Are Hotel Welcome Bags Expected?

It's not necessary but a nice thing to do. Out of the 40+ weddings I've been to in my life, only 2 of them didn't have welcome bags (granted, we only stayed in the hotel block for about 30 of these). The 2 without welcome bags wasn't a big deal at all, but the one thing I really could have used after traveling all day and getting to the room was a bottle of water--a staple in welcome bags!

If you're tight on funds, instead of doing a full bag, you could just do something like a couple of water bottles and a candy bar? Or even just water bottles (honestly, guests really just want that water after traveling!)

We just finished making our welcome bags for our hotel block (54 people/35 rooms) and we did the whole thing for $80. We bought the bags on Amazon for 50 cents a piece and we ordered the snacks in bulk from Walmart and Costco. Each bag has 2 water bottles, pretzels, goldfish, trail mix, 2 advil packets, a snickers bar, pack of gum, and packet of gatorade powder. And we printed the welcome notes ourselves at Staples.

But if something like that is out of your budget, guests would really just appreciate bottled water--everything else can easily do without.