Past Brides &Gift Bags:What and When?

[tamiflood]

Hi all,

Here's my situation...I am getting married at the port of NY on July 6,aboard the Carnival Victory. I have decided not to purchase favors for the guest, but will give each person or cabin (which ever makes more sense) a gift bag.

We have about 50 sailing guest and another 10 non sailing guest. My questions are the following:

1. What the heck am I putting in these bags?

2. When do I distribute the bags (we are getting married about 1 hour after embarkation) Our guest will be arriving via a chartered bus. The wedding party will arrive via a limo, just prior to the guests. Do I have the bags distributed to the guest when they board the chartered bus

3. Should the bags be pp or per cabin?

4. What has worked for you?

5. If you have any ideas or good advice, I am open to just about anything that will make my life easier!

PS. Just another quick question on flowers. I have a large party (6 bridesmaids, and groomsmen) any economical suggestions/alternatives for flowers?

Thanks again!:)

[rara0508]

Glad I'm not the only one.... I am getting married on St Thomas via the Granduer of the seas. we have about 30 sailing with us and I was wondering the same thing. I wanted them to be in the cabins when they arrrive or I was thinking I would have the cabon stewards deliver them all??? One thing I was thinking I could put in them was drink coupons and photo certificates...after that I too am clueless. Lets see what we can do together shall we??

[Bride2b2006]

I am getting married on St. Thomas Dec. 5,2006. I am not sure when I am going to give out their "goodie" bags, but my ideas for the bags are as follows:

 

Flip-flops/Sandels

Sunscreen

Disposable cameras

Beach Towels

Jewerly (for my maid of honor for the wedding)

Something for the Bestman (what ever my FI decides)

 

All of this put into a bag with their name stitched on it.

[kadiebug12]

We were married onboard the Caribbean Princess and did fairly large gift bags which included:

 

Custom Tshirt for each person

Sunscreen

Disposable Camera

Beach Tote

Pocket map of the ship

Itinerary for group events

Dramamine

Welcome Letter

 

I bought most of the items from "lots" on Ebay (large group of items) and bought the bags themselves from a wholesaler for under 50C a piece so it really wasn't that expensive. The custom Tshirts were the highest priced item in the bag (and the biggest hit) and those cost us around 4-5 dollars each. Our travel agent had a photo certificate already provided and in each persons cabin so we didn't put those in the bags, but everyone loved them and they're a great idea. We put all the bags (particularly since they were so large) in 2 large boxes, sealed them and put our cabin numbers on them. They were delivered to our cabin and then the onboard wedding coordinator had the room stewards put one in each guests cabin. I made it easy for them by printing the cabin number (and name) on each bag label. It was pretty seamless and everyone loved the bags. Here are some pictures of our bags, I wouldn't recommend doing such a large bag, smaller will be easier, but I do recommend buying inexpensive bags and printing your own labels for them to dress them up.

 

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IbN2LRs3ZQM

 

There are lots of brides on these boards who have done gift bags with great ideas so I'm sure you'll get a ton of responses, that should help you come up with some ideas.

 

PS We did 1 bag per cabin with some items per person such as the Tshirts, so most bags contained 1 of each item except for the tshirt.

 

Good luck!

Kadie

[ashley&tony]

For welcome bags we ordered small nautical themed bags from Oriental Trading. Items included:

 

Customized koozies

flip flop notepads

assorted snacks

mints

welcome letter

schedule of events

 

The koozies were a huge hit. We ordered them from kustomkoozies.com and they did a fantastic job and price was not bad. They had seashells printed on them with our names, wedding date and name of the ship. We did one bag per couple (2 of each item in bag). For the people in our group who were single they recieved their own bag. I made name tags for each bag and tied them on the handle with rafia. Since we were married at port the day of sailing we handed them out the night before at the hotel. Our travel agent sailed with us (husband's aunt). She set up a table in the lobby of hotel to answer any questions and hand out cruise info and the welcome bags. This worked out great. It was so crazy once we got to the pier and everything was happening so fast the morning of the wedding- for me it would have been too much to have to worry about the bags then- we had 104 guests so lots of bags! The bags are one of the things I'm so glad I decided to do- our guests loved them.

[tamiflood]

Thank you so much for the great advice. I am so glad that I do not have to do this alone. I especially wanted to thank Kadie for sharing the gift bag pics...what a fantastic job you did. Thanks so much to all of you. If you come up with any new ideas, please share. Best wishes!

 

Tami

[greenjello]

just another idea (that we used for our wedding cruise) go to oriental trading company.com and get some of the waterproof wallet things that you wear around your neck & hold your cash, IDs and credit cards.. great for shore excursions at the beach, snorkeling etc.

good luck!

[monkey1]

There are some great ideas here! I really like the water wallet one, and I didn't realize Oriental Trading had them.

 

We're still finalizing our welcome bags, but one thing I thought of this morning, either for the welcome bag or favor on the wedding day is "fish and chips." We're going to wrap swedish fish and $5 in casino chips together in netting.

[MGilly]

When we did a family reunion, I also put the following things in the bags:

Post-It notes (to leave notes for the cabin steward and each other)

highlighters (to highlight various activities on the ship's daily schedule)

disposable rain ponchos (less than a dollar each at Walmart)

nightlights (got them at the dollar store - the cabins are dark at night!)

bottled water

Tums

sunblock

Tylenol

Not all of these things were used, but they were definitely appreciated! We also had made reunion teeshirts for everyone, and they wore them to the pier. Because we hadn't seen many of these people in decades, it made it real easy to find each other. If you do the shirts, you might request that everyone wear them to dinner one night on the cruise. It makes for great photos! Good luck, and enjoy your cruise!

