THE WEDDING: Welcome Bags

ALL THINGS WEDDING WELCOME BAGS

As quick as I knew we settled on a destination wedding, I knew we would do welcome bags for our family and friends. It’s a fun way to “welcome” guests to the destination and include items reflective of the destination and a few things that are reflective of you as a couple.

Scroll to the end to the end for a couple points to keep in mind when putting together welcome bags for destination weddings, and some more inspiration for your tropical destination wedding welcome bags!

As a note, we decided to do these in lieu of any kind of traditional wedding favors at our actual wedding; guests had our tote and the personalized wedding cards as a “souvenir” from our wedding to take back with them.

The bags were screen printed by Travis at our screen print shop (how handy, right). But a quick Etsy search and there are a lot of shops that will personalize tote bags for you. Our totes had “Aloha” on the front in white and “Travis + Elise Maui 2019” printed in black on the back.

Here’s what we included in the bags:

Please note some of the links below are affiliate, and I may receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase (read my affiliate disclosure here). 

• A bottle of water with a pineapple paper straw
• Macadamia nuts (regular and chocolate covered)
• Aloe vera
• Tropical scented lip balm
• A bag of Boom Chicka Pop (our fav)
• Custom playing cards

We also included a personalized itinerary for each family based on what they were invited to (rehearsal and accompany brunch, bachelor / bachelorette festivities, the luau, and of course, the wedding), a list of things to do / places to eat, and a welcome message white a QR code printed on the backs, and a cut out of a pineapple displaying our hashtag.  The QR code on the backs of our welcome message sent visitors to a Google map of Maui with geo pins of things to do, places to eat, and stops along the Road to Hana. These were all created in Photoshop with elements downloaded from Creative Market, and then I had them printed through Overnight prints. We wrapped all the pieces up and packaged them into a frosted flat bag to keep them all together.

A couple things to keep in mind when putting together welcome bags for a destination wedding. 

1. Getting all of your pieces to your destination. If you are driving, this shouldn’t be an issue, but if you are flying this could get a little trickier. Thankfully we had an awesome wedding planner who let us ship most of the bigger stuff to her (all the totes, and things from Amazon we just had shipped straight to her).
2. If your guests are flying in, keep in mind they will have to travel back with whatever you include (minus food and drinks). Maybe stay away from anything that has the potential to break, or not meet the liquid requirement for carry ons.
3. Getting the welcome bags to your guests. If everyone is staying at the same hotel or resort, ask the front desk if they could give each guest their bags upon arrival. If everyone is not staying in the same spot, figure out a way to meet up with them shortly after they arrive to hand off their goodies and welcome them to your wedding festivities.
4. Your guests traveled all this way to celebrate your marriage, including a nice welcome message will go along way to show your gratitude for them showing up.

Please note some of the links below are affiliate, and I may receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase (read my affiliate disclosure here). 

1. Tote Bag | 2. Sun Bum sunscreen (pack of 3) | 3.  Luggage tags (set of 3) | 4. Pineapple gummies | 5. Face Mask| 6. Wedding welcome tag | 7. Paper Fan | 8. Lip Balm | 9. Post Cards | 10. Sunglasses (pack of 24)  | 11. Turkish Beach Towel

Welcome bags are a little more costly in terms of wedding favors, but they are a small token of appreciation to your guests who have traveled from afar to celebrate your wedding with you, and they seem to be a big hit with guests!