Welcome Bags

My fiance and I are including the following in our welcome bags: water bottles (2), a bag of my fiance's favorite snack, a bag of my favorite snack, privacy door hangers, a deck of cards, sunglasses, sunscreen (the ceremony is outdoors), a map of the area, a few coupons for area restaurants/wineries/etc., and a welcome letter with the itinerary/address for the wedding. We found quite a few things for our welcome bags (including the bags themselves) on Oriental Trading Company for fairly cheap.

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Great ideas Lisa! Thanks!

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I forgot to ask, are you both having just one bag per room? Or one bag per guest?

We have some family that most likely will sleep 4 in a room (ex: grandmother, and 3 aunts in one room). Just wondering if we should do one bag for that one room and have enough goodies in there for all 4 guests, or have 4 bags designated for that room!

Once it was sandals for a beach wedding. Everyone is different but personally I say stick to edibles like mini liquor, water, food like in the pic you posted. Most moments might be thrown out unless it is a magnet of the city you are in.

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Thanks Kristen! For mementos we would def. get magnets or reusable cups if we decide to include them!

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I would vote personalized cups over magnets for sure. Check wedding favors unlimited or the knot shop.

View Quoted Comment I am planning to do one bag per room, but I'm assuming that there are two people per room, so I'm putting enough things in the bags for two people (two pairs of sunglasses, two water bottles, etc). For cases where there are 4 adults staying in the room, I'm asking the hotel to give that room two welcome bags. I would probably recommend doing something similar and putting enough things in the welcome bag for two people (since people often travel as a couple to weddings), and asking the hotel to give multiple bags to a room if there are more than two people in the room.

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Awesome, thanks so much! This really helped!

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Great, thanks for the input!

We included water bottles, snacks such as chips, pretzels, granola bars, gummies, etc. and a DIY hangover kit with advil, pack of gum, electrolyte powder, etc. We did one bag per hotel room.

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Awesome, thanks for the info, Hanna! I like the DIY hangover kit idea! Cute, and useful!

I never did them before but i love love the idea of including some snacks local to the area

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I like that idea as well!

As a guest, what I appreciated most: water, snacks (healthy & a sweet), a local map or postcard or “To See” brochure from the local information center. Anything important for the wedding (parking, timeline, etc) is appreciated.


Not interested in take-home gifts: water bottle, magnet, photo frame, etc.

View Quoted Comment Awesome, thank you for your input! It’s very helpful!

View Quoted Comment You’re welcome!

We did welcome bags & did 1 bag per couple, or 1 bag per single guest (we didn’t include bags for kids because ours had alcohol in them!). We did an airplane bottle of Tito’s, mini ginger beer, my favorite snack (Reese’s cups) and husbands fave snack (pub mix), small bottle of hand sanitizer, an emergen-c packet, travel size packets of ibuprofen & an antacid, an itinerary & thank you note for attending.


The welcome bag was one of my favorite parts of our wedding planning!

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Those are all great ideas!! Thank you so much, Rachel!

Our plans have all changed thanks to COVID so now it’s a small 35-person family wedding this fall on Chesapeake Bay and the big party weekend in New Orleans during Mardi Gras next year. So for the smaller wedding weekend, we did welcome bags that will also largely double as favors: Big LL Bean Boat Totes for people to use as beach bags (and then squish to pack to go home), Turkish towels, bottle opener, bottled waters (Topo Chico), health kits (Advil, hand sanitizer, Emergen’C, disposable masks, etc) and then some edible stuffs, mostly foods that are local to Maryland - crab-flavored chips, Berger cookies, shore taffy, etc. We’re doing one bag per family, or - where two people are staying together but not from the same house - one bag per person.

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Wow those are some awesome welcome bags!! Thanks for the response, Sabrina!