#RealWeddings: Bridesmaid Proposal Boxes

Hi everyone! Most of you know me as a Planner with Right as Rayne Events, but what you may not know is that I am also planning my OWN wedding! I thought it would be fun to share some things that I am doing and learning throughout my planning process and maybe it would be helpful to my other Brides out there!

When it came time to do my bridesmaid proposal gifts, I had high expectations. I knew that I wanted to give my girls a gift that would not only look pretty but be full of items that they would actually want to use, all while reflecting the look and feel of the wedding that I was planning. It was no small feat, but they came together! From searching through Amazon Prime Day deals to finally mailing out the boxes, the process of getting these gifts together took about 4 months!

I wanted to make sure that I put together a gift that my bridesmaids would actually want to use. The “Bride Tribe” and “Bridesmaid” items are cute and fun for a moment, but then what do you do with it? It either gets thrown away or shoved to the back of a cabinet, never to be seen again. That was at the front of my mind with every item I chose. I am extremely proud of the boxes that I put together for my girls not only with the items that I selected but with how inexpensive I was able to put them together! So I wanted to share and hopefully give y’all some ideas too. First off, I wanted to say that I used a couple of different programs to personalize items in these boxes. I am a HUGE Canva addict, I use it for everything and I own a Cricut machine. I was able to create all of my designs in Canva and then upload the ones that needed to be cut out into Cricut Design Space.

Boxes Step number 1 was to find the actual box. I was IN LOVE with the square acrylic boxes that I had seen on Pinterest and knew that I wanted to try and find that style of box. However, when I searched on Amazon, you can’t find those boxes for under $30. In my mind, that is what I wanted to spend per girl total, not per box! So I spent some time searching different things to find an alternative, “clear boxes”, “plastic boxes”, “clear containers”, etc., and finally, I found what I was looking for! These boxes came in a set of 2 and I believe they are for under the sink storage, but they worked perfectly for what I needed them for! The boxes are 12.76 x 7.24 x 3.75 inches and you can get two of them for $24.99. Much better! mDesign Stackable Plastic Storage Bin Box with Hinged Lid – Organizer for Vitamins, Supplements, Serums, Essential Oils, Medicine Pill Bottles, Adhesive Bandages, First Aid Supplies – 2 Pack – Clear

Wine Tumblers Since I have a Cricut machine, I knew that I wanted to include some personalized items in these proposal boxes. Wine tumblers are very on-trend right now and are something that I know my girls will use! I have several and I love how they can keep a drink hot or cold for long periods of time. Plus, the fact that they come in solid colors allows you get to creative with the design that you make on the Cricut. I found this set of 6 tumblers for $32.79, which worked out to be about $5 dollars a cup. (I bout these on Prime Day so the price has gone up to $40.99. Still a great deal!) Then it was time to decide what I wanted to put on each tumbler. I knew that I didn’t want to write “Bridesmaid” or include anything too specific to my wedding because again, I wanted my girls to be able to use these items for a long time. I played around with just putting their names and then I remembered that all of my bridesmaids have fur babies! I thought it would be super cute to tie that in. So I played around in Canva until I made a design that I liked that said “Pet’s Name’s Mom” for each of the girls. Then I uploaded those files into Cricut Design Space, cut them out, and added them to the tumblers. HASLE OUTFITTERS 12oz Wine Tumbler with Lid Stemless Wine Glasses Double Wall Vacuum Travel Mugs stainless steel Coffee Cup for Cold & Hot Drinks Wine Coffee Cocktails Beer 6 Pack Army Green

Straws Last-minute, I decided that I wanted to get some straws to go with the wine tumblers that I had made for the girls. I found this pack of 12, 6-inch straws for $7.99. This was perfect because it gave each girl 2 straws, including myself! I tied a white ribbon around them to add a little something before putting them in the box. These straws are currently unavailable, but I am sure there are several bulk packages that are similar. DAKOUFISH 6 Inch Clear Reusable thick tritan Replacement Drinking Straws for Short Mini Mason Jar Tumblers,Dishwasher safe Set of 12 Straws with Cleaning Brush (6inch, Clear)

