Hotel Bag in a Box - Aka: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Welcome Bags But Were Afraid To Ask

What’s a bag in a box, you ask?  A hotel box carries only the best in creature comforts for your guests while they’re in town for your wedding. 

I designed and assembled these boxes while planning for my wedding.  My undying love for mini toiletries, junk food, and clearly organized information fueled my process.  I truly believe it is a perfect box and will help keep a traveling crew happy, healthy and in the know for the entirety of any wedding weekend. 

The hotel boxes for our wedding included a nifty schedule (from minted.com) on the front, and a small bag of essential toiletries on the inside.  They were also stocked to the gills with delicious goodies including: 

- one full package of M&M’s

- one full Snickers bar

- one full bag of Sour Patch Kids

- one snack bag of Cheezits

- one snack bag of pretzels

- one snack bag of Smartfood popcorn

- two Trader Joes granola bars

- two small bags of ‘Omega Trail Mix’ from Trader Joes

- two 16 oz bottled waters (to stave off hangovers, obvi)

- one 5 stick pack of peppermint gum (no one wants to be the one with stank breath)

It’s an odd thing, but most of the treats from our box somehow made their way into our cabinet before I had a chance to take pictures.  I regret nothing. #sorrynotsorry

My aim was to create a box that cost approximately $15.  If you're looking to spend less, there are places where you can compromise or leave certain items out to modify the cost. Because I have information from when I priced everything out, I have decided to share my knowledge with the world.  For example: for all the edible goodies above, I spent a total of $6 per box.  Do with this information what you will.

Before I go into all the particulars, I wanted to give a shout out to writer Meredith Goldstein for providing me with an incredibly helpful account of what it's like to be a traveling guest at a wedding (see it here on HuffPo).  Written back in 2012, Meredith's article was by far the most witty, interesting and informative piece about the specific topic of wedding welcome bags that I encountered in my (extensive) search for info on what to include in my boxes.  I incorporated a good percentage of her ideas, and if this were a business venture I'd probably owe her some money.  

Where appropriate, I have included links to sites where I clicked a few buttons online and then stuff appeared at my doorstep like magic.

The Logo

We asked our close friend Chansoda, of chansoda.com design the logo for our wedding.  (PSA: Chansoda is an amazing graphic designer with over a decade of experience.  She is thoughtful, creative and fantastically personable.  In short:  Chansoda is amazing!  Chansoda for all your design needs!) 

The logo was a super useful element that helped us tie together many of our wedding elements such as the website, invitations, programs and the hotel boxes. As we had our wedding ceremony at a library, the logo is comprised of a book with pages flipping into the air to form my husbands and my initials.  Like overeager kindergarteners we immediately made stickers featuring the logo and stuck them on anything and everything we could get our hands on. 

Fun With Stickers

THE SOURCE(S):

Kraft Box: Paper Mart (Online)

White and Clear Printable Stickers -  OnlineLabels.com - OL350CK(Clear) / OL7425WX (White)

Raffia Ribbon: Michaels

COST: $1.20 per box

Sure, you have to assemble each box but the resulting receptacle is sturdy, large enough to fit oodles of goodies, and won't tip over or rumple in transit like the traditional gift bag.  It's totally practical and super affordable.  

We centered the logo on one side of the box, and then printed it slightly askew on the clear label so we could have a fancy piece of 'tape' to keep the Infobooks in place.

Infobooks - Aka: Keep Your People In The Loop

THE SOURCE: minted.com

COST: $4.00 each

This was my big splurge.  In all honesty you could probably make your own infobooks/schedules and exponentially cut this cost, but I instantly fell in love with the Minted ‘Minibook’ and desperately wanted to incorporate into our wedding stationery somehow.  For a Photoshop noob like me, I had a great experience finding a template on the Minted site that worked for me, and then communicating with the designers to get everything just the way I wanted it.  The quality of the printing, the durability of the paper and the addition of the two metal reinforced holes on the spine of the booklet made it perfect for this project.  In addition, the booklet had space for all the information I could possibly want to convey to our guests, including a comprehensive schedule for the events of the weekend.  

