There are two rounds of thank yous at a wedding. The people who did the work, and the people who turned up. Most couples plan the second round and improvise the first one at 11pm the night before. Wine covers both, and a custom label turns a bottle into something that could only have come from your day. Full-size bottles for the people who carried the load, 200mL bottles for the wider list. Artwork, labelling and GST are in the bottle price either way.
Round one: the people who did the work
Write this list before you choose any wine. It’s always longer than you think, and the order you write it in tells you where the money should go.
The bridal party
They’ve paid for outfits, hair, a hens or bucks weekend, and handed over two days of their lives. This is the one place to spend properly. A full-size bottle they wouldn’t buy for themselves, in a single timber box at $25, sits in a different category to a bottle in a gift bag.
Hand these over at the rehearsal dinner or on the morning of, not at the end of the night. Anything given after 10pm gets left under a table.
Parents and in-laws
Usually, the people who paid for something and rarely the people who get thanked properly for it. A bottle carrying the wedding date works well here because it can stay sealed and get opened on a later anniversary, which is a nicer gesture than another framed photo.
If the two families are in different states, sort the freight question early. It’s the bit that gets forgotten until the week of.
The MC, the celebrant and anyone who performed
Your MC did hours of unpaid work and probably lost a night’s sleep over it. The celebrant, the readers, the friend who ran the ceremony music off a laptop, the cousin who sang. These people are almost always underthanked because they don’t appear on the gift list anywhere.
The vendors who went past the contract
Hardly anyone thinks to thank suppliers, which is exactly why it gets remembered. The photographer who stayed an extra hour, the venue coordinator who quietly fixed a seating problem, the florist who redid an arrangement at 7am.
You’ll know who they were within a week of the wedding. Send it then with a short note. It also pays you back later, because those are the same people you’ll want for a milestone party in five years and the same people who send work each other’s way.
Junior attendants
Flower girls, page boys and junior bridesmaids need something else entirely. It’s illegal for anyone to give alcohol to a person under 18, so plan their gift separately rather than working it out on the day.
Round two: thanking your guests
Part of this happens on the table, and we’ve written separately about using 200mL bottles as table gifts. The part most couples don’t plan is the second round, and it’s the one that lands hardest because nobody sees it coming.
Guests who travelled
Interstate and overseas guests spent more on your wedding than anyone else in the room once you count flights and accommodation. A bottle waiting in their room, or posted afterwards, acknowledges that in a way a place setting favour doesn’t.
The people who housed, drove and fed everyone
Someone put up your cousins for four nights. Someone drove the shuttle. Someone made sixty cupcakes for the welcome drinks and refused to take money for it. None of them are in the bridal party and all of them deserve a bottle.
With the thank you cards
Most couples send cards four to eight weeks after the day, once the photos come back. That delay is useful. By then you know who actually helped, who you missed on the day, and who deserves more than a card. Sending a small run of bottles alongside that mail-out costs very little and arrives long after everyone else has stopped thinking about your wedding.
What to give whom
A rough guide, based on current pricing. Everything below includes artwork, custom labelling and GST, with freight on top.
| Who | What works | Roughly, per person |
| Bridal party and parents | Full-size Hunter red or sparkling in a single timber box | $50 to $90 |
| MC, celebrant, performers | Full-size bottle in a gloss box | $20 to $30 |
| Vendors and helpers | Full-size mid-range bottle, no box | $16 to $25 |
| Travelled guests, wider list | 200mL sparkling | $10 |
Here’s how that adds up in practice. A bridal party of six, four parents, an MC and a celebrant is twelve people, which is also the minimum order for full-size bottles. Twelve of the Andrew Thomas Hunter Shiraz at $25 comes to $300. Add timber boxes at $25 for the two people who did the most and you’re at $350 plus freight, and that’s your entire first round covered.
For the guest round, 200mL sparkling is $10 a bottle with a minimum of 24, and the details are on the mini wine bottle pricing page. There’s more on who custom labels suit in our post on who benefits from customised wedding wine labels.
One label, or two?
The easy call is to reuse your wedding label across everything. Same artwork, same date, and every bottle reads as part of one set.
The better call for the wedding party is a second version carrying each person’s name. It costs nothing extra in design terms once the base artwork exists, and it’s the difference between a gift and a spare bottle from the wedding.
For vendors, drop the romance. Your names, the date, thank you. That bottle is going on a shelf in an office, not a lounge room, and a label that suits the setting is more likely to stay there.
Send through your invitation or the label you’re already using, and our design team builds the variations from it. You approve a proof by email before anything goes to print. Label examples from real weddings are on the wedding wines page.
Ordering without doing it twice
Full-size wedding bottles run on corporate pricing from 12 bottles. The 200mL sparkling has a minimum of 24 and comes by the case. Turnaround is normally 7 to 10 working days from a confirmed order, and that clock starts once artwork is approved.
The trap is treating the thank-you bottles as a separate job from the bonbonniere. Two orders means two lots of freight, two rounds of proofs and twice the admin, on top of everything else you’re organising. Work the whole list out in one go even if the second round doesn’t get handed over until six weeks after the wedding.
If your first-round lands under 12 bottles, make up the difference with a couple of bottles for yourselves and one or two spares. You will forget someone, and having a labelled bottle already in the cupboard is a much better fix than an apology.
Getting it sorted
Call 1300 798 098, or fill in the wedding wine order form with your numbers and artwork and we’ll come back with a label proof and a price. Bring the whole list, both rounds, and we’ll work out the most sensible way to run it.
