What To Put In Welcome Boxes And Bags
To begin, youre going to start with you guessed it! a bag or box. Here are a few options.
Tote Bag
We love a bag that can be re-used. A tote bag like this is deep enough to be filled to the brim. It also includes a chic personalized leather label, FREE! By Minted.
And of course, kraft paper welcome bags are always a great choice and cost effective if you have many guest bags on your list. These are by EstablishedCoGifts.
And you can also get these custom stickers to make your wedding welcome bags personalized. Get them at LabelsRus.
If youre making a welcome bag for a bridesmaid, splurge a little on a bag she can use forever preferably one with a durable handle. The tote can be a part of her bridesmaid gift.
Welcome Boxes
Prefer boxes? Wedding welcome boxes are a new-ish trend vs. bags and were loving this look, too!
This style is by LabelsRUs:
buy here
Now you have your welcome bags and/or boxes its time to fill em up! Heres what to put inside.
Create Fun And Informative Welcome Bags
Your out-of-town guests will be making an extra special effort to attend your wedding, so we think welcome bags are a must to show your appreciation. The best part is that you can really flex those creative muscles and you dont need to spend a lot of money to make something truly special. At a minimum, you should include a little something to eat and drink to ease your guests out of their travel day. Bottled water is a must, but you could also include a local beer, a bottle of bubbly, or another local favorite. As for snacks, make sure to give a savory and a sweet option to satisfy every craving. Then add a couple of personal details, such as a cute souvenir, a candle, or even a stamped postcard they can send home. Round out all those goodies with the information essentials: a map, the weekend itinerary, your list of local recommendations, and the information for your designated contact. Finish it all off with a personalized thank you note and wrap it all up in a cute paper bag or reusable tote. A welcome bag is a simple, thoughtful gesture that your guests will love! Just make sure to let the hotel know that they need to give each guest a bag when they check in.
photo by The Lous
Where To Buy Wedding Welcome Bags
For our wedding welcome bag, we wanted to go the practical route and make sure we purchased a bag that our guests would be able to use again. We priced out different tote bags, canvas style bags, etc, from online shops, but most of the welcome bag ideas ended up being a bit more than we wanted to spend. Of course we could have gone the direction of gift bag, which is a really great cost effective welcome bag choice, but we knew that would just thrown away.
We ended up finding wet swimsuit bags in the Dollar Section at Target, which fit everything except the Tumblr. I found a few similar wet swimsuit bags from Etsy, linked below.
Recommended Reading: What Is A Destination Wedding
Don’t Forget To Provide Welcome Bags
Comfort the jet-lagged and travel weary with a little something left in their hotel rooms. Imagine their delightwalking into their temporary living quarters and discovering a basket of fresh fruit, a tin of local chocolates or a bottle of chilled bubbly. What you choose to give depends on your resources, and can be as lavish as a free massage at the hotel spa or as simple as a plate of homemade chocolate-chip cookies. The purpose is to let guests know you appreciate their effort to join you for your special day.
Create welcome packets of relevant information to leave in guests’ rooms with another copy of your wedding itinerary, plus local brochures and sightseeing maps. Enlist the aid of your wedding crew to assemble and distribute all these treats. Finally, add that finishing touch and pen a personal note thanking each guest for coming to celebrate with you.
Destination Wedding Welcome Bag Contents
Welcome Letter for Destination Wedding Guests
I personally feel this is an important item to include in your bags. A welcome note is a simple way to welcome your guests and let them know how much it means for them to travel and join you!
Its easy to forget that its a big sacrifice for your guests to use their vacation time and money to attend your destination wedding .
A welcome letter adds a small personal touch to show your appreciation. You can DIY them yourself, or get some gorgeous custom ones made up.
You can also double this welcome note as an itinerary to keep guests informed of your wedding events and a timeline. This is especially important, since we all tend to forget while on vacation!
Money-saving tip: You can also DIY these in Word or Canva! However, the majority of these destination wedding welcome letters and itineraries are inexpensive because they are digital downloads. If you can spare a few extra dollars, you can get all kinds of beautiful custom welcome letters made up!
Room Key Holders for Destination Weddings
These were one of the most popular items at our wedding! We intended for them to be room key holders for our guests, but some even started carrying their money around in them too.
If you buy these, you have a couple of options: ones that seal and ones that dont. We actually ended up getting the ones that didnt seal, and they were pretty snug, but for an added level of protection , opt for ones that seal.
Tumblers
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What To Put In Your Wedding Welcome Bags: A Handy Checklist
As with all of our checklists, the following run-down is designed to be customised. In short, take the ideas you like and ditch the rest!
- Water – adding a custom label would be a cute touch!
- Sweet or savoury snacks – cookies, popcorn, crisps or sweets are a great idea, particularly when they’re exclusive to the area
- Fresh fruit – apples, oranges and bananas are the easiest to pack in a goodie bag.
- Mini bottles of Champagne or miniature alcohol bottles
- Mints
- A postcard, fridge magnet or other souvenir from the area
- Weather essentials – for warm weather weddings, these might be mini bottles of sunscreen, after sun or bug spray, for other climates, ponchos, hand warmers and umbrellas are a good shout.
- A mini hangover kit – this can include things like painkillers, eye masks and a vitamin tablet or sachet!
