Our wedding wasn't local to anyone who attended. Everyone had at least a 2 hour drive to our venue, so most booked hotel rooms. We put together welcome bags for everyone who booked a room. The bags served 3 purposes; a gift for our guests, a way to give them info about the area (Cayuga Lake), and to give them the shuttle info for the wedding.
Samardzija Puppy overseeing the guest bag assembly line.
We wanted to have something in the bag to represent NJ (where we met & currently live), so we put Shriver's salt water taffy in the bags. I bought it in bulk and put the individually wrapped pieces into small glassine bags and sealed them with a sticker I made.
JT wanted a treasure map look. Our guests were coming from Niagara Falls and NJ/NYC, so we made the dotted line start from these to places and end up at our venue, Aurora Inn.
Martin's Pretzels are my favorite. They sell them at the Union Square market but you can buy them online as well. Great taste and they are made & sold by really nice people :)
We attached tags, with our guest's names,on every bag.
We chose foods that we really like and made sure they were things that wouldn't melt (we got married in June). Because we had children coming to the wedding we opted not to put Tylnol in the bags. Every wedding we have been to has put a pain reliever in the welcome bag, we didn't want to risk it though.
The bags had Popchips, Nutella To-Go Sticks, Martin's Pretzels, Shriver's Saltwater Taffy, fruit leather, granola bars, water, mini notebooks, Kleenex, fans, and info on the area.
We got so many complements and thank yous for the welcome bags. The most popular item in the bag was the Nutella- lots of comments on the Nutella. Also on the day of the wedding, I was getting ready with all of my bridesmaids and I heard one bridesmaid complain about the breakfast food not arriving quick enough because she was starving. Another bridesmaid said "I'll share my Nutella with you. And by share I mean you can have one stick because the rest of them are MINE!"
Nutella is always a good idea.
xo Lizzie