Out of Town Prep Work

Phew! Things have been pretty hectic lately.

By this time next week, Mr. Mek and I will be relaxing (hopefully!) in Hawaii before the days leading up to our wedding. The last two weeks I've been confirming timelines, re-confirming vendors, finishing up small projects and basically trying to get organized. I've been running around like a headless chicken!

One of the smaller projects I've been working on are our OOT bags. I don't plan on assembling them till we get to Oahu; there are still a few things I need to get for the bags that I plan on buying there. I've been working on a few lil' details for the bags so I have less to do when we're there. Like name tags. Each bag will be "assigned" to a guest/family.

I put the guest's name in Hawaiian of the tags for fun.

Postcards are also going in our OOT bags; knottie plumeriapal was my inspiration. A friend mailed me vintage inspired Hawaiian postcards from Walmart in Hawaii and I got the glassine envelopes from Paper Presentation. I put Mr. Mek to work and he addressed one postcard for each guest/family with our address, so they can easily mail a postcard back to us. Another postcard was given to them to send or keep for themselves. All were pre-stamped.

My inspiration, knottie plumeriapal

My postcards:

These are the"instructions" we put with the postcards.

Other tedious prep work I've been doing is cutting labels and ribbon for easy assembly later.

*note when pre-cutting ribbon, use a lighter to singe the ends so they don't fray. After cutting ribbon to my desired length I re-wrapped the ribbon around the spool to keep the ribbon nice an unwrinkled while crammed in our luggage.

A few of my favorite things...

Back to the OOT boxes...Contents!!

I talked earlier about the exterior of my out of town boxes, now for the fun stuff...the goodies! Majority of my guests have never been to Hawaii before, so I thought this would be a good way to introduce them to some of my island favorites. Hawaiian Sun (yum!), obviously macadamian nuts (Mauna Loa is actually a Hershey product now), Li Hing Mui covered candies, island inspired chips, to name a few.

Hawaiian Sun, Moana Loa, Li Hing Mui, Maui Style Chips

For the few Hawaii local guests that I will be in attendance, I thought maybe I should fill their bags with Pennsylvania treats. Whoopie pies! Hershey candies, Swiss Tea Cooler, and Utz chips. The Yuengling beer is there for fun, although that would be great if I could bring that to share too. :)

Martha Stewart, Hershey's, Swiss, Utz, Yuengling

Some other fun goodies I was thinking about was water guns, beach balls, water-proof disposable cameras, etc.

Oriental Trading Company

I'm also throwing in Oahu maps, Tylenol, postcards, and since these will be given out at the welcome BBQ, there will be map and directions to the wedding ceremony.

I'm also doing kiddie buckets! I only have a couple children that will be in attendance, so this will only cost a few dollars per kid. I found sand pails at Michael's for $1 each, great for sand castle making! Don't forget to check the Michael's & Target dollar bins! I found cute Hello Kitty coloring books for $1 a piece at Target that I plan to use in my kiddie buckets. I also found 24 pack of Crayola Crayons for 20 cents a piece. Keep your eye out for sales!

Image source, Target, Crayola (also a PA product!)

I am bringing the PA goodies, the boxes, buckets and such to Hawaii with me. The rest of the goddies (Hawaii snacks) will be bought once we get there.

What local items will your OOT bags have?

"Aloha! Welcome to Hawaii" Bags

Or should I say boxes.

I've already talked about our Welcome BBQ, now I'm on to how to greet our guests with much aloha (love). Welcome bags! This has been done time and time again; Mrs. Lemon, Mrs. Hydrangea, Mrs. Onion, Mrs. Cream Puff, to name a few. If budget wasn't an issue I'd wow my guests with Lauhala Tote Bags to hold my welcome bag contents.

source

But budget is an issue, so instead I'll wow them with much affordable, ever so popular, gable boxes. Now before the wonderful world of weddingbee and the knot, I had never in my life ever heard of a gable box or knew what hell a gable was. I was lucky enough to buy a knotties left over gable boxes and paid about .76 a box (that includes shipping).

Now for my "wow". Jon, who also did an illustration for my STDs, made these ohhh sooo cute "cut out" cartoons of Mr. Mek and I.

I love being clipart! I threw this illustration over an old postcard I had scanned in (I lowered the opacity of the postcard) and ta da...

Well..there was some ribbon added for pizazz.

Close up of illustration. It's about 4x5 in size and I printed 4 on 8x10 label sheets.

This photo is for aesthetics, I used double sided tape to attach the ribbon to the box.

Future Posts:
OOT box contents