Continuing with the 2 for 1

Cake Pops!!!!  They are delicious and would make a yummy favor as well as a colorful centerpiece.  You can order Cake Pop centerpieces that fit your color scheme and dress up the pops with ribbon and thank you tags for your guests to take on their way out. 

Or if you are on a tight budget you can make cake pops at home...there are various recipes online or they even sell cake pop machines at the stores...they are very easy to make.  Then just wrap them individually with cellophane bags and tie with your choice of ribbon to add color.  Finally you will chose a flower pot or pail and place a foam piece inside and arrange your pops.

Also you can chose to personalize these pails with your initials or names and the date of the wedding or placing a bow or ribbon that matches the ones you used with your cake pops.

Vintage Wedding Favors and Placecards

I love this idea not because it is simple and elegant, but because it serves two purposes and allows lots of personalization options.  You pick a favorite candy (or other ideas such as tylenol, flower seeds to plant, or other small item) and wrap it with either lace or a vintage handcercheif.  Then you close the packaging with ribbon to match your color scheme or go neutral to match the lace or handcercheif.  Finally, attach a tag on the ribbon thanking your guests for sharing in your special day and use the other side of the tag as their placecard.  Multitasking and saving money....LOVE IT!!!!

Beach Bridal Party Gifts

I wanted to tie in our beach theme with my bridal party gifts so what I did was I found each girl a beach bag that I thought they would like and then used that as the gift bag and filled it with their other gifts.  I included a small soft pack cooler, which to make it more special you can order a personalized cooler or what I did was ordered a designer cooler.  I also included a beach towel.  I used each girls favorite color and selected the various items based on that.  Other beach items you can include: personalized or cute koozies, sun tan lotion, aloe, cute flip flops, beach hat, etc.  Or you can also include a few non-beach items that are maybe just for the wedding day, which is what I wound up doing (I'll include those in a later post).  It has been over two years and I still see my girls using their beach bags, towels and coolers, which makes me so happy.

More gift ideas to come.

If you have any special requests for ideas please contact me and let me know and I will try to post something to help you.

Happy wedding planning!

Beach Wedding Welcome Bags

Several ideas for the welcome bags all of which are a little more costly than a regular gift bag, but very cute and reusable...

Beach Bag
Plastic Sand Pail with Shovel
Small Soft Pack Cooler
Styrofoam Cooler

All of which can be personalized.  You can either order them from various vendors already personalized or if you have nice hand writing or know someone else that does, craft stores make various markers and pens you can use to personalize them on your own.

You can include travel size sun screen or aloe, koozies, flip flops, sun visor or hat, beach ball, Gatorade or water and beach friendly snacks.

Have fun in the sun!

Chocolate Popcorn

Here is an easy treat you can make with limited time and is fairly inexpensive.  We included this treat in our welcome bags, but it can be used as your wedding favor or shower favor.  After our wedding one of my co-workers was planning her wedding and I told her about it and even made a small batch for her to try...needless to say it was incorporated into her wedding :)

You'll want to purchase cellophane bags and used the silver twist ties that came with it, but to dress it up a bit more you could create personalized labels for the bags and use ribbon that matches your color scheme.

Now for the treat.  Purchase butter flavored microwave popcorn, melting chocolate and wax paper.  Pop the popcorn according to the instructions on the package.  Allow the popcorn time to cool before spreading the popcorn over the wax paper.  Melt the chocolate as the package instructs (be careful not to burn the chocolate).  Once the chocolate is melted all you'll do is drizzle it over the popcorn.  After the chocolate hardens it is ready.  Package it up for your guests to enjoy.

If you have never had it yourself give it a try, so easy and so yummy!!!

Fall Centerpiece

I love these if you are set on having flowers for your centerpiece for the big day or it can even be used forr a shower or holiday or for the fall season.  It is so easy to do yourself and you can get friends or family to help prepare them for the big day.  The picture below is a smaller version and a bit on the dark side, but you'll get the idea.  You use pumpkins as your pot by cutting off the top and cleaning out the inside then you fill them with soil and the flower of your choice (pictured below is purple & white pansies).    Be careful not to overfill the pumpkin with soil you don't want water spilling out when you water them.  You can make them a couple days ahead of time, but you don't want to make them too soon as eventually the pumpkins will begin to rot.  Happy pumpkin carving :)

Budget Friendly Wedding Weekend Welcome Bags

We wanted to keep the cost of our welcome bags as low as possible, but still provide our out of town guests with some snacks and essentials for their stay.  Here are some ideas:

Small gift bags (I'll post about how to save on the welcome gift bags as well as a little bit more expensive gift bag ideas...check back soon)
Tags (We used business cards that we typed Welcome to our Wedding Weekend on and then just whole punched them and tied them on with twine to go with our beach theme - you can use ribbon that matches your color scheme or gift bags)
Bottled Waters (we included two in each bag and skipped the personalization to save money - purchase in bulk from a wholesale club or if you are unable to buy from a wholesale club look for sales at your grocery store)
Snack Size Chip Packs (again we purchased in bulk, but should be able to find on sale - we did a variety pack and put one of chips in each welcome bag)
Snack Size Cracker Sandwiches (again purchased in bulk, but again look for sales if a wholesale club isn't an option - we put one pack in each bag)
Mints (individually wrapped - we put several in each bag)
Tylenol (we found these travel size packets on Amazon and put two in each bag)
Map of the area (you should be able to obtain from the local visitors center or even the hotel your guests are staying at)
Coupons for the nearby restaurants (I called the restaurants and told them I had a large group of guests staying at the X hotel and asked if they could offer anything for my guests.  They were very pleased with the opportunity some offered percentage off coupons other offered free apetizer coupons and included their menu which was great because people could check out the menu before deciding where to go)

We also included a couple of homemade items that we love (that I will share with you in the next few posts and explain how to make them)...Check back soon and happy wedding planning!