van Andel Arena, which presents the country’s biggest touring superstars in concert, and DeVos Performance Hall, which features Broadway Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Ballet, Grand Rapids Symphony and Opera Grand Rapids productions as well as touring acts.

If you and your guests area a sporty bunch, consider incorporating golf, pickleball and/or a Grand Rapids Rise women’s volleyball game into your party itinerary.

Hotels

There are nearly 100 hotels spread out across Grand Rapids and Kent County, so you can choose to stay close to the activity(ies) of your choice. Click Book Now below to search hotels by region, price point and amenity.

Stay downtown for the largest concentration of dining, culture, live music, dancing and nightlife options, all just steps from 14 excellent hotels. Use the downtown filter on the Hotels page to find the right fit for your group.

Restaurants and Bars

As one of America’s Top 20 Foodie Cities, Grand Rapids is chock-full of great restaurants and bars. If you call ahead, several of these places will offer drink/appetizer specials and work with you to make arrangements for your party. Downtown and Uptown offer the greatest variety of restaurant cuisines and budgets, but you’ll find great choices in every region.

Bachelor Parties in Grand Rapids

Check out these ideas for your other half’s pre-wedding party. You might find some activities you’ll want to include in your bachelorette party, too!