[tamiflood]

Great ideas ladies. You all have some awesome ideas...keep any new ideas coming!

 

Tami

[carrievision]

Great ideas ! I haven't decided if I'm going to do a "gift bag" or a little welcome envelope yet... but I have some ideas for favors in general.

 

I found luggage tags at Michael's in the dollar bin!! I got black for the guys and pink for the girls. I am going to scan the palm tree logo from our invitation, and put it next to each person's address. I think we will mail these before the cruise to those who live far away, and just hand them to the people that we'll be seeing in person before the cruise.

 

Also in michaels, something I didn't buy but I think is a nice addition to the gift bag... also in the dollar area, they have travel (tin) candles that have palm trees on them and smell like some sort of sea scent. I think these would also be a nice idea for at-home reception favors for those who couldn't come on the cruise --- kind of allows them to "take home a piece of the caribbean" :)

 

Along the lines of the "take home the carribbean" theme, I thought it would be cool to find bath salts that turn your bath water blue!! Put them in cute little bottles and voila!

 

I am also thinking about making "Cruise girl" shirts for the females. I haven't been able to find one to buy so I am going to scan a sticker that I have in and use those inkjet transfer sheets, probably. I am not sure if I am going to make these for all the females, or just our moms and my FI's sister.

 

Well, there's my pack of ideas for today ! :) I just have to confirm what I'm actually making.... it's only about a month away!!!! :D

[scottishflower]

One more excellent idea for the gift bags - we're doing this - most of our guests have digital cameras so, in lieu of disposable cameras, we're including a blank CD, in a self addressed, stamped (I think I put 1.20-ish in postage on it) CD mailer envelope, requesting that they burn their own wedding/party/trip pictures to the disc and send back to us. Better than emails full of high-res pictures flying around afterward.

 

As far as distribution, I have the names/cabin numbers on DIY type envelopes tethered to the bags for easy distribution; not sure if we'll be able to, or if we'll need help getting them delivered - this is one thing I'm playing by ear.

[eshelledenee]

Wow thanks for all the great ideas. I am getting married May 24 on the Mariner of the seas and I was clueless on what I was going to put in their beach bags. All I had was the beach bag, a beach towel and sunscreen. I went to Sams Club and bought 40 beach towels and I having them embroiered with a palm tree and our wedding date. After all is said and done they will of cost me about $3 each.

 

Thanks again for all the good ideas!

[2007CarnivalBride]

We are also going to do the "goodie" or OOT bags for our guests. There's this great site minimus.biz they have trial sized everything you could think of for really good prices! I'm not sure how I'm getting them to everyone I wanted them to be in their rooms but I also thought about giving them to everyone when we first get to the pier and we are waiting to board. Our wedding is prior to the ship leaving Miami. Are you all planning to give bags to those not sailing as well? Also we are using our cruises amenity points to put "extra" gifts in the cabins. Is it unfair to the guests not sailing with us? Should I give the non-sailing guests something extra too? Here is a list of stuff so far we want to put in our bags:

 

Welcome letter

timeline of wedding day events

pocket map of the ship

list of guests names and cabin numbers

sunblock

dramamine(sp)

advil/motrin

snacks

personalized bottle of water

hand sanitizer wipes

post-it-note pad in wedding colors

[carrievision]

2007Carnivalbride, I don't think that it is unfair that your sailing guests get some extra goodies in their room with your amenity points. After all, they actually sort of paid for them by coming along for the cruise.

 

That said, I think you should still have some sort of smaller favor for everyone that attends the wedding, even if it is just some chocolates or something small. If people are coming from out of town to Miami, perhaps you can arrange to have the OOT bags left in their hotel rooms?

 

We have a few people that are sailing with us but did not book with our group, so they don't get the stuff from the amenity points either. We haven't decided if we are going to send them something else (a bottle of wine or something) extra instead, but it seems like if they really cared about the amenities they would have booked with the group, you know ? I was sure to explain that part in my save the date letter. :)

 

What are you going to get with your amenity points? I think we are going to do bottles of champagne and casino tickets... some of the stuff listed is just silly (like milk and cookies in your room... or a Royal Caribbean fanny pack... haha).

 

Where are you guys getting the pocket maps?? Or are you making them?

[2007CarnivalBride]

Our cruise has a total of 5 points so we were going to us 4 to have $50 placed on each cabin's sail and sign cards ($25 pp) and 1 point to have a bottle of wine placed in each cabin.

 

We were still going to give out regular favors to all our guest as well as a "revised" OOT bag to non-sailing guest. I wasn't going to do favors and OOT bags but I fell in love with these personalized little corked bottles w/sand and shells in them and also with these gel votive candles with the real shells in them. So now I'm doing a favor but I have to choose which one! ;)

[HnJ06]

There's this great site minimus.biz they have trial sized everything you could think of for really good prices!

 

Wow...this site is exactly what I've been looking for. I was going to do the dollar bin at Target, but they offer so much more variety. Thanks so much for the link :D

[2007CarnivalBride]

Wow...this site is exactly what I've been looking for. I was going to do the dollar bin at Target, but they offer so much more variety. Thanks so much for the link :D

 

 

No problem! :) One of the knotties on the Knot DW board put me on to that site I love it! I couldn't believe the even had little packets of Dramamine for less than $1 per pack! I would hope none of my guest gets sea sick but it would be nice to put it in the bags just in case! :D

[Cruising_Bride]

I am using Target for the travel sized things. They have most of it for $1/piece.