Steamboat Pilot & Today

Watching her friend give the manager of Old Town Pub a lap dance was one of Helle McClelland's favorite parts of her bachelorette party.

The friend who organized the party added a new twist to the ol' pub-crawl. All party guests participated in dares that were printed on a purchased deck of cards. The woman who earned the most points won a new pair of Smith Optics sunglasses.

"It's fun to have an objective, and watching everyone was the best part. It pushed everybody out of the norm, and everyone got to be a little bit wild," McClelland said. "I was the tamest one there and drank the least."

McClelland's friends thought ahead to warn each bar and restaurant before their arrival.

"All the bars were contacted before, and they each got into it and gave us free shots," she said. "It rallied all the bar owners and workers."

Even with all the prep work, performing a bar crawl in Steamboat Springs can be tricky.

"It's tough to get wild in a small town," McClelland said. "I'm a preschool teacher, and you don't know it you will see a parent from school."

Summer weddings open up more opportunities for the more laid-back bachelorette parties that can be planned in the wilderness areas surrounding Steamboat.

Before Katy Dearborn got married, her friends rented a yurt in State Bridge. Her floating bachelorette party went white-water rafting as an alternative to the bar scene, and no one had to worry about driving home. Bringing the festivities into the outdoors is less publicly embarrassing and can be more intimate.

Some modern brides get to partake in two bachelorette parties.

McClelland's first bachelorette party was held on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and involved attending a male revue. She had two parties to accommodate all her wedding guests who wanted to participate.

"I did one in California because my whole family is out there, and to ask everybody to fly out here wouldn't work for everyone," she said. "And there were people in Steamboat I wanted to invite and be included."

Another way McClelland accommodated her traveling guests was by having the bridal shower the day before the second bachelorette party.

"I loved it. It was great especially, for people coming from out of town who couldn't come out for two different weekends," McClelland said.