Awesome Welcome Bag Ideas

I had to admit this, but I am a knick knack kind of person. I watch the show Hoarders on TV and I'm pretty sure I could slip into that given the right conditions. Unfortunately, the home that I live in has ZERO storage space. It was build in the 1960s as a vacation home. Vacationers do not need a lot of storage, they live out of the luggage, right? So I neither have space to display knick knacks nor do I have space to store them (and my husband is so very thankful).

I think because this knick knack loving, hoarding tendency that I posses is the main reason that my favorite part about my job is favors and gift bags. I just love "stuff" and am always fascinated with what brides decide to do for these two items. I also have a lot of brides asking for ideas, so whenever possible, I do try to get pictures and add them to our Fun Stuff album on our Shutterfly pages. I think this particular album gets overlooked, so before I update it, I wanted to share some of these photos on the blog.

First up: welcome bags! I do have a list of items that I'm happy to send to clients with suggestions of what to put in the bags - but ultimately, those items and the bags themselves are up to you to decide. A recent bride gave me my own gift bag (yeah! love more stuff!!) so I took a bunch of pictures to share with you:

I love this particular bag because it's so practical and earth friendly! Instead of having the couples name & dates on it, which may make guests not really use it again, its just a simple reusable grocery bag:



And here is a peak inside:



I love the St. Thomas Survival Kit with Pepto tablets, Advil, mints, etc.



The bride & grooms initials were going to be AC and GC - so they did a little AC/DC thing and the groom made up a playlist - there were songs from each of their hometowns, their favorites, some island songs, very cute!

You can also go the more personalized route with a bag like this:



You can bet I flipped my lid when I saw the seahorse! The bride found these on Esty by seller beachchik - here is a photo from the Esty listing:



I wanted to show this photo as well because look how pretty the bags are just rolled up with a piece of raffia ribbon? You don't even need to fill the bags, but they could simply be gifts all by themselves.

Next up: favors! Check back soon for an update!

For those that love the beach....

but not so much the sand...

A good friend of mine on St. Thomas introduced me to Sand Witch. It may seem odd, but I do get a lot of brides that want to be married "by the beach, but not so much in it". This just may be the perfect solution for them!

Just sprinkle on your feet and it keeps the sand off! Or you can even put it on your sandy feet and then the sand just falls right off. This would be perfect to have at a beach ceremony for guests to put on before or after the ceremony. I thought this was a great idea to add to guests welcome bags as well. They have free sample sizes - I think it would be a great idea to contact them and see if you can buy a ton of the sample sizes - easy for you to bring down to the islands and toss in OOT bags or have in a pretty basket at the beach for guests to use.

A local find...

A lot of brides will ask me for ideas on locally made products to give to their guests as gifts. Well, I think I just found my new favorite. Check out Isola Bella.



Gina Feddersen is a local artist, producing locally made items for the home as well as beautiful stationary. My favorite item for weddings would be the natural cotton canvas wine tote...with the seahorse print of course...



Instead of wine, I'd drop a bottle of Cruzan Rum inside!

Her stationary would be great in the welcome bags or used as thank you notes...



Don't forget to check out her blog!