Jewelry Dishes I have several jewelry dishes scattered throughout my house and my office to hold bobby pins, earrings, extra hair ties, etc. so I thought that would be another great item to include in these boxes. I did a search for “jewelry dishes”, “bulk jewelry dishes”, “small dishes”, etc. and I wasn’t crazy about the options that popped up. On Prime Day, however, I saw this set of 6, 6 oz oven safe food ramekins for $15.19. (Since Prime Day the price has gone up to $18.99, so still not bad!) I thought these would be perfect to use for the jewelry dishes. I liked that they had taller walls on the side to keep items from falling out. Since the dishes were pretty small, I knew I couldn’t do too much to them… So in one of my wedding fonts, I cut out each girl’s first initial and added them to the ramekins, I mean jewelry dishes. DOWAN Ramekins 6 oz Oven Safe – Square Ramekins for Creme Brulee, Porcelain Souffle Ramekins for Baking, Dessert Bowls Appetizer Bowls Dipping Sauce Dish, Set of 6, White

Acrylic Keychains One way that Kai and I are making our wedding unique is by getting rid of the term “Bridal Party”. We wanted to use a more inclusive term that would represent both men and women. We expanded that further by wanting to use a name that would include everyone who has a special part during our wedding including our Vendors and important family members. This is when the “Brew Crew” was born. We thought it was a fun title to give our group since Kai’s last name is Brewer and our hashtag is #bouttimebrewers. I wanted to have something small that had “Brew Crew” on it to brand our wedding a little bit, but that wouldn’t be too large and annoying for people to have with them. I found these keychains on Amazon and knew they were the perfect thing! They came in a pack of 36 keychains for $12.99. 36 Pieces Acrylic Transparent Circle Discs and 36 Pieces Key Chains Clear Round Acrylic Keychain Blanks for DIY Projects and Crafts, 2 Inch

Necklaces This was one of my favorite finds for these boxes! As I said, I was trying to stay away from the “bridesmaid” branded things, but I did want to find things that I could buy in bulk to save money. Since I had made the jewelry dishes already, I thought a necklace would be perfect! So I searched for “bulk necklaces” on Amazon and found lots of layered choker necklace sets. I found this set of 10 necklaces for $10.39. (The price on these has actually dropped to $9.99!) This set was meant for layering so it came with some shorter and longer necklaces. I looked through the shorter necklaces and picked out which style I thought fit each one of my girls. I made a card on Canva with each girl’s name and our wedding hashtag at the bottom using our wedding fonts. Then I cut small indentions in the sides and strung the necklace through so it looked better than a loose necklace in the jewelry dish and made it more personal. FUNRUN JEWELRY 10PCS Layered Choker Necklace for Women Girls Multilayer Chain Necklace Set Adjustable

Scrunchies Let’s all thank the heavens that it is cool to wear scrunchies again! Lol. Again, I did a search for “bulk” scrunchies and after scrolling through lots of options I found these! I liked that they were black (neutral for everyday use and matched the colors in my box) and had this small zippered pocket. These came with 6 scrunchies for $7.99. I purchased these on Prime Day, so the price has gone up to $8.99. Velvet Scrunchies With Pocket Zipper Hair Ties for Women Big Vsco Girl Stuff Scrunchy Hidden Hair Black Scrunchie Ponytail Holder Elastic Bands Gifts for Women

Face Masks I was looking for one more thing to add to the boxes so I did a search for “bulk gifts women” to see what options were out there. One thing that popped up several times was face masks. They are relatively inexpensive and usually come with several in a box. So I updated my search to “bulk face masks” and found these. They had amazing reviews and I was able to get 10 face masks for $9.99. I bought these on Prime Day so the price has gone up significantly to $19.99. No wonder the reviews are so good! Madeca Derma 10 Pack Revitalizing Mask – Face Mask Sheet Korean Skincare – Hydrating Facial Mask for All Skin Types – Instant Repairing & Moisturizing with Soothing Centella Asiatica – by Dongkook

