Wedding Welcome Gift Bag Ideas & Advice - Part 3

If you are planning on creating wedding welcome gifts to greet your wedding guests who are traveling from out of town, you may be wondering what goes into putting together a custom gift and how to coordinate with your host hotels to deliver your welcome gifts to your guests at check-in time. Today, I'm sharing the insider tips that no one else will tell you on not just what to include in your gifts, but how to get them into your guests' hands without any drama. 

This final installment of our wedding welcome gift advice series is all about the logistics and sharing our best tips to make sure your wedding welcome gifts go off without a hitch.

In case you missed our previous tips, go back and learn part one on what to include in your wedding welcome gifts, along with part two on how to create a wedding welcome gift letter or information booklet. 

Logistics are often the most overlooked part of creating wedding welcome gifts but are absolutely the part that can make or break your wedding gifting experience. The five most important things that couples need to keep in mind for stress free wedding welcome gifts includes ordering gift items and contents well in advance of your wedding, paying close attention to perishable food items, carefully reviewing your guests' hotel room lists, coordinating with your hotels for gift distribution, and last but certainly not least, remembering to order extra gifts to allow for any breaks, or unexpected guests. 

Sure, the gifts still need to be well curated, unique and beautiful no matter what whether you're custom designing you wedding welcome gifts or opting for our easy ready to ship collection of pre-designed wedding welcome gifts. But these things don't matter if the gifts don't arrive when and where they're supposed to, or worse, if one of your wedding guests is left out.

Without further adieu, let's talk execution when it comes to your wedding welcome gifts!

Wedding Welcome Gift Tip #1:  Order in Advance

This might seem like a no-brainer but I can't tell you how many couples I hear from in a panic because they hoped to create wedding welcome gifts on their own, but were shocked to see how long lead times were on some gift items! This can be scary and upsetting, especially at the last minute, when you were planning all along to DIY your wedding welcome gifts.

Be sure to prepare early and add some buffer time to your wedding welcome gift contents ordering to avoid missing items days before your wedding. Also make sure to plan for not just the gifts themselves, but also the gift containers and welcome letter materials.

For my tips on what to include in your wedding welcome gifts and how to write the perfect wedding welcome gift letter, be sure to check out the other parts in this wedding welcome gift advice series. 

Also factor in additional time if the gift contents you order are breakable. It's not uncommon for a few to show up damaged and then the ordering process to replace those starts all over again.

The last thing you want to do is be running around scrambling at the last minute buying gifts, and overspending and stressed out when it comes to your wedding welcome gifts.

Wedding Welcome Gift Tip #2:  Plan for Perishables

On the other end of the spectrum, perishable items that you want to include in your wedding welcome gifts should be picked up as close to the wedding date as possible. If you're including a piece of fruit or a fresh baked good, you'll want to plan ahead.

No one likes a stale cookie or muffin. If you are making the wedding welcome gifts yourself, be sure to assign a wedding party member, or family member to help out with the pick-up and wedding welcome gift building so you minimize the number of days between when the perishables arrive and when the gifts are assembled and actually delivered.

When we're custom designing our wedding welcome gifts and assembling them for our couples, we like to pre-pack all of the non-perishable items ahead of time so that the perishable items can go in at the last minute and not take too much time. 

Wedding Welcome Gift Tip #3:  Review Rooming Lists

Another important thing to remember if you want to avoid mishaps with your wedding welcome gifts is to double (and triple) check the rooming lists for your wedding hotel room blocks to ensure everyone who deserves a gift actually receives a gift! 

It's pretty standard to provide one gift box or gift bag per couple, but if two friends without "plus ones" are sharing a hotel room, we assign two gifts to that room.

You can't go wrong with going over the hotel room block room list again, just before delivery, especially if your guests are late with their hotel bookings. 

Also, we are finding that more and more wedding guests are staying at Airbnbs, VRBOs, or rental properties outside of the hotel room block, especially for destination weddings. You'll want to check in with your family and friends to find out exactly where they are staying.

If they are staying outside of your hotel room block, but you still want to give them a wedding welcome gift, you can ensure that the gifts arrive where they are supposed to be by keeping a detailed list of where your guests are staying and then planning head on delivery time knowing that you might have to make more than one or two stops.

