27 October 2009

Wedding Welcome Out of Town Gift Bags


When we got married all of our out of town guests stayed at the resort near to where we held our wedding. We were lunatics that planned a summertime wedding in South Florida. About two weeks prior to the big day, my mother-in-law and I began brainstorming how and what to put in our welcome bags. Both of us did a lot of research online and polling of our friends and what they did and took into consideration the place and time of year of the event. Hopefully, this will come in handy for any other future brides out there looking to make a similar bag for their own event.
Luckily, we only had to make 20 bags, one bag for each guest room. Each of the bags were from Pier 1 Imports and were reusable shopping bags in a black and white damask pattern. We were fortunate enough to have the help of my mother-in-law's talented best friend to jazz the bags up. He took a class several years ago at Michael's to learn the art of bow making. I cannot tell you have beautiful the bags turned out because of this acquired skill of his. We also made beautiful welcome cards, which we placed inside of matching envelopes, personalized to each guest's room information and affixed with a ribbon to the handle of the bag.
Inside the bags were:
- 2 bottles of Smart Water
- 1 Seda France Travel Candle with Personalized Wedding Matchbook
- 1 Travel Sunscreen & After Sun Travel Lotion
- 1 Pack of Gum
- 1 Pack of Colgate Wisp Mini-Brush
- 1 Set of 6 Gourmet Cookies
- 1 Bag of Mixed Nuts
- 1 Bag of Cracked Pepper Pretzels
We got really positive feedback from our guests on the bags and we saw that many people used them when they would go down to the pool as a beach bag and for extra items that they were taking home from their weekend in Florida. It was stressful to get this project organized and together last minute before the wedding, but the outcome and the extra special touch it added to the weekend was really one of my favorite moments. Did you do out of town guest bags or do you plan on doing them for your own wedding? Let me know.

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