Sounds like a “welcome” bag for out of town guests. I’ve heard of those but S & DIL opted not to do that.
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Ah yes, that’s what they were. I felt like they were more useful than favors we’ve received though.
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We never received one when we flew in for a wedding either—nice to have but not NEEDED.
Son/DIL had welcome bags at the hotel for their wedding. Especially or those of us who flew in, it was quite nice to have a water bottle and variety of snacks. Some items reflected the area - cranberries, a Boston local candy etc. The only truly needed item was the slip with detailed weekend timing (a bit more info than on the website). Was it worth the money and extra work for the couple? Not sure.. but it was handy and fun.
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We also had welcome bags for out off town guests. Water bottles, some snacks, Advil, hand sanitizer, list of activities, etc. This is an extra that I always appreciate getting when I am an out of town guest and ours were also well recieved.
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We had a detailed welcome letter that was given to each of the guests who stayed in the two hotels where we had rooms reserved. We didn’t do welcome bags. I just didn’t have the band width to do this, and no one else offered…and DD and SIL didn’t care.
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We did welcome bags.
2 bottles of “good” water (my daughter and I both hate Costco water…..obviously it’s not the water itself but the quality of the bottle that makes the water kind of yuck our opinion.
Advil
Liquid IV
Breath mints
Blister Bandages
A bag of Garrett’s popcorn ( repress the Chicago native bride)
A small orange ( with a Florida sticker representing the grooms home state).
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Excellent list of items, Costco or not! I like the references to each of the couple’s home state. Cool.
I saw pics of a “local” influencer’s wedding recently. She and the groom wrote a note card to each attendee saying thank you for being there and other words about their relationship. This was their “table favor”. Depending on the size of your wedding this could be tough but I thought it was such a lovely gesture and the video of people reading their cards was touching. IMO this takes care of ALL thank you’s needed post-wedding. Because having the presence of loved ones should be the greatest gift of all (if possible!).
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@abasket my D and SIL wrote a note for each person at their wedding also. The notes were personal and very touching and there were a few tears as guests read them.
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I can’t even imagine the time that must have taken. I think that’s really quite lovely, but I sure hope that doing this doesn’t become popular.
Looking forward to @threeofthree posting here soon!
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Thank you for the welcome! I am perusing this thread now. I was hesitant to do this earlier feeling kind of like a lerker, now I’m more of a student in search of needs to knows and ideas for what’s to come.
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Two of my nephews got engaged this year. No idea when or where either will get married—maybe Honolulu or maybe LA where both are currently living with their respective fiancées. I’m so happy for both of them as both have known fiancées for over a decade and have strong relationships with fabulous fiancées!
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We’re in the thick of wedding planning right now and are having a few issues, as I’m sure most people do.
The hardest right now is the guest list. I thought my D had it all planned out, but my ex is really pushing to have his 1st cousins included, and my D only wants to invite people who have been a part of HER or her fiancé’s lives. For instance, she is inviting all of my ex’ girlfriend’s siblings and their kids because she has spent half her holidays with them for the past 10 years or so and they are a part of her life. But my ex’s 1st cousins, she’s only met one or two times in her life, depending on the cousin. My D says that’s what happened when her father chose to go to his girlfriend’s family’s holidays rather than his family’s holidays, so my D feels like her dad made this decision years ago. (She’s not being spiteful in saying that, she’s just trying to explain why she’s closer to his girlfriend’s family than his). Unfortunately my ex is trying to force the issue by playing the money card.
Another issue is the wedding is going to be on the same weekend as the local college’s alumni weekend, and the hotel room costs are much higher than normal. Our discounted wedding rate will be $450 a room per night, and we are worried that will be a burden for our guests. Lesson learned, we should have locked the room rate in before signing the contract, but the venue said they didn’t have the rates yet, and we wanted to lock in the date so we went ahead and signed after I looked at the rates for the same weekend 2026 and saw that the rates were $300 (so I thought discounted rate would be $250- $275). FWIW, after the rate came out, I looked on booking.com for other hotels for our wedding weekend and most are in the $600 per night range, so our venue isn’t gouging us any more than all the area hotels. Unfortunately we can’t really change which weekend the kids will get married, given other things happening in their lives. I’m going to start looking at AirBNBs and talking with various guests about that.
