Is Nashville the New ‘Bachelorette Capital’? CNN Says Yes
The last weekend of April, the 2019 NFL Draft took over downtown Nashville, turning the party destination of Lower Broadway into a sea of football fans waiting to find out which hot prospects would be joining their favorite team. The three-day event hosted more than 600,000 fans in Music City — the most people to ever attend the NFL Draft — and was the most-watched and highest-rated draft in history, according to the NFL.
During those three days, however, one particular news story circulated among Nashville residents on social media, prompting a flurry of "LOL"s, laughing emojis and snarky comments: The NFL Draft was ruining the party-hardy plans of brides-to-be and their friends who had flocked to Music City for bachelorette parties. Nashvillians certainly want to see visitors enjoying the city — but the snafu felt like karma striking back.
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Bachelor and bachelorette parties are seemingly everywhere in Nashville these days, overrunning downtown's hottest destinations as they celebrate impending nuptials. In fact, according to a new CNN Travel feature — published just days after the NFL Draft — Nashville now hosts more bachelor and bachelorette parties than Las Vegas.
"Statistically, we now host a greater volume of bachelorette parties than Las Vegas does," says Ryan Budden, founder of Bachelor Party Nashville, a concierge service for bachelor and bachelorette parties. "Las Vegas does more money each year in bachelor and bachelorette parties" because it's a more expensive city, but in terms of the number of parties coming to town, Nashville leads.
Budden's Bachelor Party Nashville is just one of a number of companies catering to this influx of partiers. Leslie Embry, owner of the Blowout Co., a salon, says she's seen groups come in for manicures, makeup, hair and more, in addition to her regular, Nashville-resident customers.
"We get a lot of people from Michigan and Ohio, New York. We obviously get a lot from out in L.A., Texas. We have a lot of Canadians, also, that come here. There was just a group in here from Connecticut," she tells CNN. "Really all over."
Budden, Embry and others cite Nashville's welcoming residents (even if they sometimes get frustrated with their one-weekend-only visitors) as a reason for the uptick in bachelor and bachelorette parties. "It feels really local," Embry says, "and you can walk around, and feel safe down on Broadway."
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