What are you paying for your guests?

[TracyK]

Jaime- We have not been there. I just am going off of other peoples reviews and advice from tripadvisor. They have been pretty accurate in my travels so far! Maybe when you get back you could share some pictures and your thoughts with me!

[jla]

I'm having my wedding at an old hacienda in a very small town of 200 people. Most of my guests will be staying at San Miguel, Mexico. My guests are going to be spread across the town of San Miguel. As a result, we have several problems we don't know how to resolve:

 

1) how do we organize welcome pack, which seems pretty popular with destination wedding? We don't even know where are guests will be staying and it doesn't make sense for us to drive around town to hand out welcome gift bags. Has a welcome gift bag become essential for destination wedding?

 

2) Given our limited budget, we are paying for a wine tasting welcome reception the day before the wedding and the reception. In lieu of a bachelorette party in the State, I wanted to have a "girls night out" in Mexico earlier in the week. Since I'm most familiar with the city, I would be doing most of the planning. Does that mean I have to pay for the entire event? How do I tell guests that all the activities planned for that day would be paid by the individual attendees? I want to buy a round of drinks for my friends but I can't afford to pay for their facial, massage, etc.?

 

Love to hear your suggestion!

 

Thanks,

Julie

[gkashmira]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jla I'm having my wedding at an old hacienda in a very small town of 200 people. Most of my guests will be staying at San Miguel, Mexico. My guests are going to be spread across the town of San Miguel. As a result, we have several problems we don't know how to resolve: 1) how do we organize welcome pack, which seems pretty popular with destination wedding? We don't even know where are guests will be staying and it doesn't make sense for us to drive around town to hand out welcome gift bags. Has a welcome gift bag become essential for destination wedding? 2) Given our limited budget, we are paying for a wine tasting welcome reception the day before the wedding and the reception. In lieu of a bachelorette party in the State, I wanted to have a "girls night out" in Mexico earlier in the week. Since I'm most familiar with the city, I would be doing most of the planning. Does that mean I have to pay for the entire event? How do I tell guests that all the activities planned for that day would be paid by the individual attendees? I want to buy a round of drinks for my friends but I can't afford to pay for their facial, massage, etc.? Love to hear your suggestion! Thanks, Julie

1) it is definitely not required to do a "welcome" pack for guests. We mailed out a "Welcome Letter" with all the final details and information to our guests ahead of time but we did not do gift bags. As far as I know no one seemed to think twice about it.

2) I find it hard to imagine your friends thinking that you're paying for everything - that would be totally unheard of. One option is to tell/email people how much money they can expect to spend (just tell people or write facials $50, massages $80, etc.) Everyone will know that prices are being given so they can plan accordingly.

[diana2008]

We are paying for similar things: Welcome Dinner, Cocktail Hour/reception, and a Farewell Brunch. We're giving OOT bags, too (but nothing too elaborate), and we're going to have buses take everyone to the Welcome Dinner and to the Ceremony. We're not paying for airport transfers.

 

We're also paying for one night at the hotel for our bridal party. I wish we could have done 2 nights, but there are 8 of them so that gets pricey fast!

[Chiquita]

So far this is what I think we will be doing/paying for:

 

Bridesmaids dresses (my personal expense)

OOT bags

Wedding reception

Possibly a luau on the following night as they are public

 

I'm thinking of arranging maybe 1 or 2 days of group activities if people are into it, but I wouldn't be paying for any of that (at least not as this stage)

 

We really can't afford to do much more than that unfortunately I think most people are just excited to be going to Maui for a week.. heh

[dlou]

We are giving out OOT bags and fans for the ceremony. We are staying at an all-clusive so for the welcome dinner I'm hoping we can just make reservations at one of the restuarants and call it good! The package that we are getting includes a dinner for the reception so we are covered there too. Other than that I love the idea of using the resorts free stuff and then giving out prizes. I may have to use that one! We also will probably be paying or partially paying for a few of our guests trips...