HOW TO:  I used the holes from one of the Minibooks to measure and mark each box, and then used a sharp nail to poke through the markings and create holes. DISCLAIMER:  Use caution when poking the holes.  That’s what she said.  Ahahaha.  Ok, end DISCLAIMER.  After the poking was complete I threaded a small strip of raffia through each booklet and then tied the ends together on the inside of the box.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezey.

If You Love Toiletries, And Gettin' Caught In the Rain

One of my great loves in life are toiletries.  Specifically mini toiletries.  Give me a wall of travel size conditioners and shampoos and I'm in heaven.  I really don't know why.  Maybe I was a giant in a past life or something. 

Therefore, I decided to be really thorough about the toiletries I selected for the bag.

THE SOURCE(S): 

Advil/Shout Wipe/Tylenol/Pepto/Muslin Bags  - Amazon

LA Fresh Makeup Remover Wipe: LA Fresh (Online)

Sewing Kit: Dollar Days (Online)

COST: $5.75 per bag

I chose both Tylenol and Advil as per the suggestion of Ms. Goldstein, a Shout wipe for any stains that may have sprung up throughout the course of the evening (I don't want to know), Pepto for all the various things Pepto works on, a sewing kit and an LA Fresh eco-friendly makeup remover.

(Side note: If you're a lady and you've ever been at a fancy event that involves unlimited free booze, chances are that you're not removing your makeup before you face-plant into bed.  Um, 'lady' was definitely the wrong word choice there.  I don't think ladies face-plant.  Let's rephrase: There are usually so many things to regret after a night of drinking, makeup shouldn't be one of them.)

I chose to stuff all the toiletries into a small muslin bag and adorned it with a small iron-on version of our logo, because, logo.

That's All, Folks

If you've been doing the math, you'll see that I ended up a little over budget, with a total cost of $16.95 per box.  I admit that I did go a bit overboard, but my philosophy is that if your guests are paying a hundred-plus bucks per night to stay over for your wedding, the least you can do is give them a great goodie bag.

Happy Wedding!

5 Reasons Why - A Dark Room

Awake, head throbbing, vision blurry.

Either you’re waking up on a Sunday morning with a vicious hangover, or you’ve just entered the world of ‘A Dark Room’, a text-based adventure game.  For your sake, I hope it's the latter.  If not, please pop some Advil, chug a big ole glass of water, cue up the Netflix, and come back later. Feel better!

‘A Dark Room’ is a perfect activity for a long winter weekend.  I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as the game came out over a year ago, but it’s likely that you haven’t played it either.  I’m here to tell you that there are 5 Reasons Why you should download it immediately.

One – Initially the game only provides you with one option – light fire.  Do it. 

What follows is a slowly unfolding world, akin to a ‘Choose Your Adventure’ with survivalist hints of ‘Oregon Trail’ tossed in for good measure (#ChildOfThe80s4Lyfe).  In a world of increasingly impressive and life-like graphics, 'A Dark Room' dares to ask you to activate your imagination and fill in the blanks.  Visually the game is comprised of little else than simple text and a three-color palate - white, black and blue.  Nope, not even a pixelated wagon or stream are provided for reference.  Graphic design has indeed made some leaps and bounds in the past few decades, but the game reinforces the notion that nothing compares to ‘pure imagination’.

Wonka knows best.  Listen to Wonka.

Two – Hitting milestones as a savvy adventurer feels exceptionally satisfying.  At first the only few options available could best be categorized as ‘gathering stuff’.  However, I would argue that ‘gathering stuff’ (yes, even in a game on your phone) satisfies some evolutionary urge, at least in me.  Honestly, do I want to actually gather thousands of cords or wood, or subsist on cured meat?  Absolutely not.  But if I can play at doing so while I subsist on chicken-flavored ramen, and gather my iPhone charger from the other room then, consider my primal instincts satisfied. 

