Bar hopped on Tuesday with Brew's and went to Closed For Business, Boone's, the rooftop at Stars, and Prohibition. They all had different unique vibes, feels like forever.
On Wednesday I just kind of walked around and took everything in. Nothing too special for lunch due to time constraints, just grabbed a sandwich at Groucho's to troll my friends from home who went to South Carolina and missed it. Also went to the aquarium, which was great because there was NOBODY there. At times I was the only person in entire sections. I'm an aquarium/zoo dork so it was a great experience, took everything in at my own leisure. A good activity if you need a break from all the shopping and dining. That night my friend and the bride arrived and we met another couple outside at Tattooed Moose. I really liked my cuban, solid pub food, and a side of duck fat fries never hurts. Closed out with post-dinner drinks at The Recovery Room since my AirBNB was basically directly behind it...$2 PBRs can't be beat. If you need a room in Charleston, I can recommend that place was clean, an easy walk down King Street, and almost perfect for my needs. For a classier experience, we dipped into the Church Street Inn because a family friend was there (and we needed a place to store the wedding dress and veil for a couple hours) and it was ridiculously nice.
Thursday and Friday was just a bunch of various wedding errands, so nothing to write home about until the rehearsal dinner on Friday at McCrady's. And oh boy was it great. I had to give a speech so I took it easy, but the Cab that I was pacing myself with was very good, it's a shame I can't remember the name. The upstairs rooms are really, really nice, had a good amount of room for 80 people with room to socialize beforehand during the cocktail hour. I loved all of the hors d'ourves, but some people didn't like the shrimp because of the fennel (at least I'm assuming that's what they didn't like). Big winners were the fried mac and cheese bites and mini pimiento sandwiches. All of the food for the meal looked excellent, the butternut squash soup got rave reviews (apparently I made a mistake with the salad, but it was still awesome) and I couldn't resist ordering the Wagyu steak. They said it was medium rare, but it looked more rare to me and oh my god it was delicious.
The actual wedding was at Boone Hall and absolutely beautiful, but you guys probably don't care about those details. During down times it was nice to be able to sneak off and get some exploring done without paying for admission though!
Yesterday we walked around a more and poked our heads into some shops. I almost bought some stuff in the market for Christmas presents, but decided I needed the cash in my wallet for transportation later. I did enjoy looking at all the cool stuff and under different circumstances I could have done some damage. The groom's brother's girlfriend is a chef, so the store we found was a highlight - can't recall the name. Dipped into City Lights Coffee for a funky coffee break and ate at Brown Dog Deli - a huge hit. I kept it simple but some of the orders looked absurd. But by then I was exhausted and just wanted to go home.
If you need some caterer recs, the people I worked with at the wedding itself were great (except I was told that they burnt the crab cakes on the grill, probably due to unfamiliarity) and one of the bridesmaids is the beverage director at McCrady's and Minero (and her boyfriend works there too) so yeah, go there.
drool