Just on the "bottle service" questions- I like getting a bottle when I go to bars/clubby places just bc then you have a place to sit/chill/congregate and come back to.
Also, if you're going to a major city, forget trying to get in somewhere without buying a table. I was with a group of girls for my brette which included 12 girls, all of whom are pretty hot- one who is a model for some major campaigns and one of whom is a pretty major fashion designer who some people on this board have probably heard of- and we still had to drop $1200 for a table to get into the place we wanted to go to. On top of that, they kept emphasizing that this was such a deal bc they did not let a single other person in who wasn't on "the list."
None of us are out doing this every weekend, but for a brette with a large group at an exclusive place, it was kind of awesome/ worth it.