How much did you spend on your OOT bags?

Hi All

My FI thinks I'm going off a bit too much on the OOT bags.  Although we have a smallish group of 15-20 going with us, they are all spending alot of $$$ to be there for us.  Some couples have a child or two and that of course costs them that much more.  I'm doing an oot bag for each couple/family, but instead of putting a ton of small items in I'm giving out bigger gift/souveniers, but of course it's starting to add up! 

We're also not having a private reception and instead we are using that $ (plus a bit more and are treating our guests to an all day private excursion. 

So the question is, how much are you guys spending on each bag and/or guest?  Are you doing anything else special for them or with them?  How much is too much? 

I think you should do whatever you feel in appropriate. There is no right and no wrong... We are having about 50 people give or take including children attend our wedding. Each oot bag is including a acrylic tumbler for each person, dollar tree beach bag, rum cakes, coconut m&m's, bug spray, cotton candy push pops, pens with postcards... each bag is costing us about $40.00 a tad more if there are more than 2 people in a room.

We are doing favors for each adult at our private reception... $10.00 per person

The children are getting a "children's table" with tons of candy lollipops and crayons, coloring books, small toys etc.

Each women is also getting a pashmina at the ceremony with their names embroidered in it

We are also 2 days after the wedding inviting all who would like to come on a catamaran cruise which we are paying for.

We feel as though since we are not having a HUGE wedding like we would if we were home with over 300 people we are going to splurge on our guests.

We spent about $25 on each person. Since we only have 33 guests (30 adults, 3 kids) we really wanted to go all out for them. Just like the PP, since we weren't spending lots of money on a wedding at home we could move that budget to "spoiling" our guests. We spent a little more on our wedding party since they had to buy/rent attire.

Each person will receive:

Beach Bag

Beach Towel
2 washcloths (our resort doesn't have them)

1st aid kit/ hangover kit (pepto, chaser, alka seltzer, gum, spf chapstick)

2 stadium cups

Candle

Snacks (chips, granola bars, candy), aluminum water bottle.

The kids (2 boys, 1 girl) received, personalized bag with a crab or mermaid and their name, coloring book, crayons, water gun, personalized water bottle, beach towel (either Princess or Spiderman) and snacks.

For the wedding party, we upgraded their generic cabana beach towels to Ralph Lauren beach towels, Tory Burch Flip Flops (love her!) and for the guys we added NFL t-shirts with their favorite team and their names on the back.

Honestly, I think it is up to you on how much you spend on your guests. I really wanted to use the budget we had to put as much stuff that my guests would enjoy and use. I also, put things in there that I would appreciate if I got. I don't think any price you decide will be too big or too small. Your guests will appreciate it just the same, but me personally, I decided to spend more on my guests than things like flowers and decor.

We will only have about 16 guests come with us and we wanted to give them OOT bags.  That being said we didn't want to spend to much money on them and break our budget ( we are both university students at the moment).  Our OOT bags cost us about $12 dollars.  They would have cost us a lot more but I was able to purchase some things on here from past brides that were extras for pretty cheap!

we're also spending about $25 per bag.  Couples will share a bag (with double of some items) and single guests will receive their own.   I'll be adding some kid friendly items to the bag for those couples bringing their brood along.

Here's what we're doing:

Personalized Cotton Canvas bag with our monogram printed on it (it's a W in a shield so I feel like it's generic enough for people to use again)

Acrylic Tumbler with our monogram printed on it in brown.  Boys will get green straws, girls will get pink ones

In Sickness and in Health Kits- including tylenol, bandaids, neosporin, alcohol wipes and pepto

2 bottles of water per guest 

Pashminas for the girls

A bar of lemongrass soap (a silly gift my FI gave me on our first date)

A chinese take out container with trail mix

granola bar

Fruit snacks

personalized matches

mini bottle of vodka and scotch

sunblock

hand sanitzer

each guest will also receive a hand written note from us.

We're planning on delivering them personally when guests check in  This way we can say hello to everyone 

Love the Chinese take out boxes... I am an avid Chinese food eater.. LOL!! I need to find a way to incorporate those!!!
 

Originally Posted by MrsWeiss1211 

we're also spending about $25 per bag.  Couples will share a bag (with double of some items) and single guests will receive their own.   I'll be adding some kid friendly items to the bag for those couples bringing their brood along.

 

Here's what we're doing:

 

Personalized Cotton Canvas bag with our monogram printed on it (it's a W in a shield so I feel like it's generic enough for people to use again)

Acrylic Tumbler with our monogram printed on it in brown.  Boys will get green straws, girls will get pink ones

In Sickness and in Health Kits- including Tylenol, band aids, neosporin, alcohol wipes and pepto

2 bottles of water per guest 

Pashminas for the girls

A bar of lemongrass soap (a silly gift my FI gave me on our first date)

A chinese take out container with trail mix

granola bar

Fruit snacks

personalized matches

mini bottle of vodka and scotch

sunblock

hand sanitzer

 

each guest will also receive a hand written note from us.

 

We're planning on delivering them personally when guests check in  This way we can say hello to everyone 

We may be using chinese take-out boxes as cake boxes.  Our resort includes another dessert with the reception meal, so it would ne nice to offer guests a way to take the cake with them back to their room.  My fiance is Chinese-American, so I think it would be a cute touch.

 

Originally Posted by Sllefebvr 

Love the Chinese take out boxes... I am an avid Chinese food eater.. LOL!! I need to find a way to incorporate those!!!
 

 

I'd say ours are about $30/bag. We have 21 to date confirmed, and we may have 2-3 more come. This is what we did

We have one bag per couple (one per individual traveller)

- Drawstring bag: big enough to fit a pair of sneakers, bottle of water, sunscreen etc. We have printed two palm trees on it with our destination and wedding date. No names.

Inside the bag:

- flip flops (I got everyone's sizes suposedley for a bridal shower game lol)

-sunglasses with case (the cloth ones)

-womens & men's nail kit

-small bottle of sunscreen

-hats (off vistaprint); this is for men, as weomen will get a special gift at the ceremony (hand fans - forget the proper name)

-candy (random candies packed in a small sack)

We may have one toddler come, so we got a water set for him and his own special hat.

I think that's about it... might of forgotten something onthe list.. but I think that's it.

we're from nyc and have about 3-4 chinese containers in our fridge at any given time!  We thought it was a cute way to make our guests feel right at home

Do you think those are going to be big enough for cake?
 

Originally Posted by clgriffi7 

We may be using chinese take-out boxes as cake boxes.  Our resort includes another dessert with the reception meal, so it would ne nice to offer guests a way to take the cake with them back to their room.  My fiance is Chinese-American, so I think it would be a cute touch.