Wedding Welcome Gift Markets 101
Our favorite trend of 2025—wedding welcome gift markets! Create an interactive experience for your guests to choose what they want and skip what they don’t. Grandma won’t leave a delicious champagne split in her hotel fridge and the couple flying into town won’t have to leave their over-the-acceptable-ounces jar of whatever delicious treat you are offering (we love jam, honey, etc). The ‘shopping’ aspect keeps guests moving around and mingling—potentially creating new connections before the wedding day conversations even start.
What Should I Offer?
You can offer items that would be found in a typical welcome bag. Guests appreciate offering a specialty beverage of some sort such as a canned cocktail or a locally inspired soda. The welcome gift market is a place where yourself and your partner’s tastes can easily shine through. If there is a special snack one of you loves or a local product that highlights the area you are getting married in, feature it! As a good rule of thumb, make sure to have something savory and something sweet. If a significant part of your guest list is staying in hotels or Airbnbs, provide some complimentary toiletry related items like a mini emergency kit with Tylenol, stain remover and band-aids.
How Much of Each Item Do I Need?
This question gets a little into the weeds but we have an easy formula for you! Let’s say that 100 of your guests are showing up to the welcome party. For larger items that could be shared between a couple or family, shoot for 75% of your guest count or, in our 100 guest example, 75 of each. This would include some of the larger snacks that are 4+ servings per package. For beverages, it depends on what is offered! If it is an alcoholic drink, feel free to limit the quantities down to 60% of your guest count or less. If you’re offering waters and other n/a beverages, we would err on the side of 80% of your guest count. For toiletry items like Tylenol or other single serve pieces, hover around 90% for your guests. Not everyone will take one of each item.
When in doubt about how your people will shop, we encourage signs! Guests tend to become shy at weddings and events and do not want to look like the person taking all the free items. If you want each couple to take (1) snack, put it on a small sign! If you want every person to take a water bottle, put it on a sign! The more explicit, the better.
These numbers also depend on the variety you would like to offer. Having a single chocolate snack versus two or three different sweets options will adjust your numbers. Rest assured that if you buy 1 of everything for each guest, you will have a significant amount of leftovers (hence the promoting your favorite snacks line above).
How Do I Display All The Goodies?
For the true shopping experience, incorporate different levels and heights. A few display shelving pieces stocked with goodies fashioned next to a waist level table is a great place to start. If indoors, pick a spot in your venue that gets a decent amount of traffic, but will avoid a bottleneck experience. Think about creating a pathway for your guests to follow from the moment they pick up their empty bag. There should be a natural feeling flow surrounding the atmosphere where guests feel comfortable and at ease. If you’re following our varied heights piece of advice above, think about a U-shape where display shelves create the ‘U’ and there is a table in the middle of the U to gently corral guests through.
Make sure that you can comfortably fit all of your items without the need to restock. For bigger items, shelving displays work well. For smaller items, feel free to toss them into a cute rattan basket or small tray. Utilize items like decorative fruits to fill any open spaces and buy a couple extra rattan baskets for fun flower moments.
In summary, if you are reading this, you’re probably on the beginning edge of the trend! Craft the experience exactly how you would like. Break rules, make rules, and have fun. There’s no need to stress about a welcome party when you have arguably the most important day of your life afterwards!