On a recent Friday afternoon, at a $5 million mansion turned short-term rental property just outside Scottsdale city limits, elements of the natural and synthetic world collided at a bride-to-be's party.
There was a blue pool. Despite the fact that it was 104 degrees, the baby pink letter balloons were still up in the air. Everyone agreed that the desert flora in the distance was a decent backdrop for an image on social media. One of the two boys who had been hired at a rate of $500 for two hours poured champagne into the bridesmaid's mouth.
A group of women came to the house in Paradise Valley to celebrate. A 29-year-old account executive from New Jersey would be marrying a 29-year-old man in three weeks. The majority of her party had never been to Arizona before. They splashed around on the pool deck of their rental home, which cost $7,300 for three nights, in what has quickly become a bachelorette-party capital of the West.
As her cousins, sister and favorite college roommate played with a flip cup, she explained that she originally wanted to go to Las Vegas. The size of her group and other locations had to be removed from the list.
She was wearing a white one-piece swimsuit, oversized sunglasses, and a bedazzled white cowgirl hat. Nashville, Austin, Texas, Chicago, and Newport, Rhode Island are some of the places we have visited. I didn't want to do it again.
Her feed was filled with pictures of her at a party. She said that everyone was talking about how great the nightlife is. I was going to do Scottsdale.
Thousands of brides have said the same thing, sparking a wave of female tourism to the city. The company that Chase Kennedy works for had booked as many as 30 events in one weekend. Mr. Kennedy said that it had been getting crazy.
The restaurants and nightclubs in Old Town are crawling with groups of women wearing matching tank tops with slogans like "Scottsdale Before the Veil." On a recent weekend in May, those women had come from all over the country, most of them white, and all of them had money to burn on three days of partying and excursions to the desert.
The owner of Girl About Town, an events company that specializes in bachelorette parties, said that it wasn't slowing down. She has retired from outdoor activities in the hot months because the girls couldn't touch the plates.
They are still coming. Alfonso said so.
The country's fifth-largest city was founded in the late 1800s by a U.S. Army officer who ran for president. Its motto was "The West's Most Western Town".
Laura McMurchie is the vice president for communications at the company that is contracted by the city and Paradise Valley to draw tourists to the area. Half of all visitors are leisure travelers, including retirees and families, she said.
According to Ms. McMurchie, Experience Scottsdale didn't create any campaigns to attract the women. The city was ranked as the second most popular bachelorette destination in the country by the year 2021. Nashville, the star of the 2010s, was more popular than Las Vegas, Miami, and Palm Springs, Calif.
According to the data from the app, users held more than 3,600 bachelor parties in the year 2021, compared with around 13,000 in Nashville. In comparison to Nashville, more than 11,000 parties are being planned in the area. It has the potential to surpass Nashville in bookings if it continues to grow. On a recent May weekend, more than one attendee of a bride-to-be's party declared that Scottsdale is the newNashville.
The owner of Arizona Party Bike said that in the summer of 2020 it will have a record number of parties. He said brides were looking for a place to celebrate. The governor of Arizona never enacted a statewide mask mandate and reopened restaurants for indoor dining. About 1,200 new Covid cases are being reported in the county.
Private two-hour tours of Old Town on trolley-size pedal bars are available for up to 15 people for a fee of up to $499. 75 percent of his clients are women with a median age of 28. The local hot-air balloon and desert Jeep tour operators are now crawling with groups of women in their 20's and 30's who are singing and playing music.
The influx has caused problems. On a Saturday in May at the Arizona Party Bike depot in Old Town, Lacy Gray, a company guide, had to explain the rules of the road to a bachelorette party from South Dakota after its members, wearing candy-colored wigs, took their seats at a neon pink pedal bar.
Do you mean one instruction? Ms. Gray said there were no requests for the song to be played. The song drew looks from people who were not happy.
A group of party elves employed by Girl About Town and other events companies sneak into many of the city's rental properties to prepare the spaces for arriving groups.
The person who started the show as a side gig is 35-year-oldCasey Hohman. The demand for his planning and decorating services grew so much that Mr. Hohman quit his job at Yelp to focus on his own company. He said that brides or their maids of honor are already contacting him about dates in 2023 because of the number of groups he has booked since February.
For $100, clients can schedule a one-time itinerary consultation with Mr. Hohman during which he will advise on activities that they can do at home. Groups can book a range of services, including D.J.s and private fitness classes, from vendors who pay 10 percent of any booking fee. He will pay a host a 10% commission for referring a visiting group to his company, and he will also direct interested parties to preferred rental properties.
