Wedding emergency basket - downloadable item checklist 🧺

Emergency baskets for weddings

When you’re planning a wedding, you’ll often hear about the idea of putting together a wedding emergency basket. It’s a genuinely useful addition to have on hand, and it can make the day noticeably smoother and more comfortable for your guests. If you’re wondering what exactly it is, or how to put one together properly, we’ve laid out everything you need to know below. We’ve also put together a handy checklist of everything you’ll need to build one yourself - you’ll find it at the end of the article, free to download.

In this article, you’ll learn:
What exactly is a wedding emergency basket?
What should go in a wedding emergency basket?
The full item checklist for a wedding emergency basket
Is an emergency basket for guests necessary?
Where should you place an emergency basket at a wedding?
What should you put it all in?
How do you make a DIY wedding emergency basket?
Ready-made shopping list to download

What exactly is a wedding emergency basket?

An emergency basket is simply a box packed with all sorts of useful odds and ends - you could just as easily call it a wedding survival kit for your guests. It’s a nice touch for your guests, stocked with items that can genuinely come in handy during the wedding. They’ll help fix a hairstyle, touch up makeup, sew up a tear in someone’s outfit, or cover a scrape picked up in the middle of all the celebrating. Like at any big party, all sorts of little emergencies can pop up, and it pays to be ready for them. An emergency basket makes it much easier for your guests to handle a crisis moment, but it’s just as handy for basic things too, like needing to sanitize your hands.

A basket like this is useful for everyone, though you’ll naturally want slightly different items for the women’s and men’s versions. Trust us - every guest will find something in there they actually need, and they’ll use it. From what we’ve seen, emergency baskets have firmly become a wedding staple and now show up at almost every wedding venue.

What should go in a wedding emergency basket?

When you’re planning what goes in the basket, think about what situations might realistically come up during the wedding and what would actually help your guests. Every couple will naturally tweak the list a bit based on who’s coming - after all, you know your guests best and what they’re likely to need. That said, most of the items will stay pretty consistent, covering the most common situations and needs that tend to come up at weddings. For example, since a dress or shirt seam can always give way mid-celebration, it’s worth including a needle and a set of threads in different colors. You can also use the basket to stash useful extras for other wedding attractions - like spare batteries for an Instax camera at the wedding.

It’s also worth thinking about quantities. Some items will get used more than others, so it makes sense to stock up on those. For a sewing kit, for instance, one is probably enough for the whole wedding - but things that get used more often, like chewing gum or hygiene products, are worth having in larger quantities.

Below is our full checklist to make putting one of these baskets together yourself as easy as possible.

The full item checklist for a wedding emergency basket

We’ve put together our ready-made checklist of the most essential items for a wedding emergency basket! Below you’ll find everything we think works perfectly in an emergency basket and will genuinely come in handy for your guests. We’ve deliberately left out items that often show up on other emergency basket lists but, in our experience, rarely actually get used by guests. We’ve split the list into two sets, one for women and one for men, though you’re welcome to combine them into a single shared basket if you’d rather.

❤️ Wedding emergency basket for women (item checklist):

• Needles and thread in various colors
• Safety pins
• Lint roller
• Bobby pins / hair clips
• Nail scissors
• Disposable nail files
• Clear nail polish
• Hairbrush
• Hairspray
• Dry shampoo
• Lens cleaning cloth
• Stain remover
• Toothpaste
• Disposable toothbrushes
• Dental floss
• Tights (nude and black, in several sizes)
• Tissues
• Wet wipes
• Tampons
• Sanitary pads
• Panty liners
• Chewing gum
• Mini makeup kit
• Mini first-aid kit
• Plasters (regular and blister)
• Disposable gloves
• Painkillers (over the counter)
• Anti-diarrhea medicine
• Eye drops
• Hand sanitizer
• Makeup remover
• Hand cream
• Fast-drying glue

💙 Wedding emergency basket for men (item checklist):

• Needles and thread in various colors
• Safety pins
• Lint roller
• Shoe polish
• Nail scissors
• Disposable nail files
• Lens cleaning cloth
• Stain remover
• Toothpaste
• Disposable toothbrushes
• Dental floss
• Tissues
• Wet wipes
• Hair gel
• Chewing gum
• Mini first-aid kit
• Plasters (regular and blister)
• Disposable gloves
• Painkillers (over the counter)
• Anti-diarrhea medicine
• Eye drops
• Hand sanitizer
• Comb
• Electrolyte sachets
• Shoelaces
• Fast-drying glue

Is an emergency basket for guests necessary?

Of course, an emergency basket isn’t a must - whether you put one together is entirely up to you. That said, we genuinely believe the items inside can be a real lifesaver during a wedding, and the cost of putting one together barely registers against your total budget, so we’d definitely recommend it. The contents might genuinely save the day for someone at your wedding, and at the very least, they’ll help your guests feel that much more comfortable. On top of that, these baskets have become so common at weddings lately that guests may already assume they’ll find what they need on site, which means they might not bother bringing their own supplies from home.

