Necessary or Not: Welcome Bags?

Not necessary but very appreciated. We will be doing them for our out of town guests - particularly those that dont know the area at all. We already have the bags (pretty decorative paper bags I got on my employee discount my last day at Michaels) and will be putting in the free brochures for the places we like the most from the tourism bureau; a map of our favorite restaurants in the city; a detailed map of how to get to the church from the hotel and from the church to the reception hall and then the reception hall back to the hotel - because GPS's tend to take you through Kelley Square and that is a death trap so I'm warning all our guests to avoid it at all costs; a couple of water bottles (one per person but the bags will be per family/room); some amazing local cookies; a personal note from us; and some sort of salty snack. All told it should be less than $10 a bag and we will only have 5 or 6 to do. The families with kids will also get a little activity book we are creating for each of them and a small pack of crayons (dollar store).

I don't think it's necessary at all UNLESS maybe you have a destination wedding in another country or far away state maybe (alaska or hawaii) and you just wanna be nice about people taking the time and spending the money to see you. It's cute but you don't have to go overboard with it. Also depends on how many people will actually make it that'll determine how much money you'll be spending in that case. We might do it cause we'll only need a few considering it's an elopement (in Hawaii) with a handful of people

Not necessary but not a half bad idea either. I wouldn't put my wedding info on the bag like the one above.

Not necessary, in my opinion. We will have little favors for everyone to remember our wedding by, but there is no need to shell out the extra money for a welcome bag.

Not necessary, especially since 95% of our guests are local.

Not necessary, but we are getting them because many of our out-of-town guests are traveling cross-country for us.