Wedding Wednesday: The Out-Of-Town Guest Welcome Bags

I'm baaaa-aaack! And, even though I'm married, I'm still bringin' you Wedding Wednesday 'cuz, bitches, we got lots to discuss! And today's discussion is… the out-of-town guest welcome bags that I (and a "willing" crew) DIYed after the first guests arrived but before the rest showed up (I'm all about timeliness, y'all! Pffft.). Originally I had grand plans of DIYing silkscreened logos on to canvas bags and filling them with lots of regional goodies. Then, while cruising around Pinterest, I saw this:

Image Courtesy of: Love Is A Big Deal

And it was all over. Those canvas totes were out (too time consuming and too expensive) and lunch bags with edible goodies were in! Holla! I estimated that I'd need to have 15 bags for the out-of-town wedding guests who were staying in the hotel and/or at a nearby RV park. My best friend and maid-of-honor, Amanda used a scalloped punch to pretty up the tops of the bags:

And then my little sister and family friend (not pictured) joined her to fill them with snack packs, chocolate bars, and mini water bottles.

The chocolate bar wrappers were removed and replaced with customized ones from this FREE download (Martha! Girl! I luuurve you!) and the mini water bottles were removed and replaced using paper labels (also FREE from Martha!) that I printed out at home. My sister used double-sided tape to adhere both the chocolate bar labels and the water bottle labels.

To finish off the contents of the welcome bags, I also added in another cool (and FREE) customizable download from Martha Stewart – a welcome guide that talked about what to do, see, and eat in the Texas Hill Country. All I did was change the text, print it out, trim around the cut lines, fold it in half, and stitch a line down the fold line (this last step isn't necessary – I just wanted to do it). Easy = Peasy.

We finished off the out-of-town wedding guest bags by turning the top down, punching two holes, and securing it with pretty aqua blue baker's twine. I totally forgot to add a welcome tag (D'oh!) AND I totally forgot to take a photo of the final product (Double D'oh!). But! The guests really loved them and I was told repeatedly that the water and snacks really came in handy when people just got in and didn't want to go out and forage for food!

So, Tulle Nation, are any of y'all planning to DIY out-of-town wedding guest welcome bags? Will you be DIYing the up or taking the slacker's route (like I did). What are you planning to include in the bags? Do share!