The number of genuinely useful moments a basket like this can save definitely outweighs the small cost and time it takes to put together, so it’s well worth considering. Most of what you buy for it will come in handy again down the road anyway, so nothing really goes to waste, even if it doesn’t all get used up at the wedding itself.

Bottom line - in our opinion, an emergency basket for guests (or maybe “wedding survival kit” is the better name) is a genuinely useful addition worth having at your wedding.

Where should you place an emergency basket at a wedding?

Most couples go with two baskets, one in the women’s restroom and one in the men’s. That makes a lot of sense, since it offers more privacy - and it’s the setup we recommend too! Everyone gets easy access to what they need in a private space, and there’s the added bonus of water being nearby, which is useful for some of the items in the basket. If you’re also covering accommodation for guests, it’s worth considering an extra box left at reception or near the hotel rooms. That way, guests can grab what they need for their room on the day of the wedding, or even the following morning.

You can fully customize the basket to match your wedding’s style, so it fits naturally with the rest of your décor. Feel free to tweak both the contents and the look so it doesn’t clash with your decorations. It doesn’t need to be front and center, either - if anything, it works even better tucked away somewhere guests can use it quietly and comfortably.

What should you put it all in?

Before you go looking for a specific container, figure out roughly how much space all the items you want to include will take up. We’d actually recommend buying the items first - it makes finding the right size container much easier afterward. There’s no shortage of options for packaging: think cardboard boxes, glass jars, small cases, wooden boxes, a wicker basket, all sorts of organizers, or makeup bags. You could even go for something fully personalized - matched to your color scheme, or with a decorative card that ties into your wedding - or a container made specifically for this purpose.

When picking a container, also think about where you’re planning to put it. If it’s going in a bathroom, water-resistance is a good idea, since splashes from guests washing their hands can otherwise damage it over time. If it’s headed for the reception hall instead, safety should be your top priority - skip glass or heavy containers there, since they could hurt someone if knocked over during the celebration.

How do you make a DIY wedding emergency basket?

You can always buy a ready-made emergency basket, but it’ll almost certainly cost more and be less tailored to your guests. Since putting one together yourself really isn’t difficult or time-consuming, you can absolutely handle it on your own! To make it easier, here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how to put one together:

• 1 - Nail down your concept for the kind of emergency baskets you want. Decide whether you’ll make separate ones for women and men, how many you need, and where you plan to place them.

• 2 - Download and print our item checklist, then customize it by adding anything else you think might be useful. Jot down how many of each item you’ll need too. You’ll find the checklist at the very end of this article.

• 3 - Go shopping and pick up everything on your list. If you want to keep costs down, we’d suggest checking a few different stores first and comparing prices - the differences can sometimes be surprisingly significant.

• 4 - Check how much space your items take up. A ruler or tape measure can help you estimate the size of container you’ll need.

• 5 - Head back to the store and pick out the perfect containers. While you’re there, you could also grab decorative touches like cards with a note for your guests, or ribbons and bows.

• 6 - Put it all together by packing everything into the containers. Don’t leave this until the last minute - we’d suggest putting your emergency baskets together well ahead of time so they’re ready and waiting, since you’ll have plenty of other things on your plate right before the wedding.

Ready-made shopping list to download

We’ve also put together a ready-made shopping list (in .pdf format) that you can download to your device, print out, and take straight to the store. If you’d rather go digital, you can just as easily pull up the graphic on your phone. We’ve added a spot to check off items as you buy them, to make putting together a DIY emergency basket as simple as possible! It includes what we consider the most universal and genuinely useful items. You can use it to build both a women’s and a men’s basket if you’re planning two separate ones (that decision is entirely up to you). If you do go with separate baskets, just remember to double up on anything that should appear in both (two tubes of toothpaste instead of one, for example). We’ve also left an extra section for any items of your own you’d like to add, so if there’s something you want on the list, you’ll still have everything in one place. We hope this checklist fully answers the question of how to put together your own wedding emergency basket.

Click here to download our wedding emergency basket shopping list in PDF

Use the JustFilm.it app at your wedding

Have you heard about our wedding app yet? Collect the photos and videos your loved ones capture on their phones during your wedding and turn them into a unique keepsake film! We’ll start by preparing personalized QR-code poster graphics with instructions, matched to your venue. At any point during the wedding, or even after guests get home, they can scan the QR code and easily upload hundreds of their own keepsake photos and videos. You’ll be able to download every file collected, plus receive a professionally edited film set to the music of your choice. Want to learn more? Visit our app page: JustFilm.it wedding app.

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