Weddingbee Blog

For the out-of-towner welcome baskets, we decided to dish up some Southwestern goodness. (Did you know that Tucson is home to one of the largest annual rodeos in the country? Yee to the haw.)

I picked up everything locally, and tried to coordinate all the treats, papers, etc. in a palette of, well, Southwest-y colors: turquoise, brown, red, and gold:

The baskets are a Cost Plus find (on sale!), which I bound in frayed, heavy twine (seemed more apropos than ribbon). The “Welcome” table tent is printed in our font-du-nuptials, Feel Script, with a schedule of events on the flip side:

The whole shebang:

Conveniently, all of our guests are staying at the same resort (making it loads easier to set up mass-transit). In the baskets, we tucked a card explaining how we’re gonna get ’em all to the wedding:

We gave them each a classic, stranded-in-the-desert postcard…

…pre-stamped with a 26-cent panther (but I think he looks more like a mountain lion, personally). Also in the mix are a tiny plastic (suitcase-friendly!) bottle of hot sauce, some local pistachios, and a golf bag tag from the resort (which I trimmed with matchy turquoise leather cord):

I also found little bags of “rock” candy at a local shop, which I re-bagged and packaged with homemade labels:

And finally, the coup de grace. We made sets of western-themed wine charms for each guest, boxed in coordinating paper and personalized stickers (woo hoo, Xyron!):

Each set is slightly different, but the bead colors and charms are all straight-up Old West:

Mr. Lovebug was a huge help with this. Jump rings are the devil, oh my god. I almost went blind trying to get those little buggers on. His sharp eyes and fingers saved the operation, for sure. We popped a bit of raffia into each box and put them down for a one-month nap:

Of course, they’ll be a jumbled mess by the time they’re opened. But that’s just the way the wine charm tumbles.

There’s still a bit of room for another goodie in the basket, so suggestions are welcome!

Any welcome essentials I’m forgetting?