Foam Flowers With all of my items picked out, I wanted to find something else to add to decorate the boxes. I noticed that I had picked out pretty neutral items because I wanted my girls to be able to use them any time, but there wasn’t anything in my wedding colors. So I searched for some fake flowers that I could add to brighten it up and add a subtle wedding element to the box. I found these foam flowers through a lightning deal and scored 24 foam flowers for $15. I liked the variety of roses and that the flowers were my wedding colors. All of the flowers had long stems, but I cut them down to fit in the boxes. Breeze Talk Artificial Flowers Elegant Burgundy Roses 25pcs Realistic Fake Roses w/Stem for DIY Wedding Bouquets Centerpieces Arrangements Party Baby Shower Home Decorations (Elegant Burgundy)

Minimalist Drawing

I am sure that everyone has seen these “minimalist drawings” online and I am obsessed with them. I think they are so cute! I reached out to an artist on Etsy to create one of these drawings for my friend as a moving gift. I gave her a photo of my friends and me on her birthday and she did a great job! That gave me an idea! I messaged her and asked if it would be possible for her to create one drawing from several different photos. My bridesmaids do not live in the same area and most of them have never met each other, so I didn’t have one photo for her to reference. She agreed and I started searching for photos. I found a good selfie and body photo of each girl and included their hair color and height so she could create an accurate drawing. I also sent her photos of the bridesmaids’ dresses I loved with the colors that I had assigned to each girl. Somehow she took all of those photos and made this beautiful image! I am so happy with it and it was a great way to visualize all of my girls together despite them living in different parts of the country! I had the 5×7 cards of the drawing printed at Office Depot. The artist was KayleeReneDesigns and you can find her Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/KayleeReneDesigns

Swatches When I was putting my wedding mood board together I ordered lots of swatches from several different websites to narrow down my color scheme. I knew that I wanted each bridesmaid to wear a different color within that color scheme and I had a ton of fun mixing and matching the fabrics and colors together to create our perfect color scheme. My favorite swatches were from Revelry which is an online bridesmaid dress shop that can send try-on boxes to your bridesmaids so they can see what style of dress fits them best. I loved this concept and that their warehouse was based in Austin! I was immediately sold on the velvet fabrics and selected 5 colors for my bridesmaids. Blush, Dusty Rose, Terracotta, Romantic Rose, and Burgundy. I then ordered “Mega Swatches” ($3 each) in each of these fabrics from their website. I wanted enough fabric to give my girls so they could see what I envisioned for them but to also have some leftover for my planning. I cut out a 5×7 rectangle from each swatch and created my own swatch card for each girl in Canva. I included their name, the color I chose for them, a link to view the dresses on the shoprevelry.com website, and Revelry’s logo. I think they turned out so cute!

Wedding Mood Board One of the first steps of wedding planning is narrowing down your vision. Sift through all of those pins on your wedding board and try to get a clearer image of what your wedding day will look like. My wedding mood board went through several stages, but once we landed on this version I knew that this is what I wanted my wedding to look like! I wanted to include my mood board in my proposal boxes so that my bridesmaids would have an idea of what the wedding would look like and how they would fit into it. I had 5×7 cards printed at Home Depot.

Cards I created the cards in Canva using our wedding fonts. At the time I created them, we didn’t have a date or venue selected so I found a cute saying that said “We don’t know when and we don’t know where but we DO know you better be there!” and added them to the cards. Then I added the “Will you join our #BrewCrew as a Bridesmaid” graphic that I also created in Canva underneath. And then very small at the bottom I added the logo that I created for Kai and me. By the time I actually sent these out, however, we had already booked a venue and selected a date. So the saying was irrelevant… but that’s okay! haha!

Overall, I am so so happy with the way these proposal boxes turned out! I ended up spending about $35 per girl which is not bad at all! Remember the boxes that I wanted that were $30?? All of the girls have told me how much they loved them and I am so excited to finally have officially asked my bridesmaids to stand with me at my wedding!

And They All Said Yes!