Three –  One word.  Couch.  I’ve always been a fan of anything I can do from my couch. And this game is couch-ready.  Sure, in reality you’re slumped over some cushions in an old college sweatshirt covered in ramen stains, tapping frantically at your iPhone screen.  But in your mind you are on an epic journey.  Who doesn’t want to feel productive while simultaneously sitting on their couch?  If you answer ‘no’ to that question, go home, you’re drunk.

Four – To say much more about the game would likely ruin some of the surprises.  The story is twisty, like a good movie or book, keeping you interested and invested in the gameplay.  Also, the story is told in the present moment, asking you to fill in portions of the backstory related to your character as well as the world that surrounds you.  If nothing else, ‘A Dark Room’ is a welcome exercise for the imagination. 

Five – Good news!  All the mysteries of the game can be revealed in one weekend, or one really long sitting. Yes, even for a rusty and plodding player like me.  It took me just shy of six hours to complete it, but for most gamers it apparently takes somewhere in the neighborhood of three or four hours.  It’s not a spoiler to say that at the finish line you will be rewarded with 24 minutes of somewhat dry, but wholly interesting commentary on the game by the two developers, revealing a cache of secrets about the game.

Now, in the immortal (and bastardized) words of The Doors / Jimi Morrison: C’mon baby, light that fire.

5 Best Books of 2014 - Aka: You Need to Read These

The year started off weak.  Admittedly, I ended with a terrific ‘bang’ last year, as I eagerly devoured the last few pages of George Saunders’s brilliant Tenth of December only minutes before the ball dropped.  This year I was preoccupied with planning my wedding and accidentally led myself astray by haphazardly downloading a bunch of random novels onto my Kindle just before boarding a 10-hour flight to Hawaii.  In what I will term a ‘First World Tragedy’, none of the books I had downloaded were captivating and I was stuck with sub-par reading material for ten excruciating hours.

After I returned from my honeymoon I became choosier with my reading selections, and it paid off.  From August to December I went on a fantastic run of books that hit my literary sweet spot.  Many of those books are mentioned below, and my sole purpose in rambling on about them is so that you'll read them.  Because, you know, sharing is caring.  And no one wants to get caught on an airplane without a good book. (Some that didn’t make the ‘Top Five’ cut but are also definitely worth your while include Unspeakable by Meghan Daum, Life Itself by Roger Ebert and Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss.)

In compiling this list I attempted to stick to books that were released in 2014, but as you will see I ended up deviating from that format a bit.  Why?  I don’t generally stick to new releases published in any one year, and 2014 was no exception.  I don’t claim to have read even a broad sampling of the books published this year, but I strongly feel that the five following books deserve to be applauded and enjoyed for a cornucopia of reasons.

Get it here. 

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel is structured much like Jennifer Egan’s fantastic A Visit From the Goon Squad.  The plot leaps around in time, following a tangentially related cast of characters that includes a jaded paparazzo, an aging film star, and a scrappy, knife-wielding girl in a traveling theater.  The central conceit of the story is that society has collapsed following the outbreak of a particularly deadly virus called the ‘Georgia Flu’.  As Mandel weaves the tapestry of her world, her tone is playful but sincere.  She generously peppers her story with pop-culture references, grounding her characters in a fragile world on the verge of collapse.  The non-linear form of the story spans over approximately forty years in time, from twenty years prior to the ‘Georgia Flu’, to twenty years after the outbreak.  If nothing else, the book is worth reading for nostalgic passages focusing on a ‘Museum of Civilization’, a showcase for relics of the world that we as readers currently know and enjoy.  Mandel asks the poignant question of what’s left in this world without technology, and doesn’t presume to present us with an answer.

Get it here.

