As many of you know, a group of fellow fashion bloggers and I recently headed to Augusta, Georgia for a weekend getaway. Our sweet friend Anna (Life & Lattes) is from Augusta, and planned an incredible blogger trip with Pineapple PR in her home town that was seriously NEXT LEVEL! Our itinerary was jam packed for the entire weekend, and while the weekend was productive and exhausting, it was also SO. MUCH. FUN.
Friday
Caroline (The Whimsical Pineapple) and I arrived in Augusta on a Friday afternoon around 2pm. Our road trip was complete with tonnnns of snacks from QT (yes, we bought cookie dough. For no reason. Whatever.) and listened to lots of Spotify (Hello, new Taylor Swift song). When we arrived at The Crowne Plaza North Augusta, we were greeted with glasses of champagne in the lobby before heading to our designated hotel room. In our room, we were surprised to find two of the most amazing gift bags ever! Seriously, these bags were inanely cute and included some of the most adorable items I’ve ever seen. We took photos and fan-girled over the goodie bags for what felt like an hour, and started to get even more excited about the weekend than we already were (if that was even possible).
Caroline and I then touched up our hair and makeup, changed, and walked downstairs to meet the other girls for dinner. Honesty hour: to be totally transparent, I was extremely nervous to head downstairs to meet the other girls. Why? I have absolutely NO idea. It’s somewhat comical to think about now, after spending the weekend with them and knowing how nice they all ended up being. I guess I was just nervous because I had never met these girls in person before, and I was also nervous about attending my first blogger trip in general. Looking back, obviously, being nervous to meet them was so silly. NICEST GIRLS EVER!
dress | heels | bag | earrings
After meeting everyone, we took a tour of the hotel with yet another glass of champagne (MY KINDA HOTEL TOUR). We took a few group photos together as we got to know one another, and then we headed into Salt & Marrow for dinner, which is connected to the Crowne Plaza hotel. I (along with the majority of the table) ordered the surf & turf, which was absolutely incredible. Paired with my favorite Meiomi wine? I was in heaven.
After dinner, we headed over to SRP Park baseball stadium for the GreenJackets game, which happened to be right next door to our hotel! The game was so much fun. We sipped on some more drinks, took some more group photos and we were even able to take some photos with the GreenJackets mascot. Do it for the gram.
bodysuit | shorts | sandals | earrings
From the baseball game, we headed directly to Jackson’s Bluff, an adorable rooftop bar with delicious drinks above the Crowne Plaza North Augusta. While we were there, we sampled some new drinks for the menu, which were refreshing and SO tasty! We called it a relatively early night since we had a long day and an early morning ahead of us. We were surprised to find the most adorable DIY cocktail set-up in all of our rooms when we got back to the hotel. So stinkin’ cute! If you think I didn’t create my own cocktail, you’re wrong. If you think the cocktail creation went horribly wrong and I somehow managed to mess up the recipe even though it was clearly written out for me… you’re right.
Saturday Part 1
On Saturday morning, we woke up early and started getting ready for brunch. I would also like to take this opportunity to announce that I did, in fact, learn how to apply false lashes while on this trip. I bought a pack of a million for $13 on Amazon and told Caroline she had to teach me how to apply them before the trip was over. She gave me the “good glue” which I didn’t know existed, and the lashes worked! No more falsie fails for me.
As we were packing up our rooms and getting ready for the long day ahead of us, we heard a knock on our hotel room door. Caroline opened the door to find muffins, coffee, and tea being personally delivered to our room by the Crowne Plaza North Augusta staff. How nice is that?! It was seriously exactly what we needed after a long, exhausting night and an early morning wake up call. I truly cannot say enough great things about the customer service we experienced at that hotel.
Once we were all packed up and ready to head out for the day, we all met downstairs for mimosas. Caroline and I were late, so technically didn’t have time for a mimosa… LOL. We can probably thank my fake lashes for that one. From there, we packed up our cars to start the day. Our cars were lent to us from Gerald Jones Volvo, and a few of the girls drove around in them all weekend. Personally, I drove my own car, since I already have a Volvo myself! I was still #onbrand. We then headed to brunch at Bodega Ultima which as absolutely delicious and SO freaking cute inside. At brunch, We walked in the restaurant to find gift bags from Red Dress Boutique which included the cuuuutest pjs from Judith March. I mean, pink matching pjs? Who doesn’t want those?!
Saturday Part 2
We then headed out to do some shopping at Swank and Fabrik boutiques in Augusta. Our photographer for the weekend, Julia, was so awesome and came shopping with us to take our photos. She was actually with us the entire weekend, and she was the sweetest person ever! I absolutely loveee her photos, and she was so easy to work with. As many of you know, I normally get shy in front of the camera. Julia was so sweet and made me feel extremely comfortable, which was awesome.
shop my pink polka dot romper here
After doing some shopping, we checked into our rooms at The Partridge Inn. The Partridge Inn is an iconic, historic hotel in Augusta. It’s actually somewhat famous for being haunted by a ghost named Emily… or so they say. Personally, we didn’t see any signs of Emily during our stay, but who knows! We had fun reading up on the ghost stories and joking about Emily all weekend. If anyone reading this has ever seen her, please let me know!
After checking in and getting settled, we had our hair done in awesome festival braids by Hollie Mae. We hung out by the pool and took some fun photos on unicorn floats before finally getting some down for the first time all weekend. Seriously, I’ve never been so happy about a two hour break. I didn’t even know what to do with myself!
We headed to dinner at DiVino Ristorante which was located in the most ADORABLE little place I’ve ever seen. Seriously, it looked like a fake town or a movie set. I couldn’t believe it was a real place! We were greeted with a “welcome cocktail” which was similar to a bellini, and it was absolutely delicious! I ordered a huge bowl of spaghetti and a dirty martini with extra olives, per usual. We wore outfits that were sponsored by The Pink Lily Boutique, which is one of my absolute favorite boutiques. If you haven’t heard of them, you’re seriously missing out! You can shop my look here.
After dinner (we were SOOO FULL), we headed back to The Partridge Inn and changed into our adorable Judith March pajamas and got ready for our hotel PJ party in Anna’s suite. We had popcorn, champagne, candy, and tons of music blaring (and we only got two noise complaints!). We stayed up past our bedtime before heading to sleep in our haunted hotel.
Sunday
Sunday morning came very quickly after our long day and late night on Saturday. Caroline and I got our room packed up, and got ready to head downstairs for brunch. I ordered chicken and waffles for the first time ever, and it did not disappoint! Seriously, that was some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had in my life. We then said our goodbyes before Caroline and I began our 2.5 hour car ride back to Charlotte! Overall, it was a tiring but AMAZING weekend that I would 10/10 do all over again. I can’t wait to reunite with these girls again soon for another trip!
Has anyone ever been to any of these spots in Augusta? Let me know and as always, thank you for reading!
xo, Ashlen
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