Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Welcome!

We have a LOT of people staying at the Marriott the weekend of our wedding. This thrills me to no end and I wanted to express my gratitude by providing those guests with a few treats. Thus, our out-of-town/hotel bags were created!

So many brides have put together simply amazing OOT bags complete with monogrammed canvas totes and specialty...stuff. Well, folks, if you're looking for those skip this post and do a quick search on Weddingbee. Ours are relatively simple, no muss, no fuss. Truth be told, this just wasn't something I wanted to agonize over. They're nice and they get the job done and that's all that really mattered to me.

These bags are something that my FMIL and I worked on together so I want to quickly say thanks to her for funding most of this project.

We decided on simple black bags found at a craft store. I think they were less than $1 each. I found green tissue paper at Target which served as the perfect pop of color.

The tissue paper looks yellow, but I assure you it is green. 
I know, you were worried.

Let's take a look inside:
I feel like Jack and Locke peering down into the Hatch for the first time on Lost.


I'm a nerd.

Let's see what we put in these babies!


Two bottles of water (with cute little labels that Josh's mom printed)
Mixed nuts from Heggy's in Josh's hometown
Buckeyes (representing The Ohio State University Buckeyes and the state tree for the great state of Ohio) from my hometown fave Malley's Chocolates
Assorted granola bars

and


a welcome letter!

The cute paper is from Office Max (or maybe Staples). I had the damnedest time trying to find the right wording for our welcome letter. If I'm being 100% honest, I grabbed wording from all over the place. Since I know how effing hard it was to find wording, here is the full text in case you need some inspiration (or in case you just want to copy the whole darn thing. I don't really care):

Welcome!

Dear Family and Friends,

We are so happy that you are able to join us here in Cleveland for our very special day! We are certainly blessed to be surrounded by so many close friends and family. Regardless of whether you came from near or far, we are elated that you were able to make the journey here. In this bag are a few treats to make your stay more comfortable. In addition, if you are driving to Windows on the River, please remember your parking pass to ensure free parking at the venue.
We hope that our wedding celebration will hold great memories for you as it will for us.

May we offer you a ride?

Shuttle service between the Marriott and Windows on the River will be provided approximately every 20 minutes, starting at 3:00 p.m. The last trip to Windows will be at 4:00 p.m. sharp (we wouldn't want you to miss it!) Return service back to the Marriott will begin at 9:00pm, and continuing every 20 minutes thereafter until midnight. 

Love, Emily and Josh

Yay all done! I hope our guests enjoy the sweets and treats!

If you're doing OOT bags, what did you put in them?

7 comments:

  1. Very cute! GREAT job :)

    Here's my post on ours: http://867-53oh9.blogspot.com/2009/08/oot-buckets-check.html

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  2. They look great! I love the contents and message! :)

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  3. I think they're perfect...don't try to compare yourself to others as they won't be the same and it doesn't matter anyway. Your guests will love them :)

    I will be doing a post on how my OOT bags ended up turning into the Bridal party gift bags instead in a future recap :) So for now, I'll just say that I think yours are great and am excited guests are starting to get them!

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  4. They're so cute!! I haven't started ours yet, but I plan to do the water bottles and a welcome letter and then probably a map, some snacks, and some brochures for area attractions since our ceremony doesn't start until 4:30 on Saturday. I'm soo excited for you!

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  5. These are great! I'm sure your guests will really appreciate the snacks, and who really needs another tote bag anyway? $1 gift bags totally work!

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  6. They are great! I'm sure everyone will love them!

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  7. Perfect! A wedding we went to last summer had shuttle service to and from the wedding / hotel and it was perfect... I actually went back and changed shoes and then went back. So nice :)

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