Wedding Welcome Gift Tip #4:  Give a Heads up to Hotels

When it comes to avoiding drama with your wedding welcome gifts, another key is to coordinate with your hotel room block hotels ahead of time. There's nothing worse for a hotel concierge team than having 100+ wedding welcome gifts show up out of nowhere when they're in the middle of assisting other hotel guests.

Avoid overwhelming the hotel staff at your wedding's hotel room block by letting them know when you're planning to drop off the wedding welcome gifts and the size and quantity of the gifts.

When you arrive at the hotel, it's time to review the info again with the hotel staff. Go over the rooming lists and any special requests with them (i.e. rooms with food allergies) so they are clear on the instructions. The hotels will really appreciate the heads up and most importantly, it will help them avoid mistakes with your wedding welcome gifts.

Wedding Welcome Gift Tip #5:  Allot for Extras

The last and quite possibly the most important thing to do when planning for your wedding welcome gifts, besides ordering your gift contents early, is to allow for extra gifts. This includes planning for extras on the items within the gifts, the gift's containers, like the bag or box, as well as the total numbers of gifts. 

There is bound to be some guests who go rogue and book outside of the room block or RSVP really late. You can't avoid the possibility of these guests seeing other guests with your wedding welcome gifts yet they don't receive one. Granted, it's not your fault that they aren't officially in the block but they are your guests and you still want them to feel just as welcome as anyone else.

We recommend ordering about five to 10 extra gifts depending on the size of your wedding guest list and how confident you are with your guest list at the time of deciding upon your wedding welcome gift count.

The other thing that you want to keep in mind when you're ordering the gift contents and containers for your wedding welcome gifts is that sometimes the items arrive broken or damaged. You want all of your gifts to be uniform so that everyone is getting the same welcome gifts, so order a few extras on the gift contents so you can make up for any spills or breaks along the way. 

Worst case, you don't have any last minute RSVP's and you can give the extra gifts to on-site wedding vendors who went out of their way to make your weekend nothing short of amazing. You can also gift them to a few of your local wedding guests who may not have received one due to not staying overnight at one of the hotels in your block. You can consider giving these out at the rehearsal dinner or welcome party the night before the wedding. 

In the end, a few extra wedding welcome gifts are better than being a few short.

We hope you find these tips useful and that they help you avoid some of the common pitfalls we see when it comes to wedding welcome gifting. 

Do not forget that this is part three of a whole wedding welcome gift advice series. In part one, I talk about what to include in your wedding welcome gifts and in part two I give you tips on how to put together the perfect wedding welcome gift letter.

To outsource your wedding welcome gifts altogether and let us handle your project from start to finish, learn more about our Custom Gift Design Service. For more inspiration in designing your wedding welcome gifts, check out our galleries of custom wedding welcome gift boxes and bags. If you're in a rush or short on inspiration, you can order as many gifts as you need of our pre-designed wedding welcome gifts from our online gift shop.

Happy wedding welcome gifting!

3 WAYS TO DO GIFTING WITH MARIGOLD & GREY

When it comes to corporate gifting, gifts for your business, or gifts for your company's employees, clients or events, there are three unique ways to gift with Marigold & Grey.

#1: Custom Gift Design Service

If you're interested in elevated branded gifts for your company for employee appreciation, holiday or any corporate event in between, please get in touch with us to ask about our custom corporate gift design services. We'd love to work with you or your team to create something that reflects your company's brand with limitless options for customization to include branding the packaging, gift contents, printed collateral, and more. 

#2: Add-Your-Own-Logo Program (i.e. Semi-Custom Gifts)

In addition to custom gift design, we also offer a thoughtful semi-custom gift design program with low order minimums and your company's logo and brand on each gift you send. Our Add-Your-Own-Logo Program is perfect for businesses that want to send company branded gifts either all at once for an event or particular marketing campaign OR throughout the year, on demand as you need them, for special occasions like employee appreciation, birthdays, client thank-you gifts, and more.

#3: Ready-to-Ship Collection in our Online Shop

For curated gift sets and themed gift baskets that are easy to send for any occasion in life or work, don't forget to shop our curated collection of ready-to-ship gift boxes with quick turnarounds and no order minimums. These ship out within 1-3 business days; rush next-day shipping is also available at checkout.

Images: Lissa Ryan Photography