Las Vegas Weekly

November 17, 2009 · 11:48 AM

Photo Gallery: Melissa Rycroft and Tye Strickland’s last hurrahs

By Robin Leach

Melissa Rycroft and Tye Strickland celebrate their upcoming wedding with bachelor and bachelorette parties in Las Vegas.

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage.com

She may have lost The Bachelor, but she certainly won a real-life hunk, and now gorgeous Melissa Rycroft is all set to marry Tye Strickland on Dec. 12. Melissa and Tye are so much in love, they decided to celebrate their bachelor and bachelorette bashes simultaneously here at The Venetian and the Palazzo.

Their 72-hour, honeymoon-styled celebration ended when Melissa jetted off to Los Angeles to appear on tonight’s Dancing With the Stars -- click HERE for our Donny Osmond vs. Kelly Osbourne showdown story as they battle to the finals.

Melissa and Tye stayed in the luxurious Siena Suite at the Palazzo. She confessed to wearing a fake engagement ring at check-in because the real one was at Simon G Jewelry here while their wedding bands were being designed. “I felt so naked without the ring I had to have something on my finger,” she laughed. Shortly after check-in, though, the Simon G Jewelry designers returned the engagement ring. “I couldn’t wait to put it back on, I was so excited,” she said.

I joined the over-the-moon couple when they hit the dueling pianos at the Salute Zebra Bar in the Palazzo. In between kissing, hand holding and hugging each other around the waist, they both told me they’d agreed on the joint party because there was no need to celebrate separately.

“We’ve made the commitment to be together for life, so why be apart for our celebration party?” Melissa told me. “The guests here with us this weekend are all members of the wedding party. Most of them are already married, so we’re playing catch-up to them, and we don’t have to hook anybody up here this weekend. They are all already spoken for. Isn’t that the best?”

However, they did separate from time to time. Tye took his group to see Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular at The Venetian, while Melissa and the girls watched Jersey Boys at the Palazzo. It was Tye’s only request for the weekend, and he was thrilled when the cast invited him backstage for a meet-and-greet with The Phantom and Christine. Then Tye raced backstage to Jersey Boys to surprise his fiancee as they began singing “Sherry Baby” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry” with the cast. Melissa confessed: “We girls were the row that sang and danced along with the performances right through the show.”

The group stopped at Fusion for cocktails before they separated again, with the guys headed to Tao and the girls to Lavo. Melissa arrived at the Italian hotspot’s private dining room and found bachelorette goodies including a sash, a big flashing ring, a crown and party favors. They wound up dancing on a banquette at the nightclub, posing for photos and going into a frenzy during Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.”

At Tao, Tye enjoyed his own guys night on the town. The bachelor party began with a feast of lobster won tons, satay bass, steak and fried rice, followed by a VIP table in the moat section, where they stayed just before the club closed at dawn.

Photo: IS Photography/ImagesofVegas.com

Melissa Rycroft and Tye Strickland celebrate their upcoming wedding with bachelor and bachelorette parties in Las Vegas.

Next day’s festivities began with a friendly poker tournament at The Venetian Poker Room, where the girls played against the guys. Sweet Surrender, the specialty cupcake and gourmet candy store in the Palazzo, sent over surprise cupcakes. Melissa and Tye made a stop at Sweet Surrender later for her favorite red velvet cupcake and Tye’s coconut cupcake, which Melissa almost pushed into his face!

They took some time for themselves with a gondola ride at The Venetian. They cuddled and kissed as the gondolier serenaded them. Said Tye: “This is the happiest I have ever been in my life.” Melissa met up with her girls at the Canyon Ranch Spa Club for beauty treatments. Tye and the boys wound up at Lagasse’s Stadium watching games from a skybox, where Emeril served buckets of beers, chicken nachos, pesto pizza, cheeseburgers, wings, barbeque pork sandwiches and cookies.

They still had room for another meal altogether later at Dos Caminos. The “fiances fiesta” was family-style and included guacamole, queso fundido, empanadas, skirt steak, enchiladas and shrimp quesadillas. Pitchers of margaritas and sangria kept the group in a festive mood. For the finale, the chefs presented an array of dessert platters, with one special dish that read, “Congratulations, Melissa and Tye!”

The party then headed off to Blue Man Group at The Venetian. After the show, they went backstage for a meet-and-greet. The night wasn’t over despite the long, fun-filled day that followed the very late night before. They made a midnight rendezvous to First Food & Bar, and Melissa and Tye goofed off inside the First photo booth.

Photo: IS Photography/ImagesofVegas.com

Melissa Rycroft and Tye Strickland celebrate their upcoming wedding with bachelor and bachelorette parties in Las Vegas.

Melissa, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, appeared on Season 13 of The Bachelor and Season 8 of Dancing With the Stars. She made People’s list of The World’s Most Beautiful People 2009 and Maxim’s Hot 100 of 2009.

She had the last word, telling me: “It was a fabulous way to celebrate our upcoming marriage. We just thought it was a good idea to put our bachelor parties together. We are so glad we did. We’ll always have this Vegas visit as a memory, and because it doesn’t look like we’ll get an immediate honeymoon right after the wedding and have to wait a few months, this was the perfect way to solve that problem. We couldn’t have asked for better or for more fun. This was simply perfect at every step of the way, well except maybe we slightly overdid it!”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter HERE.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter HERE.

— From Vegas Deluxe

Link Share This