My maid of honor texted me at 7am with a Broadway hotel link and the words “we’re doing Nashville.” No question mark. So I did what I always do, which is open way too many tabs and start printing things on regular paper to see what holds up. By Tuesday my kitchen counter had a leopard sign, two itineraries, and a coffee ring on the one I liked best.
Nashville eats a budget alive if you let it. The boots, the matching shirts, the rooftop bar with the $19 cocktails. The stuff you can print yourself is where the money stops leaking. I made the signs, the games, the little favor tags, and nobody on that trip knew it cost me an afternoon and one jammed feed tray.
So here is what I’d actually pack again. Not the dozen designs I saved and never opened. I print one test sheet, prop it against the toaster, walk to the doorway, and squint. If it still reads from there it goes in the bag. A few links down below are affiliate links, so if you grab something it sends a little my way. Doesn’t cost you a thing.
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.
The disco cowgirl set that started the whole theme
I printed the cowgirl one first, before we’d even booked flights, just to see if the group would bite. Taped it to my fridge next to the grocery list. By the time my cousin came over for coffee she’d already screenshotted it to the group chat. That settled the theme. Disco cowgirl it was.
The pink and the little disco ball motif read really well from across a room, which matters when half your prints end up propped on a bar nobody can see. I ran the welcome sign on white cardstock at the copy shop on Murfreesboro Pike because my home printer turns hot pink into something closer to salmon. Came out exactly the shade on the screen.
One gripe. The boot graphic sits low on the page, so if you trim too eager up top your spacing goes lopsided. Leave the margins alone. I learned that on sheet number three at 10pm.
Games for the hotel room before anyone’s brave enough for Broadway
We needed something for that hour where everyone’s done their makeup but nobody wants to be the first one out the door yet. I printed the game pack on plain paper, four to a stack, and threw a few pens in my carry-on. That hour turned loud fast.
The bride blushed through the whole thing, which was the point. I printed two extra copies because someone always spills a White Claw on theirs by question six. Cheap insurance.
My one note. A couple of the prompts run pretty tame, so I crossed two out with a Sharpie and wrote spicier ones in the margin myself. Took five minutes. The page had room for it, which I appreciated.
The bride squad print that doubled as our hotel door sign
I almost skipped this one. A quote print felt like filler until I taped it to the inside of the hotel door and it became the spot everyone took photos in front of before we left each night. Three nights, three matching boozy doorway shots. Worth the four minutes it took to print.
I did it on the slightly heavier cardstock, maybe 100lb, so it wouldn’t curl in the Nashville humidity. June down there is no joke. The thinner stock I tested at home had already started to wave by the time we checked out, so the upgrade paid off.
The font ships a touch light. If you’re sticking this somewhere dim, like a hotel hallway with those orange bulbs, bump the weight before you print a stack. One wasted page told me that.
A spa-morning invite for the day we all needed to recover
Day two of any Nashville trip is a write-off without a plan, so I built in a slow spa morning and used this invite as the heads-up I texted everyone the week before. Typed our names in, dropped the hotel spa time, printed one to tuck in the bride’s welcome bag, and sent the rest as a photo to the group.
It’s pink and soft and reads completely different from the loud cowgirl stuff, which I liked. The trip needed one calm thing. I printed the bride’s copy on real cardstock and left the others on plain paper since they were just going in pockets anyway.
The catch is the date field sits close to the bottom edge. My printer clipped the first one and ate the year. Nudge the text up a hair before you commit, or print a test on scrap first like I should have.
Coquette bride bows we ironed onto the recovery-day tees
This is the one I almost messed up. I wanted little bow graphics on plain white tees for the spa morning, soft and ribbon-y against all the disco loud, and I’d never done iron-on transfers before. Bought the wrong transfer paper the first time. Returned it to the craft store on Gallatin and started over.
Once I had the right paper it was honestly easy. I sized the bow small, maybe four inches, ironed it on a folded towel on my kitchen table, and pressed harder than felt right. The bride’s came out perfect. Mine has one corner that lifted because I got impatient.
One thing to watch. The pink in the file is pale, so on a bright white shirt it can wash out under bad lighting. I deepened it a shade before printing and it held up fine in every photo, even the rooftop ones at noon.
Coastal designs I bent into a honky-tonk welcome bag
Yes, it says coastal, and no, we were nowhere near the ocean. But the pack has so many little graphics in it that I pulled the ones that didn’t scream beach, the cups and the simple text bits, and they worked fine for tags and a couple of luggage labels. Nashville heat is its own kind of coastal anyway if you stand on a rooftop long enough.
I used a few of the cup designs on the disposable tumblers I handed out the first night. Printed the smaller graphics as sticker sheets at the print shop and slapped them on. Five minutes a tumbler, less once I got a rhythm.
The downside of a big bundle is the clutter. Half of it I’ll never touch. I spent a while just clicking through to find the four files that fit, which is a fine trade for the price but budget the time.
The leopard trip sign that everyone wanted a copy of
The leopard print sign was the one my friend stole. Literally rolled it up and took it home to frame. I’d made it as our airport meetup sign, big enough to hold up at baggage claim so the girls flying in could spot us, and it photographed so well it got a second life on her wall.
I printed it large, like 11×17, at the copy shop because my home printer maxes out at letter size and the leopard pattern needs room to look like leopard and not a blur. The bigger format cost a few extra dollars and was completely worth it standing in a crowded terminal.
My only nitpick is the print eats ink. All that pattern. I drained a color cartridge testing it at home before I gave up and sent it out, so save yourself the cyan and just go to the shop for this one.
What People Keep Asking
What do you do at a Nashville bachelorette?
Honestly? You walk Broadway, you eat hot chicken you’ll regret, you do a rooftop bar, and somebody books a party bus or a pedal tavern. We did a pedal tavern and I have never laughed so hard while also pedaling uphill in cowboy boots.
The trick is one plan a day, not five. We had the bus the first night, a slow spa morning the second, and a honky-tonk crawl the last. Trying to cram it all in is how people end up napping through the dinner reservation. Ask me how I know.
What is the dress code?
Pink and boots, basically. Everyone wears white or pink, the bride wears the loud thing, and there are boots involved whether your feet survive them or not. We leaned disco cowgirl and it photographed great.
My advice from blisters earned: break the boots in at home first. I wore mine around my apartment for a week before the trip and still my cousin didn’t, and she was barefoot by the second bar holding her heels in one hand and a drink in the other.
What should I print for the trip?
I printed an airport meetup sign, hotel room games, a spa-morning invite, favor tags, and a couple of bag labels. The signs do the most work for the least money. A big leopard sign at baggage claim cost me a few dollars at the copy shop and saved a confused fifteen minutes of everyone texting “where are you.”
Do your test pages at home on plain paper first, then send the keepers to a print shop for the good cardstock. I tried doing it all on my home printer once and ran out of ink at 11pm two days before a different trip. Never again. Plain-paper test, shop for the final, every time.
Before You Print a Stack
None of this made the trip cheaper because we still spent too much on the rooftop bar with the $19 drinks. But the prints meant the parts I controlled looked like we’d planned for months, when really it was me, a leopard pattern, and a printer I yell at.
Pick two or three of these, run your test sheet, prop it by the toaster, and squint from the doorway. If it reads from there it’ll read on Broadway. Then go let the bride wear the loud boots.