Hotel Blocks.

I've gone ahead and made some hotel blocks in NH for guests. I blocked 15 rooms in Tilton at The Hampton Inn & Suites for $119 each and 10 rooms in Plymouth at The Red Roof Inn for $80 each. Both hotels are blocked for Aug 6th and 7th. The Hampton Inn is creating a website I can link guests to for booking, as well. I will get the info onto the wedsite soon. I plan to send the STDs by March 15th, and will have the wedsite updated by then.

Cottage by the Lake.

David and I have confirmed a cottage on Newfound Lake for our wedding weekend. It will hopefully serve a few purposes.

♥ We'd like to have a space to gather the OOT guests Friday evening to welcome them to the area, answer any questions they have about the region and give them their OOT totes. This time would be campfire and s'mores time. Maybe some sparklers! (I ♥ sparklers!)

♥ We'd also like someplace romantic to escape to after our reception, midnight dip in the lake?, and have a quiet place to relax on our wedding night.

♥ Also, on Sunday, we'd like to give the opportunity to all guests to get together and celebrate some more, if they choose. Initially we had anticipated organizing a hike up Mt. Cardigan, but having a cottage on the lake now, we can invite folks over to swim, play frisbee and BYO-BBQ!

I'm really looking forward to the whole weekend. The further we come along with confirming vendors and purchasing essentials the more it seems real! I guess we can't elope anymore. ;)

Back on the favor bandwagon...

The last week or so there has been a lot of talk on the wedfo that I participate in about wedding favors. Even though I had (and still do) intended on making OOT guest totes, filled with some essentials for the OOT guests, I had sort of steered towards donating some dough to a charity in honor of our guests in lieu of a favor. But as I have made a list of the items to include in the tote (the hand screenprinted tote itself, a homemade lavender soap, sunscreen, NH postcard, NH map, Lakes Region tourism info) I had considered including maple sugar candy too. After pricing it online, I can get 100 pieces (shaped like leaves!) delivered for $43. I don't know if you're familiar with the cost of maple sugar candy, but that's good! So now I am leaning towards getting the candies, wrapping them individually in wax paper and a wedding label, and using them as favors for the reception. Sound good?

Wedding Favors....

Latest idea for a wedding favor is, no favor. Instead of having an actual, tangible something-or-other for favors we'd have a pretty notecard informing our guests that we have, in lieu of a favor, donated money to our favorite fund (ie, a conservation fund, an environmental fund, an anti-prop 8 fund [prop 8 is a proposition in CA that has banned gay marriage]) in the name/honor of our attending guests. ...and then of course, we would make a contribution to said fund(s).

I think this would make the DIY process that I anticipate being great before the wedding less so and save the guests from having to take home some lame token that will end up in the trash in a few months anyway.

I came up with this idea (conclusion?) form wedding blogs/forums that suggests the least liked items by guests were monogrammed/personalized favors with the hosts' info stamped all over it and the most liked items were snacks (cookies, candies) and donations.

All this said, I do still anticipate creating OOT totes for those OOT guests.

Favors and such....

Trying to think of some ideas for favors. Roger had mentioned using dried lavender for our arrangements/bouquets (as I don't want the expense of real flowers, and I think it may be difficult to get cotton bolls/branches. Plus, I have been having a hard time trying to think of ways to incorporate lavender color into the whole celebration.) and we thought it would be cool to have something screenprinted as a favor. So I am considering screenprinted sachets, that are "fill your own" with lavender.




I also like the idea of having OOT (out of town) guest favors (perhaps to be given out at my folks' home on Friday evening). I had considered these local soaps from Cardigan Mountain Soapworks. She will custom a scent, wrap and message for us for $2 a bar, and I love that they're a local item.



I am thinking we could also get inexpensive small tote bags, screenprint something on them, and include the soap, a local info notecard, and a couple other local/OOT interest items. (Perhaps a photo I have taken of Alexandria, made into a card.)

I wouldn't want it to get ridiculous with the expense, but I do think it's a really nice token for those who are traveling so darn far for this whole shebang.

Let me know what ideas you have.
Especially if you can think of any other possible screen print favor ideas or inexpensive items that would be practical in the OOT tote.