Out of Town Bags

We decided at the last minute (of course) to do some out of town bags for our guests. I got the idea from reading other wedding blogs and it seemed like a very nice thing to do for those who were traveling to our wedding.

We know our wedding is a bit inconvenient for many of our out of town guests because it is on a Thursday. Many in our family have children and they're going to take their children out of school for 2-3 days in order to come to the wedding.

To show our appreciation we decided to make these bags. Now on many of the blogs I visited these women were talking about making each of these bags for $5. Uhmm....I don't know what they were putting in these bags but they are not costing $5 a bag. Then again, many of the things people suggested, I thought looked a little bootleg and one word that has never described me is bootleg.

First, we had to decide on a bag. I knew I didn't want plain paper bags. I think people should be given something they can possibly re-use.

I thought about LL bean bags

but they would have taken too long to get and monogram and all that. It seemed like it would be a pain in my bum. With 9 days at the time before the wedding, I didn't want to deal with something unnecessarily complex.

Then I went to AC Moore and found the perfect bag. It was black, white and pink. All of the wedding colors in one bag in a tasteful bag!

It came with two bags too. How perfect! The sides of the black bag were pink and white,so it was a great play on color. But because I loved them, it means that they only had one. I called every AC Moore from Baltimore to Southern Maryland. I briefly considered calling my future sister in law to ask her to look in Georgia, but I didn't want her to think I was an irrational whack job.

I also got mad at AC Moore's coupon policy so in a fit of rage, I returned the bag, wrote them an angry letter and went on my way to Pier 1 Imports, even though the bags were more expensive. I was mad because they only let use your coupon on one item. And you can only use a coupon once per day. Since I wanted to buy 12, I thought that was rather idiotic. I've been spoiled by Bed,Bath & Beyond which allows me to use as many coupons as I want on one purchase so this didn't make any sense to me. It was a coupon tease and I don't take kindly to being teased.

I forgot how much I liked Pier1 until I walked in. They randomly had these awesome masks that Mr.Eco and I were tempted to buy but we contained ourselves.

Here are the bags we're using now:



They are re-usable grocery bags that our guests can utilize over and over.


We also got some water bottles from BB&B (where we were able to use many coupons. Ok,let me stop being bitter). Many brides and grooms give people disposable bottles of water which I've always thought was a bit lame because it seemed like such a waste. It involves buying bottles of water and then replacing the labels with personal ones.

image thanks to http://ruffledblog.com/2009/04/entry-25-diy-water-bottle-labels/


^those are uber cute though but nobody will ever use them again. I actually JUST found this image while trying to find an example of what I was talking about.

I was originally going to use these from Michaels.



The pink ones are pretter however so I might return some of them and have different labels on some.


The bottles are food grade stainless steel. Maybe I just don't want people throwing stuff away with my name on it and it's just my ego kicking in but I want to give gifts that can be used often.

And they're pink and green. All of the wedding colors in one.

These candles have a damask print and we were able to find them at Michaels for relatively cheap.

Hopefully they smell nice as well.



We wanted to emphasize items that are native to Virginia/DC. We found a list online of suggestions divided by state and we used that as a basis for our OOTB. Also, it is a great way to support local industries.

We went to Total Wine where we found a wide selection of Virginia wines. That place is simply awesome and made me consider becoming a lush for a few weeks before law school.


We even picked up some highly recommended desert wine for the minimoon weekend :)

Then we got some Route 1 Potato chips


They're produced in Va and are delish! They even have Chesapeake crab seasoned chips! So DMV!


Then we got VA peanuts in different flavors like honey roasted and chocolate flavored. yum!





Mountain Dew was also created in VA and we got a few cans of that for our OOTB.

We need are MARS bars. I've never had one but the plant is in VA. We also need to find pamphlets about VA and DC but those will be free from the Tourist Board. Then we''ll create a nice note to go on the outside of the bag and leave the bags at the hotels where the guests will be staying.


I'm happy with the way these bags are turning out. Hopefully our guests enjoy them as well.