Baskets to leave in the hotel rooms for guests arriving from out of town are one of those fabulous little details to make a wedding a little more personal. Necessary? Absolutely not. If you don’t have the time or feel like you’ll go crazy if you undertake one more project, cut the out of town baskets and don’t feel guilty about it. But if you do want to have them, don’t let budget concerns stop you. Here are some easy steps for making out to town baskets for easily less than $2 or $3 a piece. (You will need to plan ahead a little bit though!)

1.       Don’t use a basket. Baskets are often more expensive and unwieldy for guests to take home with them, especially if traveling by air. Gift bags are a nice substitute for still presenting goodies in an attractive package for a fraction of the cost. One idea? Get plain white gift bags and personalize them by putting your wedding label on it. Or pick up a gift bag in your wedding color.  Here are some of our favorite places to get gift bags for cheap!  If you’re not feeling a gift bag, what about a cute box? You can again decorate a plain white box with a ribbon and a monogram sticker, or just pick up cute gift boxes in these stores, which can usually be purchased for under $1. Don’t want to do a wedding sticker or ribbon? What about attaching a local postcard to the front?

2.       Let sales dictate what is in your bag. Instead of deciding what exactly you want to include in your gift bags, have general ideas like food, candy, local maps, tissues, bottles of water, etc. and then buy whatever is on sale. This way you won’t be focused on only getting a certain brand, which could end up being much more expensive.

3.     Use Coupons! The number one way you’ll be able to create out of town bags for cheap is to become a savvy couponer at your local pharmacies, superstores, and supermarket. Check out the Belles Blog for deals on where you can score items for these bags for cheap or even FREE after coupons! The Out of Town Bag pictured above, for example, was put together for less than $1 using coupons!! The price breakdown: Sobe waters- free at Target, candy- $.05 total at CVS, granola bars- $.10 each at Safeway, popcorn- $.06 at Giant, Nut Clusters- free at Safeway, gum- free at Giant, gift bag- $.50 at Oriental Trading! Several months before her wedding, the bride stocked up on these items and similar items each time there was a good sale! It took some coupon clipping and planning in advance, but it was totally worth it!

4.     Mix and match. Not having each of the gift bags be the same may end up saving you money, since you may only be able to get a certain number of items on sale. If you can only get 5 candy bars on sale, then put candy bars in five of the bags and use the granola bars you got on sale in the rest, rather than paying full price for the remainder of the candy bars.

5.     Hit up your local chamber of commerce and AAA branch. If you are a member of AAA, go there to score free maps for your bags, and if not, try your local chamber of commerce. They often have free maps available, which is a nice touch for all of those out of town guests.

7.      Know what types of items to be on the look out for. Some of the best items that work in out of town bags: Local maps or magazines, candy, granola bars, candy, cookies, snacks, sauce, etc. (even better if it’s locally made!), bottles of water/soda/juice, local postcards, mints, gum, coffee, medicine or first aid kit. Keeping these kinds of items in mind will help when you stumble across a good sale or deal!

8.    Customize it? Many brides and grooms like to include a customized map, timeline, message, or schedule of events in their out of town bags and baskets. You can score these at an affordable price by using the do-it-yourself techniques described in our paper section or by having them printed for surprisingly cheap at a site like Overnight Prints—just use the template you like and add your own information!

9.      Plan ahead! Giving yourself a few months to get a stockpile of items together is the best way to really maximize your budget. This way, you can take advantage of weekly sales, buying each item you want to include when it is at its best price.