Where The Heart Is

Wedding Guest Group Photo: Yay or Nay?
Image by W. Scott Chester

via Ruffled

That gem of a wedding photo up there?  I love it.

My wedding planning self isn't the biggest fan of Wedding Guest group photos.  Those go down a little something like this.  Due to a lack of big, open fields in the NJ-NY area, the most common spot to take such photos is on the church steps after the ceremony.  Sweet notes are included in the program to kindly ask guests to stay behind & take a "quick" group photo.  About half the guests are happy to stay behind but they make a beeline to congratulate the Bride & Groom & lose focus on the photo.  The other half of the guests are quite intent on getting to Cocktail Hour to have a drink & don't appreciate our security guard-like moves to keep them in place.  Once everyone is indeed in the right spot, you have to attract their attention, pose them & make them smile.  Wedding Guest group photos are hardly ever quick or fun.

I mean, family & bridal party photos are enough.  

As such, we didn't entertain the mere thought of a Wedding Guest group photo at our wedding.

But wow, I adore the sweet sentiment of a Wedding Guest group photo.  Even if your group is too large for each & every face to be distinct in the photo, it's quite something to see one photo that includes each & every person who celebrated your marriage.  You wouldn't remember how long it took to find Aunt Nancy who had wandered away or how Cousin Andy grumbled about missing the raw bar.  You'd simply see the faces of those you love on your wedding day.

The heart-shaped happy couple & wedding guests photo is pure group photo perfection.  Beautiful setting, happy couple, smiling guests AND a heart.  Love, love, LOVE!

Will (or did) you take a Wedding Guest group photo at your wedding?

DIY Project: Welcome Bags

Our Wedding Welcome Bag

My Mom is a gift basket-maker by trade. She makes creative, beautiful gift baskets for charity raffles, first-time home owners, wedding gift bags & more. Give her a theme & she churns out a perfectly-themed gift basket. By the time we tackled our wedding welcome bags, we had less than one week to the wedding & a never-ending to-do list. We never considered skipping the welcome bags because we still wanted gift bags to greet our guests at the hotel & provide them with information & treats. We had to make welcome bags & keep our sanity intact. My Mom was probably a tad disappointed when I told her the theme for our welcome bags was "simple."

But she went with the flow as she realized I may have a meltdown otherwise & we kept it simple. The basic idea was a plain bag decorated with our leftover "Greetings from Hoboken" save-the-date postcards tied with an easy bow & filled with a welcome letter, wedding itinerary & plentiful snacks. We snagged glossy, white bags & white grosgrain ribbon for an awesome price at AC Moore. We went to Sam's Club & grabbed anything & everything that looked good- water, apples, granola bars, cookies, pretzels, chips, etc- also for a reasonable price. We bought white paper decorated with silver swirls at Staples. I had already collected Love mints & wedding tissues.

Thank goodness this project was not so much DIY as DIT- do it together. While I worked on the letter & itinerary with our painfully-slow printer, my Mom & cousin/bridesmaid worked the bag assembly line. I can't thank them enough for their valuable support & help! Each had to be tagged with the postcard, hole-punched for the ribbon, stuffed with the treats & information &, finally, tied with a bow. Between the shopping, the assembly & the delivery, this DIY project ate a lot of time. Quite a project even on a simple scale!

The hardworking welcome bag team

Yes, I wrote "Welcome" on every treat

The tagged welcome bags waiting to be finished

The welcome bags may not have been as fancy as my Mom would have liked but I thought they were just perfect. With the "Greetings From Hoboken" postcard, they managed to perfectly welcome the guests to our beloved home & carry through our hometown theme. Plus they looked cute & simple, they were filled with yummy snacks & they had pertinent information. What more could you ask for from a welcome bag?! RZ & I delivered them to the hotel on Friday afternoon to be placed in each of our out-of-town guests' hotel rooms as a hearty welcome to our wedding weekend. The fun was just beginning!

The finished product- I loved them!