Top 10 Guest Gifting Ideas for your Hawaii Destination Wedding
At Maui’s Angels we love to say we’re not just wedding planners, we’re experience creators! Your wedding experience starts the moment your devoted guests arrive to Hawaii, and as such we feel wedding guest gifting is an essential part of the planning process. After traveling from near and far to attend your Hawaii destination wedding, there’s nothing your guests will appreciate more than a carefully curated gift. Your welcome gifts are the perfect opportunity to provide a sneak peek into the celebrations soon to follow. We’re huge proponents of stepping outside of basic wedding-day essentials and instead selecting thoughtful and personalized components to make every guest feel your gratitude for their presence on your big day. To help inspire you, we’ve rounded up our top 10 Hawaii wedding welcome bag gift ideas below!
1. Local Ingredients – Celebrate Hawaii by sharing a few of your favorite local delicacies! Consider incorporating regional snacks, tropical produce and Hawaiian made treats. We love including favorites like pink Hawaiian sea salt, macadamia nuts, Kona coffee, fresh pog juice, Hawaiian honey and Manoa chocolate.
2. Something to Sip On – Consider greeting your guests with a bottle of bubbly or your favorite wine to get the festivities started. Alternatively, for any guests that don’t indulge (or even for those that do and need a morning pick me up!) local coffee or tea is the perfect destination wedding weekend essential.
3. Bride & Groom Favorites – Including a his and hers themed element to your Hawaii wedding welcome bag is a great way to personalize it. This is the opportunity to share your favorite goodies with your guests. Consider including the groom’s favorite spirit, the bride’s go to cocktail mixer or a guilty pleasure of both of yours, such as milk cookies which was a major hit in one of our couple’s recent welcome bags!
4. Curated Paper Goods – Your welcome gifts should include informational details such as a map, weekend itinerary, transportation times and activity recommendations. It’s also a great opportunity to show your appreciation and excitement with a welcome or thank you note. We recommend working closely with your stationer to ensure everything correlates with your wedding’s other paper elements.
5. Post Party Recovery Kit – For couples with a heavy-imbibing crowd, a post wedding recovery kit is a thoughtful component for any Hawaii wedding welcome bag. Think Advil, band aids, eye drops and mints. Have some fun with it and throw in a cheeky do-not-disturb sign that’s cohesive with your wedding stationary!
6. Warm Weather Essentials – Consider what activities your guests will engage in when they’re not attending your nuptials and pre and post wedding events. Turkish towels, sunscreen, lip balm, fans, sunglasses and flip flops would all be well loved guest gifts!
7. Travel Friendly Additions – Set the stage for rest and relaxation with some travel friendly components. Custom robes, sleep masks, soap and hand poured candles are the perfect gift to get guests in the vacation mindset. Alternatively, you could opt for some practical travel essentials, like a leather luggage tag, hand sanitizer or organic bug repellent.
8. Something Celebratory – Get the party started by including confetti, cocktail mixers, bottle openers or coasters. Feature a local favorite, such as a ginger and Hawaiian chili shrub guests can enjoy with their sunset cocktails!
9. Personalized Packaging – Don’t overlook the packaging for your welcome gifts! It gives you the chance to include your wedding design details and peak guest excitement for the big day! Think raw silk ribbon in colors coordinating with the wedding day and custom name tags. Or one of our favorite destination wedding gifts; seagrass basket with custom sayings to express who you are as a couple.
When designing any wedding guest gifts we focus on customizing them to the needs and style of our couples and we LOVE working with the experts, like Papaya Exchange. A professional gifting company can help you stay on budget, ensure everything is beautifully displayed and assist with an easy distribution plan, which is key! But guest gifting doesn’t have to end with the welcome bag. Up next, we’ll touch upon guest favors and guest gifting at the wedding and surrounding events. Stay tuned!