Wedding Pictures - Hotel Gift Bags and Paper!

For our wedding, Mom and I talked about sort of a theme at the very beginning.  We wanted simplistic elegance.  We didn't do any crazy extras that would make us stressed at the end (ie seating charts, too many DIYs, crazy expensive and complicated hotel bags, unity candles etc etc.).  Nothing against any of that - some people are great and love DIY, some people think unity candles or whatever unite them more - more power to them all!  I just wasn't into any of that.  

So, simplistic elegance it was.  Or at least we tried to make it that way.  

Here are my hotel welcome bags that I put together.  The tags, itineraries and programs were all designed by Lisa at Paper Twist in Charlotte.  She.is.amazing!  I would use her again in a heartbeat.  She knew the etiquette - she knew we didn't use a "G" (Kevin's last name initial) on a hotel bag because I wasn't a G yet when they were given (therefore we had a font file made with our first names as you'll see below), she knew how the wording on everything should be.  She was simply amazing to work with.

Inside the bag was this is the itinerary that Lisa designed for us.  April had sent me hers and I used her ideas to convey to Lisa what I was thinking.  This is how it ended up (minus the tissue covering my name)...

Also in the bag was the following:  2 waters (didn't need the extra label with our names - I'm not that crafty haha!), peanuts (our favorite), crab chips (I'm from Maryland), advil (always necessary), mints (for the church) and our favorite chocolate.  We included 4 mints and 4 chocolates in each bag.  The best part was the bags cost less than $5 to make.  Woohoo!

By the way, I had these babies made six weeks before our wedding.  I made 60 of them and it took me two hours one night after work.  Easy peasy.  

Below is our guest book that I also got at Paper Twist.  It's by Graphic Image.  It is really gorgeous in person.  It's ivory with the gold writing on the cover and ecru paper inside.  Classic.  

Something really special happened a few months before our wedding....I got an email from a lady that reads my blog and she and her sister asked if their company could send me a Waterford pen of my choice.  I still cannot get over how generous these sweet ladies are.  I'm not going to post their company because I want to be sure they would be okay with it.  I don't want people contacting them to ask for a Waterford pen, ya know?  But, I cannot thank them enough.  They are the sweetest and so incredibly thoughtful!  Seriously made my engagement!

This is the wedding program.  It was the tall half of a 8.5"x11" piece of ecru paper bought from Michaels on sale.  Lisa designed and printed for us.  They were done to perfection.  On the front was the program, on the back was the wedding party and directions to the reception.

The formal font matched our wedding invitations.  They were printed in black ink even though it doesn't look like it in the below pictures.

We had the most traditional ceremony with the most traditional music.

I know you all are shocked!

I hope this may have helped you gain ideas for your wedding planning, see what we did or maybe this post is just for my journal! :)