The Martian by Andy Weir is a novel that centers on one man and his fight for survival after being left for dead on Mars.  According to Wikipedia, some have called it a mash up between ‘Apollo 13’ and ‘Cast Away’, and I feel that this is an apt categorization.  Given that description, it’s no coincidence that the novel has been fast tracked for a feature film, but the more amazing story may be how it was published at all.  Weir self published his book in 2011 as a serial online.  Shortly after the novel was published in its entirety his readers requested that he publish it in Kindle format, so he did, setting the price at the lowest denomination, 99 cents.  Over time the book became a self-publishing behemoth, and finally got its due as a properly published novel in early 2014.  (For more on this amazing underdog story, heres a link to a recent article from Entertainment Weekly). 

I couldn’t put this book down.  Weir writes his main character, astronaut and botanist Mark Watney as if he is the funniest, most intelligent and level headed guy you know.  As Watney documents his struggle to survive in the inhospitable Martian climate, I found myself smiling, laughing and almost talking back to the book at times.  And as an extra bonus, I have it on good authority that the astoundingly complex science in the book is totally on point.  I cannot wait for the movie, and whatever offerings Weir sends out into the universe in the near future.

Get it here. 

Yes Please is comedienne Amy Poehler’s publishing debut.  On the day the book was released, I was geeking out so hard that I woke up a few hours early just to wait for the UPS lady.  Once I heard the knock on the door, I grabbed the cardboard packaging and shuffled over to the couch, digging in before I went to work.  (Did I mention I work at night?  Did I also mention that maaaaaybe I was a little late to work that day because I couldn’t put the thing down?)  Poehler’s honest, slightly self-deprecating preface hooked me right away, as she openly ruminates on what it is to write and be a writer.  Subsequent chapters that focus on her experience as an extremely prego lady at SNL, her dogged devotion to comedy, and her obligatory childhood stories are indelibly entertaining, revealing and have a humorous and familiar light touch.  If Poehler’s aim was to write a book that makes the reader want to be her BFF, she’s succeeded with flying colors.

Get it here.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tart wasn’t technically released in 2014, but it did earn the distinction of being the Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction in 2014, so I’m kind of still within my aforementioned 2014 parameters.  I knew very little about this book when I picked it up, save for the fact that it is written from the perspective of a young boy who has recently lost his mother.  I’m reluctant to tell you anything more as I feel my lack of information heightened my experience with this particular work.  I will say that Tart’s prose is so gorgeous it will actually have you thinking about the world in a richer, more refined way.  The story itself is captivating, heart breaking, mysterious, and compelling.   I have heard that some people do think the book is overlong and labored, but I emphatically beg to differ.  I truly enjoyed and savored every sublime sentence.  The Goldfinch has won its way into my heart and mind and has a permanent spot on my list of favorite books of all time.

Get it here.  Now.

The Stand by Stephen King is where my selection goes completely rogue.  First off, I had read this book before.  Secondly, this book was published nowhere near this decade, or even this millennium.  Yet, oddly enough, almost 40 years after it was originally published, The Stand is still captivating and relevant and certainly belongs on this list.  If you haven’t read it, go get it.  Now. 

Yes, right now.  I’ll wait.

I’m not kidding.

Did you get it?  Hint:  The Amazon link is embedded above.

Got it?

Good.  Let’s move on.

The Stand is the granddaddy of all American apocalypse novels.  Hints of King’s influence live on in the generous pop-culture references sprinkled throughout the aforementioned Station Eleven, and also in oodles of other novels and television shows, such as The Walking Dead.

The plot of The Stand focuses on a world ravaged by a killer disease called ‘Captain Trips’ which makes quick work of 99.4% of the population (yes I know I have a ‘thing’ for this genre, but I can’t help it if the stories are so damn fascinating!).  Led by supernatural dreams, the survivors pool into two camps, and good is eventually pitted against evil.  I picked this tome back up in 2014 because there’s a series of films in the works, to be helmed by one of the ultimate Stephen King fan-boys - director Josh Boone of The Fault In Our Stars fame.  Boone recently spoke to Kevin Smith about his vision for the films, and ZOMG am I excited.  I have a more detailed post in the works about my everlasting love for this novel because it is one of the best books I have ever read, and certainly one that touched my mind and heart.  Now go read it.  You did get it, right?  Right?!

