We rented a cabin on Cedar Lake for my best friend’s bachelorette, six of us, one bathroom, a dock that smelled like sunscreen and old wood. I was the one who said I’d handle the decor, which mostly meant I was the one hunched over my printer at 9pm the Wednesday before, feeding cardstock through while the cat sat on the stack I’d already done.
Here is the thing about a camp bachelorette. You are not decorating a venue. You are hauling a bin into a place with bad outlets and one folding table, and half your cute ideas die the second a breeze hits the lake. So I got picky. I print a test page on plain paper first, tape it to the cabin fridge, and if it still reads from the couch it goes in the bin. If it curls or the names run off the edge, it stays home.
These are the ones that actually came with us, or that I’d grab again for the next trip. A couple of links below are affiliate links, so if you grab one it sends a little something my way. Doesn’t cost you a thing.
Some links below are affiliate links. If you download one for your day, I earn a tiny bit and it changes nothing on your end.
The set I built the whole weekend around
This was my base layer. I used it for the welcome sign that greeted everyone at the cabin door and the little place cards on the dinner table the first night, all matching, so it looked like I’d hired someone instead of staying up past midnight.
I typed each girl’s name in, printed on this slightly toothy cream cardstock I had left over from my own wedding, and lived with the welcome sign on my kitchen counter for a day before I trusted it. Held up fine in the cabin. Even survived the dock, sort of.
One gripe. The bride card and the bridesmaid cards use the same size, so on the table you can’t tell at a glance who’s who until you read it. I ended up sticking a tiny pine sprig on the bride’s card so people knew where to put her. Worked.
What turned six plain tote bags into a crew
I am not crafty with a Cricut, I want that on the record. But I had six canvas totes from the dollar store and I wanted them to say Team Bride without paying twenty bucks a bag online.
So I printed these onto iron-on transfer sheets, pressed them with a regular iron on the cabin counter (parchment paper between, low and slow), and handed them out the first morning with the snacks. The girls used them all weekend for wet swimsuits and wine. The bride still uses hers for groceries.
The catch is the white parts. On a colored tote the white in the design goes a little see-through after a wash, so I went with the darker bags where it didn’t show. Test one first. I scorched a corner learning that.
Tent cards for a table that kept blowing over
We did a little appetizer spread on the dock the second evening and I wanted small folded cards labeling things, partly for fun, partly so nobody asked me what was dairy-free four times.
I printed these, scored the fold with the back of a butter knife, and stood them up next to the cheese and the questionable lake-margarita pitcher. They are a folded tent shape, so they actually stay up on a breezy dock better than the flat cards did. That mattered more than I expected out there.
My one note, the fold line they give you sits a hair off center, so if you don’t score it yourself the card leans. Took me two before I figured out to ignore their line and fold by eye.
The cut file I gave my crafty cousin so I didn’t have to
My cousin Dani actually owns a cutting machine and likes using it, which made her the obvious person to dump this on. I sent her the file and a bottle of wine as payment.
She cut it in matte gold vinyl and we slapped it on the front of our water bottles and one very tired cooler. Cleaner edges than my iron-on totes, I’ll admit, the lines are crisp and it didn’t peel even after the bottles sat in lake water all afternoon.
If you don’t have a machine, this one isn’t for you, full stop. It’s the actual cut file, not something you print at home. I learned that the embarrassing way on a different trip when I opened it expecting a poster and got a bunch of paths.
How everyone knew when to show up at the lake
I sent these out about five weeks ahead so the long-drive people could book the Friday off. The doodle style felt right for a cabin trip, loose and a little goofy, not the stiff formal invite vibe.
I typed in the cabin address, the dates, and a packing line about bringing a swimsuit and a flashlight, then I texted the image to the group chat instead of paying for stamps. Two girls printed theirs and stuck them on the fridge anyway, which I took as a win.
The blank space in the middle is small, though. I had a lot to say about which exit to take off the highway and it got cramped fast. I ended up putting the driving notes in a separate text. Probably for the best.
Labels for the drinks situation
Somebody, me, decided we needed a signature drink, and somebody, also me, then had to label the bottles so the bride got the good wine and the rest of us got the box. These wrap labels solved that.
I printed them on sticker paper, wrapped them around the bottles before we left, and stuck the Bride on Cloud Wine one on the bottle I’d hidden in my bag as a surprise for her. She found it Saturday and cried a little, the good kind.
They are sized for a standard wine bottle, so on the skinnier seltzer cans we brought they wrapped almost all the way around and overlapped the text. Stick to bottles with these. The cans I just gave up on and used a Sharpie.
Matching the rest of us to the bride without the price tag
Once the bride had her stuff, the four of us needed the bridesmaid version so the photos looked like we all belonged to the same weekend. This file covered that.
Dani ran these through her machine right after the team-bride ones, same gold vinyl, and we put them on our hats. There’s a tiny version in the file too that fit perfectly on a phone case, which is how I now find my phone in a pile of six identical phones.
Wild guess from me but the spacing on the small size runs tight, the letters almost touch when you shrink it down. We bumped it up a millimeter and it breathed. Five seconds of fixing, saved a re-cut.
The Questions I Get Most
What is a camp bachelorette?
It’s basically the lake-cabin or campground version instead of the city-club one. We did ours at a rented cabin, six girls, a dock, a fire pit somebody almost set off the sprinklers with. Think swimsuits and s’mores and one cooler of questionable margaritas, not heels and a club.
The gist is low-key and outdoorsy. Less bottle service, more bug spray. Honestly it was cheaper too, which is half of why I pushed for it.
What games suit a lake weekend?
Anything you can play with a drink in one hand. We did the cheesy bride trivia (how well do you know the groom, she knew less than us, it was great), giant Jenga on the dock until a piece fell in the water, and a scavenger hunt around the property.
I’d skip anything with a lot of small printed pieces near water. I learned that when half a card game blew off the dock. Print a backup of the trivia. You’ll want it.
What should I print ahead?
Do it all before you leave, that’s my whole rule. The cabin had one weak outlet and zero printer, so anything I forgot was just not happening. I printed the welcome sign, the tote transfers, the bottle labels, and the place cards at home and packed them flat between two pieces of cardboard so they didn’t curl in the car.
A friend asked me this last month and I told her the same thing I’ll tell you, print one extra of everything. Stuff gets wet, stuff blows away, somebody spills wine on the menu. Spares saved my weekend.
One Last Thing
None of this made the weekend, the weekend made itself, six of us on a dock laughing until it got dark. But the little printed bits meant I wasn’t running around buying overpriced decor the day before, and the bride teared up over a wine label, so I’ll call it worth the Wednesday night with the cat on my cardstock.
If you’re doing a lake trip, start with the matching set and the bottle labels and add from there. Print a test page, tape it to the fridge, squint from the couch. If it reads, pack it. If it curls, leave it home and pour yourself the box wine.