Welcome back to my blog, today I thought I would share with you one of the creative DIY projects I took on for our wedding in Mexico. With a destination wedding you hand over a lot of control to the hotel wedding coordinator, I made sure that the things I could focus my attention on were really unique and special. I came up with a wedding theme or logo, a starfish, and made sure to bring that detail throughout the whole wedding. We chose decor items that were light and easy to transport and wouldn't be too breakable to pack in a suitcase. I will continue to share more about destination wedding planning on my blog but today's post is specifically all about creating a "Welcome Bag".
I found this idea on Pinterest when searching "Destination Weddings". The concept is to provide your guests with a little goodie bag filled with items that set the tone of the wedding, are native to the area where the wedding is held or will be helpful in making them feel at home or comfortable. Instead of doing favours I thought it would be really fun to give every guest a bag filled with items that they may want to have in Mexico. I merged the idea of an emergency kit and a welcome bag together and gave guests helpful information, useful toiletries and little gifts.
Below is an image of some of the items I put in the bag for ladies, I did a separate one for the guys.
The totes were an awesome idea, everyone loved them, they were sturdy and durable to hold all the goodies and our guests used them as beach bags to transport their towels, sunscreen and magazines to the beach!
The next item on the top left of both photos is a vintage Mexican postcard that I ordered from Tesoros Trading Company: https://secure14.inno-tech.com/tesoros/results_lg.php?productid=2544
It has an image of the country and cute little graphics showing what each region is called. Originally these were ordered a few years prior to our wedding when I had the idea that a Save the Date on a real postcard would be fun. Later we ended up choosing paper packages for the invitations that included save the date cards that matched so we didn't use the postcards. I wanted to make use of and incorporate these unique postcards so I decided to write a little personalized welcome note to our guests thanking them for joining us in Mexico and signed it from myself and my husband. It was a little keepsake from the trip that everyone could keep with their photo albums or scrapbooks. We also included a map of the resort, our wedding coordinator provided us with a PDF version that I printed off, and a wedding week itinerary that I had created. The itinerary had a weeklong detailed schedule that had everything from when and where to meet for meals, what days we planned to go into town or do an offsite activity, the bachelorette/bachelor night at the disco and the wedding day timeline. Of course these plans slightly changed as the week went on, but it gave guests a good frame of reference for what we had in store. If you do take the time to create an itinerary, be aware that things will change and people will want to do things differently, so do not get stressed out by this. I was told by several guests that they did appreciate the itinerary, even if it was only followed loosely, because it kept everyone fairly organized.
Each bag had a little label that I hand stamped with a starfish and wrote the Spanish word for hello, hola, and on the other side was their name. I tied these tags onto the strap of the bag with jute rope to keep it nautical and beachy. I purchased the rope, teal Sharpie, teal ink pad and tags from Michael's. The starfish stamp was purchased from a stamp company on Etsy.
The girls got Eos Lipbalm in mint, band aids, Emergen-C packet of vitamin C and Kleenex. The guys got a few different items in place of the Lipbalm: Tums, Advil and a mini shave cream and aftershave. I wish I had photographed the men's bag too but sadly I wasn't thinking that I would be writing this blog! I put the guys emergency kit items inside a plastic tumbler drinking cup and than wrapped them in tissue paper and rope so that these things didn't spill out everywhere. I picked up most of these items from Target (when Canada had these stores!) and the dollar store.
Everyone, guys and girls, got a pair of brightly coloured Ray Ban-style sunglasses. This was a fun way to incorporate colour and the glasses looked cute in photos. I picked these up from Ardene in a 5 for $10 deal. The ladies also got a pashmina, which you can see folded up behind the sunglasses. I picked up three different colours that went with the wedding colours: mint, aqua and teal (The first image is of the darker teal one and the second image is of the aqua). These were also purchased from Ardene as part of a bundle deal.
I also included a little gift for all the ladies that attended. You will see a silver starfish pendant on a chain in the first photo and a small teal drawstring bag, which contains the chain, in the second. These sterling silver pendants and chains were purchased off EBay and the teal pouches came with each necklace. My mom, mother in law and grandma in law each got a personalized locket necklace in place of the starfish. The lockets were purchased from a company called South Hill Designs (not shown in the photos).
My girlfriends, that attended the wedding, each got a customized tank top in their bag.
We did a combined bachelorette/bachelor night where we all went to the hotel disco and myself and my friends wore the custom tanks. 
I purchased the tank tops in an aqua colour from Old Navy for around $5 each. I got the fabric glue and rhinestones from Miachael's and used a paper starfish template to trace the starfish on each tank. I rotated the starfish so that each tank was slightly unique and used different coloured rhinestones and patterns for each. I loved the result and I think my friends did too!
The wedding welcome bags were one of the most fun and creative projects I did for our wedding. It allowed me to be creative and thank our guests for flying down to Mexico, from Canada, for a week to celebrate with us. I tried to make each bag special, personalized and useful. I wanted a mix of practical and keepsake items. The map and itinerary were useful to all. The Tums and Advil were appreciated by many after nights of too many margaritas. The sunnies and starfish necklaces were keepsakes that were worn in many of our special photos. We had one child at our wedding so I included a few items just for him in his mom's bag: Spider-Man snorkel set, blow up beach toys and water bottle. I hope this is helpful for anyone planning a destination wedding or are having out of town guests come to their wedding and want to give them something special to thank them for travelling. Stay tuned for more wedding related blog posts and as always,
Teal next time....xoxo
Kathleen
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