Welcome Y'all

I know I've already used this phrase a lot when recapping our wedding, but one of my favorite pieces from that weekend, and something that was so fun to put together, was the welcome bags. We had A LOT of out of town guests and aside from our own college friends, most of our out-of-town guests had never been to Greenville before. We were excited to show it off and I used our welcome bags as a way to introduce guests to some of the best parts of our beloved town and to give them a few tips and suggestions for their short stay. I also wanted the bags to be totally us, our style, and to give guests another sneak-peek at what they could expect for our wedding day. Going to a wedding these days is a big undertaking involving flights, and time off work, and hotel stays, and a maybe a new dress or shoes, so I wanted to make sure everyone felt welcome and knew just how much we appreciated them making the trip.

My mom and I gradually gathered all the fixings for the bags in the months leading up to the wedding and then did as much of the prep work as we could before the wedding weekend. (Amazon Prime has never been more worth it than while planning our wedding.) I ordered the brown kraft paper bags first and while I love that simple rustic look I wanted to personalize them a bit. So I designed and ordered another custom rubber stamp and used the same brown ink as the return addresses on our invitations to jazz up the front of the bags.   The stamp declared "welcome y'all" plus our names and the wedding date.

Each bag included a tri-fold information pamphlet that I designed and printed through Stationery HQ (the same place I printed my invitations). On the front cover was a greeting from T.J. and I. Inside we listed the details, time, and address of all the wedding day festivities (aka The Best Day Ever). I hand drew a map (mostly just cute, less geographically to accurate) and noted the church, reception venue, the hotel, and a few other hot spots. Additionally, my parents decided to host a drop in breakfast on the morning after the wedding so we included those details here as well. 

On the back side was a list of things to see and do in town, plus some basic info like our wedding hashtag, our wedding planner's contact information, and a custom Uber discount code for our guests to use to get around town.  

After the pamphlets, we loaded up the bags with all sorts of fun things. I tried to tie everything together within our color scheme (greens, gold, white, brown) so that it would all look cohesive. For something sweet we packaged up four spearmint candies in small glassine bags that we sealed with gold glitter washi tape. For our savory treats I chose Lance peanut butter toast crackers and buttery popcorn from a local Greenville store. I added a custom sticker in our colors and font denoting which one was the bride or groom's favorite snack. I made custom water bottle labels and carried over the pine cone and evergreen theme.  We also included individual packets of advil should anyone have "too much fun" at our reception. Once we stuffed the bags we added in gold and white crinkle paper for filler. (I included a source list for everything at the end of the post.) 

Of course we couldn't transport eighty filled bags in our caravan down to South Carolina so my sister, cousin and I made an assembly line and did all the stuffing once we got to town. Then we delivered them all to the hotel along with a list of the guests we knew were staying there that weekend. The concierge did a great job of making sure each couple got a welcome bag when they checked in and I was so pleased with the end result! 

Welcome Bags Source List: 
Kraft Paper Bags (8" x 10")
Gold & White Crinkle Paper 
Glassine Treat Bags (2.75" x 4.25") 
Gold Glitter Tape 
Spearmints 
Advil Packets 
Lance Crackers
Popcorn 
Snack Stickers 
Water Bottle Wrappers