We’re also having an issue with the church. I thought this was all set before we signed the reception contract. But the people at the church in charge of weddings have stopped responding to my D, so my D asked me to step in and see what the issue is. We know that particular church is picky - they want people to have been parishioners for at least 2 years before marrying there- and would be fine with going to another parish down the road, but my D needs a clearance letter at least from the church that’s not responding. If not, then we think the parish that she grew up in would accommodate us, but that’s 3 states away and would need to be on a different day. We can make anything work and find the positive in it, we just need to start getting some answers so we can deal with it. Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow. 
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Gosh that is a lot to deal with. The church situation seems quite delicate!
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Would the whole wedding need to be rescheduled if this had to happen?
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I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be a way for them to get married in the Catholic Church. They don’t have leeway on when their reception would be, but my daughter is open to having a quick church service mid-week beforehand. Of course she needs to see if her fiancé would be open to that. Her cousin just had a split event like that, with the church service 1 year prior to the reception. I was a bad example and did the opposite; I eloped and then had a church ceremony afterwards, but for religious and practical reasons it’s better to have the church ceremony 1st. My D’s fiancé would actually prefer to have an outdoor wedding, which the Catholic Church doesn’t allow, and he’s not religious. I know he’d be ok with not having a Catholic ceremony at all. If they can’t do it simultaneously, I think he would continue to defer to my D and have one afterwards (but it’s easy then for life to get in the way!). I’m not sure if he would be OK with having a religious ceremony first, since you are actually married under the eyes of the law from the date of that ceremony. I really do think, though, that none of this will ultimately be an issue, it’s just a situation that needs to be worked through
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Vent incoming!
This is why the Catholic Church needs to change! They are making it difficult and when you put obstacles in place, people getting married may change to a different path. One that may not include your religion.
If anyone disagrees with me, that’s your choice. This is mine!
@melvin123 i think in the instance of the cousins, you have to decide to support your daughter but it’s up to her to make those arrangements with her dad.
Ugh about the hotels. I think it’s a big problem with a lot of weddings and a lot of venues. Unless it’s a large city, there will be competition. I know there was with kid 1. We ended up staying a ways away.
This is my other piece of advice from 2 weddings. Make your arrangements and try not to fix other people’s problems. I worked so hard to help make arrangements for family. Guess what? Someone complained and was upset about my careful and researched options. That person is never happy, I should have known
I should have let them figure out a difficult lodging situation and then they could only blame themselves. Not me! 
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For our S & DIL’s wedding, they reserved a block of rooms that they thought folks would like. Several of the guests opted to stay at a different hotel (Waikiki had a lot of options), S & DIL stayed in the hotel where they had reserved a block of rooms. It worked out fine for them. We just helped when and where we were asked or invited to—need help finding a venue for rehearsal meal—here are a few options. Need help with menu—here are a few options. Need a place for day after? My sister offered her place.
It all worked out great!
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I totally understand why my ex wants to invite his cousins, and how it is embarrassing to get invited to your cousins’ children’s weddings and then not be able to invite them to your own daughter’s wedding. Unfortunately, my ex and I are divorced, and fortunately for us, we both moved on, and our daughter basically has four parents. I think it comes down to being able to invite the “step-parents’” siblings and their children, or inviting the parents’ cousins. Our daughter made her decision at least six months ago and let us know then, so this really should not be coming up now. Especially in the context of a threat not to pay, after the reception contract has been signed by the kids. I think that was mistake #2, not getting the difficult parent to sign the actual contract. My H thinks there is no way my ex will follow through on his threat, but my D believes it and is super upset about this.
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