Out of Towners Etiquette-Dunhill Tuxedos Bridal Blog

A wedding is a celebration of you, your family, friends and the joining your lives together.  Even though the main celebration is you and your new hubby, why not take extra effort to show your friends and family your appreciation of love, friendship and support throughout the years.  Your guests that have come from all points of the country and maybe even the world.  They have put time, money and love to come to your wedding.  Here are some examples of wedding out of towner etiquette and ideas to show how thankful you are to them.

Send accommodation information

You have a couple of options for letting your handful of guests know about where to stay.  You can add them to your save the date, either on the card or with an insert.  You can send a separate card between the save the date and the invitation with information regarding hotel stays, where they can find rental cars, information on weather in the area, and radio stations they can tune to for traffic.  Another way to send the accommodation card is to make it an insert in your wedding invitation.  Make sure you check with the hotel you have reserved a block of rooms with to ensure that if there is a deadline for the discounted rate, that it corresponds to at least 2 months ahead of time, giving your guests enough time to reserve their room.  Also, I’m sure you have found in your wedding planning that there are a lot of free wedding websites available.  Take these to your advantage to put accommodation information and all other travel details in for your out of town guests.

Invite them to the rehearsal dinner if it is in the budget

Your out of town guests are taking a lot of time, money and travel to be to your wedding, it is always nice to ask them to attend the rehearsal dinner the night before.  This gives them a preplanned activity they don’t have to worry about, as well as one less cost they don’t have to cover and time for you to mingle and catch up with the people in your life to don’t get to see day to day.

If it is just not in your budget and/or head count allowance at the dinner, don’t worry there are alternatives that are just as polite.  Make a list of different restaurants in the area that are nice.  Give options for the guests that want to enjoy a nice dinner, an option for the budget friendly, and also a kid friendly restaurant (be great to find one where kids eat free) for guests traveling with little ones.   The college crowd might even appreciate a nightspot recommendation.  Make the list in columns of restaurant name, address, phone number and $, $$, $$$ to indicate the price level.   Try to see if you can find online/newspaper coupons for these places and supply all of these to your guests in their hotel rooms or waiting for them when they check in.   Use Tripadvisor.com for this project.  Using this website it does not matter if you are familiar with the area or not, it gives you great insight to price level, reviews and the radius to the hotels.

Giftbags

Give your out-of-towners a special treat with a welcome gift bag awaiting for them in their hotel room when the arrive.   These bags are referred to as “OOT” (out of towner) bags in the wedding world. We have come up with a list of things that you can add to the bag.  Remember too, the more you search for items, the more deals you might be able to find, making these bags budget friendly to you, and beneficial to your guests.

Playing cards

Tea bags

Bottle of wine

Bottled water

Crackers/snacks-have someone make homemade treats

Photo album

If your guest has a special hobby, you can incorporate that

Things to do in the area/pamphlets on attractions- your guests may want to make a vacation

Catalogs to shopping areas in the area

Map to the ceremony and reception

Travel size first aid kits

For people traveling with little ones- throw in something for the kids too.  Crayons and a coloring book/wordsearches etc.

Until next time….Happy Wedding Planning!