Considerations
August 19th, 2008 @ 4:24 pm by Miss Green Tea
Along our wedding planning process, we’ve tried to put ourselves in the guests’ shoes. After all, this will be as much a day for them as it is for us! Here are some of the things we’ve put together to optimize their wedding guest experience:
1. Taxi Tags - we’ve already informed guests via our wedding website that the venue allows overnight parking if they need to take a cab home and advised them to carpool. A sober helper will be in charge of passing these out to guests who look like they can use a ride home after the wedding.
The OOT Totes
August 8th, 2008 @ 3:52 pm by Miss Pinot Noir
Kate Parker Weddings has over 20 great city/theme specific Out of Town Welcome Baskets. While these baskets are certainly out of my price range, ranging from $25-45 each + shipping, they are a great place to draw inspiration! Each basket is filled with locally made products and information specific to your wedding weekend.I love the “Green” Welcome Basket:
OOT Bags
August 6th, 2008 @ 3:25 pm by Mrs. Lovebird
Considering all of our 90+ guests were all flying to Cancun for our wedding, we knew our OOT bags were not going to be an easy task.
First off, we had to decide on how big we actually wanted to make these babies, keeping in mind that we would have to transport them all the way down to Mexico. Initially, I was all about the canvas totes; then I realized we would have a hard time trying to fill them all considering we are staying at an all-inclusive resort. Bottles of water and anything your heart desires to drink is provided for at the resort. Not to mention there was no way in hell I was transporting bottles of water to Mexico! The resort is also all you can eat, so there was no need to load them with too many snacks. The hotel also provided all the toiletries you could ever need, including sunblock so we were left with only a few options.
I must have spent weeks deciding on which bags to buy. I eventually settled on these 7 1/4″ x 2″ x 7″ foam bags from Oriental Trading. I was expecting something more, but they served their purpose. There was no way we were bringing 90+ bags to Cancun, so I decided on getting 3 dozen bags. It came out to about one per family/room.
Take Me There
June 2nd, 2008 @ 1:35 pm by Mrs. Penguin
Our wedding is WAY out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it might as well be on the moon. The problem is if you Google or Mapquest directions to the site, they take you on a really unnecessarily difficult route to get there, so we’re directing our guests the easy, 3 turn way, which in the end, is a couple miles longer, yet gives people less of a chance to get lost than the Mapquest route.
I wanted to make some rustic looking signs pointing people in the right direction. Since the route that our guests are taking cuts through barns, pastures, and a couple of towns that have been frozen in time since the gold rush, I thought weathered looking signs would look nice and blend into the scenery nicely. Well, Home Depot doesn’t carry rustic wood. So using 3 ft pine steaks, pine planks, wood stain and white paint, we faked the weathered look.
We purchased some wood made for fencing, and had them cut at Home Depot. Mr. Penguin nailed the planks to 3 foot wood stakes.
Are You Thirsty?
May 29th, 2008 @ 4:31 pm by Miss Hydrangea
For our OOT bags, I knew that I wanted to put in a couple of bottles of water with our logo on them. Since water doesn’t go bad, I figured I might as well get these knocked off my to do list. I decided to use Nestle bottles of water because the labels are the easiest to remove. I took off a label, measured it, and created a label with our monogram. I put about 6 labels on one sheet, then took them to Staples and had the labels printed on white paper that was waterproof (at $16 for 10 sheets, it was not cost efficient, so I probably wouldn’t chose this again in hindsight).
After cutting the labels, I ran 30 of them through the Xyron machine for an easy stick. We’re only expecting about 15 rooms for out of town guests, so I figured 30 bottles was a good start. It took me all of 20 minutes to unlabel and re-label the bottles. I made more labels than bottles of water, so if I need to get more water, it shouldn’t take long to recreate the end product. Here’s a little play by play:
A 30 pack of Nestle water, purchased from Sam’s Club for all of $4.
Fot the OOTsiders
May 26th, 2008 @ 4:25 pm by Mrs. Bubblegum
How do I know it’s getting close? Because the OOT bags are ready to go!! This was a long time coming, since those tote bags had been sitting here since December. And now I get to share the process!!
Step 1: Ordering totes. There were a few routes I was considering:
I thought these were super cute, and they’re only $2/piece for the large size. However, the “large” size is only 5×5x3, so definitely an option if you can control yourself on the stuffing. 
Read more…
Out of Town Bags
May 21st, 2008 @ 4:38 pm by Miss Sundae
I plan on providing all the guests staying in our hotel with “out of town” bags. I wanted to do something a little different, so I ordered canvas totes from cheaptotes.com. The basic cotton canvas totes are just 99 cents, so I figured I couldn’t go to wrong! I ordered just 5 to test them out, but liked them enough to order the rest.
Bathroom Burglars
May 21st, 2008 @ 10:32 am by Miss Peacock
My mom and I had an amazing meeting with our florist, Viv at Petal Play Designs, yesterday. I came equipped with my laptop so that I could show her all the photos that I have been collecting, as well as my room layout from Perfect Table Plan. We walked through our plans for the day and listed all the items that we will need to set every table. Viv is very conscious of my budget and so, to help offset some costs, I walked out of there with a long list of things to buy and to do. I am so excited that I can actually start moving on some of these things!
The three of us talked for a long time about bathroom baskets. My reception venue is owned by the Lincoln Park Zoo and the bathrooms have a bit of a public outdoor restroom feel to them. They have tried really hard to use nice finishes, but you can’t avoid the floor to ceiling tile. My mom has taken on the task of warming them up with candles and little floral arrangements as well as amenity baskets. Viv agreed to supply the decor and to help my mom collect any extra amenities at the end of the evening. That’s when she laid the bad news on us.
Bathroom Baskets
May 20th, 2008 @ 12:38 pm by Miss Sundae
I’ve had my eye on everything at The MacBeth Collection for quite awhile, but I could never justify actually making a purchase. All of their stuff is painfully cute, but I didn’t actually need a damask trash can. Then a few weeks ago I came across a 25% off coupon, which got my wheels spinning, and the very next day someone suggested using the oval tubs for bathroom baskets at the wedding…purchase justified! I ordered this exact tub for the women’s bathroom:
Guest Provisions
April 14th, 2008 @ 2:07 pm by Mrs. Lovebug
I don’t know when or where she said it, but when Mrs. Bee said that her bathroom baskets were a saving grace to a few of her guests, it lodged firmly in my brain: MUST MAKE BATHROOM BASKETS.
