As Rob and I began to plan our wedding, the theme we kept returning to was adding a personal touch to make the day special for everyone involved. In the age of Pinterest, it has become all the rage to throw a big brunch for your friends and ask them to be a part of the wedding with lavish gifts and a big celebration. That isn’t my style at all.
Instead, I wanted to ask my friends and family to join the wedding in a more intimate way. When I discovered personalized wine labels from the StudioBLabels Etsy shop, I immediately fell in love and knew that these sweet, chic labels would serve as the perfect way to share the moment with my friends. (This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Any purchases made through one of our links helps to support the blog.)
I ordered a set of customized wine labels for each of my bridesmaids. Rachel from StuidoBLabels personalized each label by adding the name of the bridesmaid, city, date and the sweetest tagline from me: “xoxo, future mrs. gavin”. My heart skipped a beat when I read the tagline. A personalized matron of honor label was also included in the set.
The labels arrived at my apartment within a week and I was ready to get crafty. Instructions from Rachel were included in my label. She explained that the labels work best on wine bottles that are uniformly cylindrical (without any curves on the base), so I followed her advice and purchased very straight bottles of wine for each of my bridesmaids.
UPDATE: At the time that I wrote this post, the adhesive on barefoot wine bottles was easy to remove. Since then, however, Barefoot has begun to use different adhesives and the labels are MUCH more difficult to remove. Take my advice and steer clear of Barefoot wine for this gift. You can thank me later.
Rachel provided step-by-step instructions for successfully removing the existing wine label and replacing it with her custom label. I was a little nervous, but I grabbed my camera and went for it!
The wine bottles needed a chance to soak in water for at least an hour to loosen the factory labels. I used cool water because I was nervous that warm water would affect the taste of the wine. Rachel also recommended added a generous amount of baking soda to help the process along. I had half a box of baking soda at my apartment and I poured it all into the cool water.
I added the wine bottles to my sink full of water and set the timer for an hour.
A WORD OF ADVICE: Be smarter than me and stand your bottles upright while they soak. You want the label to soak, but not the cork. It will protect the quality of the wine inside.
I didn’t know if I had given the labels enough time, but I decided to give it a try. To my delight, the labels easily peeled right off.
UPDATE: Barefoot wine labels are much more difficult to remove these days. I highly recommend you purchase a different brand of wine for this project.
I used glass cleaner to remove any remaining residue and was left with shiny, spotless wine bottles that were ready to personalize.
The application instructions clearly stated that once attached, the labels were fairly permanent so there was very little room for error. I wanted each label to be placed at the same height on every bottle of wine. I trimmed a post-it note to my desired height, placed it along the bottom edge of the wine bottle and used the paper as a guide for attaching the label.
My post-it trick worked. Every bottle was uniformly labeled and each label was perfectly straight.
The price was right and with just a little effort, I had the perfect personal gift for asking each of my friends to be a part of the wedding.
Labels for Every Occasion
StudioBLabels has several styles of wedding wine labels, as well as alcohol labels for groomsmen in her Etsy store, but there are so many other clever gift ideas. Here are just a few of my favorites.
I love this collection of wine bottles for a newly married couple’s first events.. A bottle is included for the wedding night, first dinner party, first fight and many other “firsts”.
Not every relationship has a happy ending, and this set of 3 breakup labels made me laugh. The bottles are for the various stages of a breakup: the inevitable pity party, denial and deciding to seize the day. I remember those days well and receiving such a unique and sassy gift from a friend would certainly help take the edge off a really crummy phase of life.
There are also GORGEOUS champagne labels available in the StudioBLabel shop on Etsy. How stunning are these labels for celebrating a bachelorette party or celebrating a housewarming?!?
Save 20% on StudioBLabels
Rachel from StudioBLabels is so sweet, she is offering a 20% savings code for all Crazy Together fans. Stop by her Etsy shop, fill your cart, and enter discount code CRAZYT. How great is that?
Personalized StudioBLabels Giveaway
Rachel from StudioBLabels is so sweet, she generously offered to donate one set of personalized labels (up to 6 labels in the set) to a Crazy Together fan! Perhaps you will use the labels for a clever and chic wedding gift, or maybe you need to stock up on break-up labels for your bestie’s next breakup emergency. If you are like Rob and I and find yourself planning a wedding, you definitely want to win a set of labels from Rachel’s bridal party collection. The choice is yours! Use the Rafflecopter below for your chance to WIN. Good luck!
Find More From Our Wedding
If you would like to see more of our wedding, you will love these posts. They feature some of our favorite wedding moments and show how we made our dream day a reality. Click any image to see more.
love your blog! Thanks for sharing :)
Oh-and I’d order the set of firsts wine bottle labels. Lots of wedding showers coming up!
The set of firsts are so cute!!
So cute…maybe even a Christmas gift idea for neighbors…
LOVE these. such a cute gift idea!
So cute! I would order the anniversary set!
Love this; what a fabulous idea!
I love the anniversary labels!
Maria & Rob – I stumbled across your blog last week after receiving my first Stitchfix! You two are adorable, and I have enjoyed reading all about your wedding plans. My husband and I are newlyweds, having wed with a beautiful Nuptial Mass on November 1st at Old St. Mary’s Church in Greektown. I’m sure you’re receiving tons of “unsolicited” advice, so I wanted to share with you mine. 1. I highly recommend you attend Engaged Encounter as part of your marriage prep. My husband’s family priest married us and he is out of the Lansing Diocese so we did our marriage prep with him and he had us attend this weekend retreat and we LOVED it! I’m not sure if the Detroit Archdiocese requires it, but it was great, we did it last February at a retreat center in Holly and it was a wonderful experience. 2. Our wedding was more about sharing our Sacrament with all of our friends and family. One of my FAVORITE things that we did was suggested by our priest, my husband and I served as Eucharistic Ministers for the wine, I served the traditional “groom’s” side and he the “bride’s” side. It was a great way to share the Sacrament with our friends and family! Ok, and 3. As a fellow 33 year old bride, we didn’t do the bouquet or garter toss either for the exact same reasons! I gave my toss bouquet to the longest married couple during the Anniversary Dance. Ok, I’m done, enjoy this wonderful time in your life, I can’t wait to read more about your plans!
Hi Kelly,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. Yours is among the best unsolicited advice we have received! Rob and I are so excited that you are another Catholic couple that’s the same age as us and live in the area. I ADORE the idea of serving as Eucharistic Ministers during our own wedding ceremony. Thank you for the great suggestion – we are definitely going to look into that when we meet to discuss the readings and who will participate in the ceremony. My best friend has been recommending Engagement Encounter for several months. Now that someone else is recommending the program, I am even more motivated to look into it. Congratulations on your nuptials and Happy New Year to you and your husband.