The cost of decorating packages can be hundreds of dollars. Theme décor, tablescapes and pool floats are included on the higher end. The most popular theme right now is "Disco Cowgirl," which includes a cow-print photo backdrop with a neon "Giddy Up" sign, a display of hot pink, silver and cow-print balloons, paper signs that read "Bride's Last Ride" and a cow-
For an extra $100, the company will stock the refrigerator and pantry of a rental property with brides' requests, such as frozen pizzas, bagels and cream cheese, fruit platter and hard seltzers. The company's client experience manager said that alcohol is the priority. We worry about the food after getting the alcohol in.
The average cost per person for his clients has to be pushing $2,000, taking into account travel and lodging costs, decorating services and activities, as well as food and alcohol.
He said that the people he works with tend to spend more on their parties. If they have the money to travel to a city, they probably have the money to spend on things other than that.
On a Thursday in May, Mr. Hohman and his team decorated 10 rental houses, with 10 more scheduled for the following day. They spent less than 30 minutes on each setup while moving from place to place. One employee was responsible for blowing up pool floats, while the other was specialized in anchoring the balloon displays to the photo backdrop.
The number of beds in each property was one of the most shocking things Mr. Hohman and his team saw. Some bedrooms had three full-size beds lined up in rows, others had two sets of triple bunk beds and one primary suite contained a bed that looked like a California king, with space for about six women to sleep comfortably. There was a room off the laundry room with six twin mattresses.
The sleeping arrangements at the rental were not a problem for the group of friends. Two rooms had king size beds, a third had two queen size beds and a fourth had two sets of bunk beds. Just five minutes from Old Town, the home, which cost the group $2,800 for three nights, had a game room with a ping-Pong table, a backyard pool and a desert inspired mural.
The number of short-term rental units in the city of Scottsdale has increased from 5,400 in December to more than 6,200 today. Most of the units are complete homes, while the rest are private rooms.
Some year-round residents are not happy about the increase in rentals. After receiving complaints about noise and large parties, the city formed a working group and the police department created a patrol unit to respond to complaints about short-term rentals. According to Richard Slavin, an assistant chief in the department, most complaints about events with hundreds of guests are made by the guests.
Chief Slavin said, "Obviously we love that." We love knowing that people want to come and celebrate here.
Most bachelorette parties leave the house as well as being a rental property. The bride from Dallas planned a detailed itinerary for her group of 11 before they got to the airport. It included a hot-air balloon ride, a picnic, and a desert Jeep tour.
She was part of a group like many others. There is a 1 p.m. event. A Jeep tour on a Saturday, Ms. Cooper's gaggle was joined by three other bachelorette parties, whose members had come from the east and west. Before each group piled into identical open-air vehicles, their members listened to warnings about snakes and heat stroke.
Wine Girl is a 1,200- square-foot wine bar in Old Town that has chalkboard signs outside that set the mood before guests even enter. One said, "I love drunk me but I don't trust her."
Wine on tap, wooden swings, and a wall of naughty wine-themed items are just some of the things you can find at the bar.
The four long tables inside were filled with groups of similarly dressed women when Ms. Cooper and her crew arrived. Wine Girl opened in 2020 and now serves 70 to 80 bachelor parties every Thursday to Sunday in peak season, with reservation requests already coming in for the next five years, according to the owners.
It wasn't the plan.
The name Wine Girl was known to be female heavy. This is obnoxious.
It's in a good way. Ms.Mason smiled. It was in a positive way.
Ms Cooper was not deterred by the other brides around her. She secured a table with bottle service at El Hefe after chatting up a promoter on social media. Every other bottle-service table was occupied by a bride and her friends.
The bride was offered a shot ofvodka by Ms. Cooper before the night was done. They toast to each other and drink them down.
One day, the brides may stop coming and that's the worst fear of many business owners who have started or pivoted their companies.
Ms Alfonso, the owner of Girl About Town, hopes it doesn't.
She and other entrepreneurs in the area have begun to expand their businesses. Ms. Alfonso now provides planning and decorating services in New Orleans and Denver. The owners of Wine Girl are hoping to attract the same kind of clientele when they open a location in California.
The next hot bachelorette party destination is Mr. Petrakis's "sleeper pick" and he noted that bookings there are "growing fast year over year" on the app. He said that the city's open-container laws made it a good place to hold a party.
One bride said she wasn't done with the area. After all the Disco Cowgirl decorations had been taken down, Ms. Cooper reflected on her weekend over a Truly strawberry-lemonade hard seltzer by the pool at her rental.
Some people had already reached out to her on social media to inquire about her experiences. They want to know everything you did, everything you recommend, and anything else. Ms. Cooper spoke.
She said that her friend Holly had recently become engaged and that she would return. She asked if they could come here for her engagement party.
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