Emergency kits for your BBQ wedding reception

We wanted to make favors that would be useful, so I totally borrowed an idea from the welcome bag with an awesome, party-friendly, “emergency kit” post and decided to make the perfect wedding BBQ emergency kit! They came out great and were a big hit.

Here’s what we included in our wedding BBQ emergency kit…

Ingredients:

• 42 lime green bags
• 1 package of 2″x4″ clear address labels
• 1 roll of apple green raffia
• 1 tag-shaped craft puncher
• 10 sheets of brown craft paper
• 1 stamp with quote and ink
• 20 sheets of 65lb shimmery pearl paper
• 4 boxes of Deep Woods Off bug spray towelettes
• 1 box of 50 plastic aprons
• 100 moist towelettes
• 1 box of mint flavored toothpicks
• 40 boxes of Magic: The Gathering Starter Decks

First thing was to make the labels for the front. I made a logo in Microsoft Word of a heart with our initials in it. Then I opened the correct size label template, dropped it in and printed it onto the label sheets. We cut them out and placed them centered on the bags.

Then I made label quotes. We printed them, cut them out and stuck them to the front of the bags. I really liked doing it this way, because if our guests want to reuse the bag for gifts or something, the labels peel right off.

I used quotes from Erica Jong, Joss Whedon, George Moore, The Princess Bride, and pretty much every movie we’ve loved.

Then, I made bathroom maps and printed them out on opalescent card stock. I rolled them up and tied them with the raffia. We grouped about five toothpicks and tied them with the same ribbon. We stuffed each bag with one apron, one bunch of toothpicks, two moist towelettes, two bug spray towelettes, and one box of Magic: The Gathering starter cards.

I really thought no one was going to play Magic. My friend insisted on us putting the cards into the bags. When we came back from getting our pictures taken, our reception was broken up into three groups and they were all either playing or watching others play. It was like nerd Nirvana!

Next I made the brown tags. Now you can buy those already cut at the craft store for about $4 but it was free since I already had the puncher and the paper, so I cut my own. Then I stamped them with an Oliver Wendel Holmes quote, “Life is a great bundle of little things.” We tied them to the handle of the bags with the remainder of the plastic ribbon stuff.

Voilà! BBQ emergency bags. They were pretty inexpensive and looked really fancy. Hurray for bargain favors!