My maid of honor texted me a photo of a goody bag once. Plastic shot glasses, a bag of pretzels, a tiny bottle of Advil rolling around loose at the bottom. No tag. The whole thing looked like she’d grabbed it at a gas station at the last exit, which, to be fair, she sort of had. We laughed about it for a year. Then she planned mine and overcorrected so hard I got a tote with a foil-stamped tag that I still keep my chargers in.
That is the thing about bachelorette favors. The stuff inside is mostly the same, gum and ibuprofen and a face mask nobody uses. What people actually hold onto is the bag with the dumb name on it. A tag turns a Ziploc of hangover supplies into a little gift you tied yourself at 1am while the bride slept. I have made the sad version and the good version, and the good one took maybe ten extra minutes.
So here are the ones I’d grab again for the next trip. I print a test page on plain paper first, hold the tag up next to whatever I’m tying it to, and squint. If the name still reads from across the room, it’s done. Some of these links are affiliate links, so if you grab one a few cents come my way. Doesn’t cost you anything.
A few of the links below are affiliate links. If you print something from one, it tosses a little something my way and costs you nothing.
One bundle so every tag matches the totes
I’m lazy about coordination, so a bundle that already matches across the bags and the tags and the little stickers saves me from eyeballing colors at midnight. We did a Nashville trip with this kind of matching set and the photos looked like we’d hired someone. We had not. I tied them on the hotel bed with the lamp on the floor because the outlet was weird.
What I’d actually use here is the spread. You get enough variety that the bride’s bag can look a touch different from everyone else’s without you having to design a separate thing. I made hers gold and the rest plain and nobody clocked that it was the same file.
One gripe. The matching look only holds if you print everything on the same paper stock. I mixed a glossy sheet in once and that one tag screamed at the table. Stick to one finish.
The girl gang one for the group that names everything
My group has a name. It’s stupid and I won’t type it here. But every bag, every tag, every cursed group chat banner has it on there, so a girl gang style tag was an easy yes. I printed a batch at the FedEx on Powell because my home printer turns anything bright into a muddy orange.
I like this for the inside-joke crowd. You put the name on it, tie it to a tote, and suddenly it’s a thing you all have instead of a party favor. My cousin still uses hers as a beach bag two summers later.
The catch is the lettering runs cheerful and rounded, which is great for a goofy crew and wrong for a fancy wine-country weekend. Read the room before you print thirty.
Save water, drink champagne, on a tag
This is the one I tie to the bottle, not the bag. We had a brunch-heavy weekend, so a save-water-drink-champagne tag went on the mini prosecco bottles waiting at each seat. Took me one wasted page to get the hole punch lined up so the ribbon didn’t cover half the joke.
It does the work a tag should do, which is make a $4 bottle feel planned. I punched the holes the Tuesday before so all I had to do at the rental was thread ribbon while the coffee brewed.
My one note. The phrase is small on the default size, so if you’re printing tiny tags, bump it up before you commit. I printed a sheet at the original size and you basically needed to hold it to your nose to read it.
Forty little friendship tags for the people who showed up
Bigger groups break me. Once you’re past a dozen bags you stop being precious and start being a factory. A pack with forty friendship tags meant I wasn’t reprinting the same file ten times and praying the colors stayed consistent across runs.
I’d lean on this for a destination weekend where half the guests are flying in and you want everyone to get the same little something. I tied these to drawstring bags on the floor of an Airbnb in Scottsdale, sorted into two piles, and finished a podcast doing it.
Fair warning, forty tags is a lot of cutting if you don’t have a trimmer. I used kitchen scissors the first time and my lines were drunk. Borrow a paper cutter from someone.
Agate borders for when the trip has a color scheme
Some bachelorettes have a whole palette now. My neighbor did dusty pinks and these soft opal agate edges, and the borders pulled the tags into the same world as her invites without me having to match anything by hand. I layered the border behind a name and it looked like it cost real money.
Where this earns its spot is the upgrade factor. A plain tag with a pretty stone-edge border reads expensive even on cheap cardstock. I printed mine on the heavier matte stock from the craft store on 9th and the texture sold it.
One thing tripped me up. The PNG edges are delicate, so if you scale them down too far they get muddy at the corners. I printed one test at the final size before running the stack.
A champagne cut file for the friend with a Cricut
I do not own a cutting machine. My friend Devon does, and she lives for an excuse to use it, so I handed her this champagne cut file and let her make tags while I tied ribbon. Division of labor. She cut little champagne shapes out of gold cardstock and they looked like something off a shelf.
This is the move if anyone in the group has a Cricut collecting dust. The cut tags feel sturdier than a printed-and-trimmed one, and they survive being shoved in a tote with a water bottle.
The honest downside, this one needs the machine. No machine, no shortcut. We tried tracing one by hand as a joke and it looked like a sad balloon.
Besties for the resties, taped to a hangover kit
This is the tag I reach for on the hangover bags specifically. Besties for the resties, on a little card, sitting on top of the Advil and the electrolyte packet. It’s the one that got pulled out and photographed the most at my own send-off, and I taped most of them at a counter the Friday before.
Use this when the favor is the kit, not the keepsake. It leans funny, not classy, which is exactly right for a bag of recovery supplies somebody’s going to need by 9am.
My gripe is small. The font is a hair thin, so if your bags are a dark color and you’re taping the tag straight on, the text disappears. I punched a hole and tied it to the handle instead. Fixed it.
Things Brides Email Me About
What favors do you give at a bachelorette?
Honestly, less than you think. Everyone says they want elaborate gift bags and then half of it ends up abandoned in the rental fridge. The stuff that travels home is small and useful, a tote people actually carry, a hangover kit, a tiny bottle of something.
The tag is what makes a $3 bag feel like you planned it. I’ve handed out plastic cups with no tag and a labeled drawstring bag with the same junk inside, and only the second one got a photo. Spend your effort there, not on the contents.
What goes in a hangover kit?
Whatever you’d actually go digging for the morning after. Mine had Advil, an electrolyte packet, gum, a hair tie, a face wipe, and a single packet of those greasy crackers. That’s it. I learned not to overpack these when I found three untouched mini sunscreens in the trash after one trip.
Keep it to a snack-size bag and tie a tag on the front so people know it’s theirs and not communal supplies. The tag is doing more than you’d guess. Without one it just looks like the bathroom drawer fell into a Ziploc.
How do I make favor tags?
Print, cut, punch, tie. That’s the whole job. I print a test page on plain paper first to check the size, then run the real ones on cardstock, trim them with a paper cutter if I borrowed one and scissors if I didn’t, punch a hole in the corner, and thread ribbon or twine.
The part nobody warns you about is the hole punch. Line it up wrong and your ribbon covers the words. I wasted a full sheet figuring that out the night before my friend’s trip. Punch one, tie it, look at it, then do the rest.
Before You Commit to a Template
None of this is hard. It’s an hour at a counter with a podcast on and a roll of ribbon you’ll never fully use up. The bags people keep are the ones with a name they laughed at, tied on by a friend who stayed up too late.
Grab whichever tag fits your crew, print a test page first, and punch the hole before you tie anything. I’ve ruined enough sheets so you don’t have to. Mostly.