Uhm, these people are my heroes. After attending what seemed like a million bachelorette parties with the same theme, Sara decided to throw a different kind of party for her sister Melissa—a zombie bachelorette party. The boys got in on the action too, and the two groups spent half the night apart and reconvened at Minneapolis’s very own zombie-themed bar, Donny Dirk’s Zombie Den.

Sara shared some of her tips for creating your own zombie a-party-lypse. (Admittedly not my best pun.)

To start the evening, everyone got ready together at my sister’s apartment. All of the females dressed up as “Zombie Bridesmaids” by using old bridemaid dresses we thought we’d never wear again. Everyone destroyed their dress in their own unique zombie way—spray paint, shredding, dirt, fake blood, etc. All of the males dressed up as “Zombie Groomsmen” and similarly, they took old tuxes, suits, dress clothes and destroyed them in their own way zombie way. My sister and her (now) husband, dressed up as a “Zombie Bride & Groom.”

Everyone went all out on the zombie makeup. Most of us painted our faces with grey paint, had dark eye makeup, spray-painted grey hair, fake wounds and fake blood.

Here is Zombie Makeup 101:

Supplies

• Bottle of liquid latex
• Bottle of gel blood (it’s usually a pretty small bottle and it works best because it looks wet and fresh!)
• Liquid blood (we have black blood and red blood)
• Smudge-proof makeup in tubes (grey, or white and black to make grey)
• Spirit gum (optional, but nice to have)

Prep:

Dump a thin layer of liquid latex onto a cookie sheet or into a 9 x 13 cake pan and let dry. This might take a few hours, but you can speed up the process by using a blow dryer. You can do this days ahead of time. Once you have dried sheets you can cut it into different shapes and stretch and rip it to get holes and texture.

Applying:

Make sure your face is clean and free of lotion and makeup. IMPORTANT: DO NOT apply liquid latex to any hair, like eyebrows, and watch your hairline. Also you don’t want to apply liquid latex to skin that moves around a lot, like around your mouth, because it will loosen and fall off. Cheeks and forehead are good areas.

Using a brush or your finger, rub a layer of wet liquid latex onto the back of the piece of dry latex that you are going to stick to your face. The wet latex acts like a glue. Then apply to your face. Bunch up the latex so it looks all lumpy on the skin. Hold the latex to your face until it starts to feel like it’s sticking. Let it dry a few minutes and then apply a wet layer of liquid latex over the scar, paying special attention to the edges. You can slop that stuff on.

Once it’s dry you can put makeup over it. I usually do a light layer of grey over it before applying blood. Then I put lots of the gel blood on it. I also dab some of the black blood on my scars too. Then I usually apply lots of the grey all around and darken my eyes.

The last step, which is optional, is to pour some of the black and red blood over your scars a bit so the blood trickles down your face on to your clothes.

Bar crawl: We wanted to make sure my sister didn’t have to pay for any of her drinks once we got to the bars. So, I made drinks tickets with each Zombie Bridesmaid’s name on it. Whenever my sister needed a drink, she ripped off the ticket and gave it to the individual whose name was on it.

Our bar crawl took us through the hipster neighborhood in Minneapolis known as “Northeast.” We stopped at Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge (very welcoming of zombies, and had some cool drinks, including the Psycho Zombie drink), Tony Jaro’s, and Gasthof’s (we decided Zombies love to polka. Who doesn’t love polka and a boot of beer, right?). The last stop was Minneapolis’ very own zombie bar, Donny Dirk’s Zombie Den.

To read more about the party and see some of the treats Sara made for the party bus, visit her blog here.