5 Reasons Why Mixed Nuts Is The Best Christmas Movie You (Probably) Haven’t Seen

Mixed Nuts has been my favorite Christmas movie since I was a wee tween. (For more proof, scroll to the end of a post I wrote back in 2010.) My yearly present wrapping ritual is not complete unless I watch it in its entirety.  It’s magical.  One year, I was at college and had forgotten my VHS copy of the movie at home. I was upset, but set to the task of wrapping my pile of gifts as I halfheartedly flipped through the channels.  To what did my wondering eyes appear?  Motherfucking Mixed Nuts.  Starting in ten minutes.  Like I said.  Magic.

Upon its release Mixed Nuts was a complete and utter bomb both commercially and critically.  The delightfully talented Nora Ephron was coming off the wildly successful love story, Sleepless In Seattle.  Due to this success, she was given free reign for her next project, so obviously she decided that her next move would be to write and direct a broad comedy set at a suicide hotline on Christmas Eve.  This definitively proves that Nora Ephron is my type of woman. 

As this year is the 20^th anniversary of the film’s release, I felt compelled to express my undying love for Mixed Nuts, as it’s most certainly an underappreciated gem in Ephron’s oeuvre.  Here are 5 reasons why you should add it to your Christmas viewing list ASAP.

One – The plot is unique and surprising.  Steve Martin is the head of a struggling suicide hotline on the verge of eviction on Christmas Eve.  I’ll try to avoid spoilers since in all likelihood you haven’t seen it yet, but I can say that the script is wonderfully odd and full of madcap twists. The inclusion of a transvestite as a main character, and the conceit of centering a holiday film on heavily flawed characters may seem common now but remember that two decades ago, back in the world of VHS, these ideas were relatively untested. Mixed Nuts was ahead of its time in many ways, and in my opinion the plot has only gotten better with age.  In fact, I think it would make for a fantastic stage production, but that’s a topic for another post.

Two – The ensemble cast is a veritable treasure trove of gifted comedians cast in offbeat roles.  Aside from Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, and Madeline Kahn who play the employees of the aforementioned hotline, a famous funny person embodies each supporting character to perfection.  Liev Schreiber plays a prissy, misunderstood transvestite, Adam Sandler is a goofy songwriter with a ukulele (so, basically he’s just playing Adam Sandler with a ukelele), Gary Shandling is a heartless landlord, and Juliette Lewis is a pregnant makeup artist.  For good measure, Jon Stewart and Parker Posey pop up in brief cameos throughout the film as a preppy roller blading couple obsessed with finding the right Christmas tree.

If this picture doesn't convince you to watch this movie, I don't know what will.
There's so much going on!  WTF is up with that guy in the Santa suit?
Why does Adam Sandler look like an unemployed gondola operator?  Watch and find out...

Three – Madeline Kahn free-style raps.  Using a children’s toy microphone.  While trapped in an elevator.  And it’s wonderful.  That’s all you need to know.

Four – Given this talented group of actors, physical comedy abounds.   Steve Martin waltzes around a cramped apartment with Liev Schrieber as a broad-shouldered transvestite. At one point Schrieber even tosses Martin into the air in a hilarious pirouette move.  Haven’t you ever wanted to watch Steve Martin dance with a transvestite twice his size?  Why am I even asking? Your answer to that question should be yes.

Five – Mixed Nuts has the funniest fruitcake in film history.  In a possible homage to Johnny Carson’s running joke that there’s only one fruitcake in the world and that it just gets passed around from family to family, the fruitcake in this movie is like the re-gift from hell.  The shiny red tin pops up numerous times throughout the movie in situations each more comical than the last.  

Fun Drinking Game Alert: Drink every time a character mentions "fruitcake".  Merry Christmas to you.