Photo by Wedding Favors Totes on Etsy
Tips for Putting Together your Wedding Welcome Bags
Featured image credit: Bliss Paper Boutique
Provide Them With Every Essential Detail
One of the simplest things you could do for your guests is to provide a wedding itinerary. After sending out your invitations, mail guests an additional clever, elegant or interesting communiquè with a complete rundown of the events leading up to and following your walk down the aisle . In addition, create a wedding website for an easily referenced one-stop-shop for guests to check up on everything you have planned. In both cases, include key times, locations, who is hosting, what to wear and so on for each activity. Tell your visitors about any free time they’ll have, and provide suggestions for how to fill it. There may be events you have in mind that travelers should know about in advance so they can schedule their trips around them.
Be aware that since many of your guests are taking to the skies, they may be turning your nuptial event into a weekend getaway or part of a vacation. Also, remember some of your guests may have never visited the area before. You may want to add in a “travel guide” to your prewedding itinerary to get guests excited about the journey. For example, if there are some great sights to see or points of interest to visit, tell your guests in case they’d like to do some exploring. Do some research and investigate which museums will have amazing exhibits showing, if the local sports team will be playing a home game and what musical or other cultural performances will be happening.
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What Do You Put In Destination Wedding Welcome Bags
First lets start with the bag itself.
Welcome bags are one of the most popular gifts for destination wedding gifts and for a good reason! These bags are not only practical for the trip but theyre also great to fill with other goodies and useful items.
There are sooo many options for a destination wedding welcome bag. From paper bags to custom canvas totes, it all depends on your budget!
There are a few popular places where brides have ordered their bags:
- Discount Mugs lots of customization options
Budget tip: I actually got mine from Dollar Tree! You cant beat $1/bag. They were big enough to fit a beach towel and some other personal items in for a day at the pool or beach.
I got custom tags, similar to these ones made up to attach to the handle. Done!
Save Time: Ask Your Wedding Planners Advice On This
Arranging and packing all of your wedding welcome bags yourself is a mammoth task – especially if you’re hosting a larger wedding. This is where you’ll want to call upon your wedding planner to help you out and make suggestions of what to include or a company to assist with assembling. One of our personal favorites here at Amy Katz Events is Gracious Goodies!Companies like Gracious Goodies can plan, create, and deliver your dream goodie bags so that you don’t have to worry about organizing or sorting out anything.
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Tips On Packing Your Wedding Gift Bags
Use our suggestions to create the perfect theme around your gift bags and choose the container that fits your wedding theme best.
Whenever possible, get custom.
Many of the items you have to choose from can be etched with your initials and/or wedding date. Many of them can also be created with custom labels like water bottles, wine bottles, and salsa jars. Take advantage of this opportunity and ensure that your guests remember your happy moments for years to come.
To make the biggest splash, take your guests personal needs into consideration. If theyre coming in from out of town, give more weight to wedding hotel gift bag ideas. If theyre highly active, choose gift items that inspire them to get outdoors. When in doubt, recruit mothers of the bride and groom to help get to know all of your guests better.
The last thing to consider when putting together your wedding welcome bag is convenience. Theyll look adorable sitting atop a table at your reception, but it may work much better to send them to your guests address or have them waiting in the hotel room.Use this guide to inspire your collection of giftable items. Use your knowledge of everyones personal taste to guide you, and use this one simple question to tell you if youve made the right choice or not: Would you love it?If the answer is Yes, you cant go wrong.
A Leaflet With Points Of Interest Around The Wedding Location
In case your guests are unfamiliar with your wedding location, just easily custom a little leaflet for their ref.
Showing your exact wedding location through map screenshot, also text description.
Of course, including some interesting spots nearby would be better.
Chances are, your guests want to have a quick look at interesting places nearby your wedding venue.
Thus, a little simple leaflet is great.
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Things To Put In Your Wedding Welcome Bags
Welcome guests to your wedding festivities with these fun bags filled with local fare and everything they need for the weekend ahead.
Weddings these days require a lot of planning. But one of the things that often gets overlooked are personalized welcome bags for your wedding guests. Whether you have a destination wedding or an in-town affair, most couples have a group of family and friends who travel long distances to celebrate their special day. And for these guests, its a really lovely gesture to make them a special welcome bag.
These bags can either be left at the hotel’s front desk or distributed at an event, such as a rehearsal dinner.
There are countless options and ideas for what you can fill your welcome bags with, but Ive rounded up 12 of my favorite ideas to get you started.
Thank You Bag Tags / Cards
And be sure to include a wedding thank you card and write your own sweet sentiments inside.
Or get a card made like this by CreativeUnionDesign, which has all the necessary information on it including shuttle service!
For instance, you could thank guests for traveling to be a part of your big day and tell them how excited you are to see them out on the dance floor. This thank you welcome card is by Cards By Flora.
buy here
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Provide A Few Light Bites And Sips
If you’re inviting guests to a wedding-related event, then you should provide them with some refreshments. We can’t stress this enough: A welcome party is a super-casual eventand while a sit-down meal isn’t required or expected, it’s courteous to set out a small spread. You could tie a theme into the drinks and menu, like a fiesta complete with margaritas and mini tacos. There’s also nothing wrong with keeping it classic with one signature cocktail or just wine and beer and a table filled with simple but filling foods, like hummus and veggies, chips and dip, or cookies and brownies. Some bars and restaurants will also have packages you can purchase for appetizers and drinks.
