The Amazing Stagette

My stagette was this past weekend.  It was AWESOME.  One of the most fun days ever.  You might recall from an earlier post about stagettes that I'm not really that into them, or at least not really that into "typical" stagettes which basically consist of going out to the bar and often wearing some sort of embarrassing article of clothing that marks you as a soon-to-be bride.

So I was a little nervous when my maid of honour Sherri started telling me she was brainstorming ideas for my stagette soon after we got engaged.  "I don't really want one" I said.  Which she very maid of honourly scoffed at and said something like "This is a once-in-a-lifetime party.  I want to plan you a stagette so you need to have one.  But it's a party for YOU, so it'll be a party that you would enjoy.  I would never throw you a bar star party because that would just make you uncomfortable, so why would I do that?"

THAT, people, is exactly the kind of person you want to have as your maid of honour.

A few months later she ran an idea by me.  "What would you think about doing an Amazing Race?"

The way she described this Amazing Race party sounded pretty awesome so I told her to definitely go ahead and book it, but I had no idea how elaborate and amazing of a race it would actually be (I'd been imagining shuttle races and stuff at various parks around the city or something).  She knew a guy who plans these as a side business for birthday parties, stagettes, etc. and he did an incredible job.  So now, here are the highlights:

The first challenge (of 8) was to have a member of our team run around a (man made) lake in Stonebridge to retrieve our car keys.  It was a really long run so I was glad I didn't have to do it...  During this time, another team member performed a relatively easy-seeming challenge of memorizing some pizza ingredients.  Was that all there was to it?  After this we had to solve a riddle that led us to our next location...



The fire hall!  Where we each had to put on firefighter gear and take a photo.  That's me above - I had to hang onto the helmet because it was way too big for my head :(

Our next challenge took us to Alexander's Restaurant.  We walked in and the server said "Are you girls here for the drink-a-thon?"  It says something funny about my friends that our reactions were all "oh no" rather than "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".  It was definitely not your typical stagette.

Luckily the "drink-a-thon" just turned out to be a beer identification challenge - we had to identify 6 different beers.  Awesomely I was on the only team with anyone who regularly drinks beer, so my team got 3/6 right - the other teams ate some extra penalty time for getting them all wrong.

We solved another riddle that took us to Mr. Sicily's pizza, where that seemingly easy challenge from the beginning of the race showed up again.  The team member that had memorized the ingredients had to make a pizza with the ingredients she memorized and bake it.  After baking, any wrong or forgotten ingredients would incur penalty time.

Dani makes a pizza - sadly not for my team, as she was the only one who correctly memorized all the ingredients!  At this point we were getting pretty hungry so having a fresh pizza was perfect timing!

The next place we ended up was kind of funny - the go-kart track at Wilson's Greenhouse, where Brahm's stag was about to get under way!  The organizer of our race had no idea that they'd also be there, so it was a really crazy coincidence.  The two parties got to visit while my sisters and I suited up for some extreme go-karting:

Strategizing, no doubt.

My entire body is still quite sore from go-karting - it was fun for the first couple minutes, but unfortunately I hadn't realized that my seat could actually be pushed forward so I basically had to drive for the entire ten minutes shoving my back up against the seat, trying to put as much weight on my foot as possible so I could keep driving.  It wasn't a very pleasant experience and it ended up with me going pretty slow.  I'd go-kart again but definitely am moving my seat forward next time!  Luckily my sisters were equally as slow as me so we all ended up with equal penalty time before heading to the next challenge.

Which turned out to be a nacho-eating contest at Montana's!  Maybe one of the funniest scenes from the day, unfortunately not captured on film, was seeing another team run into the restaurant and start shoveling nachos into their mouths while getting seated.  At this point too one team member had to pee extremely bad, so not wanting to let her team down, she grabbed a handful of nachos which she ate on the way to the bathroom.

Our final couple of challenges took place at the Saskatoon Exhibition: having a team member ride the Super Shot and then searching for the race organizer somewhere in the Midway.  Having to do this after a nacho-eating contest worried the Super Shot riders:

We were told at the beginning of the race to make sure we saved the last challenge for our "bravest" team member!

My team won the race by around one minute and thirty seconds!  Sadly we didn't get a million dollars but it was an absolutely incredible day, and such a good idea for a stagette.  It was something that is fun for everyone, not just people who enjoy dancing at the bar or whatever.

After the race we went back to Sherri's house and had appetizers and punch, and hilariously did not even collectively get through an entire bottle of wine (between 11 of us).  We talked about really stagette-y things like banking and politics and how none of us knows how to apply makeup, and also complained about how crowded and gross the Ex was and how LOUD the music was near the ride, because we are 80 apparently.

The whole day was pretty much perfect.  Like the shower, it reminded me of what a great circle of women I belong to.  I'll definitely be talking about this day for a long time.  Thanks to all my friends who came out and made it one of the best days ever!