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Hi girls...well, my FH and I decided not to do favors, they are just a waste of time and money, but i wish there was something that people actually like to get and keep without reaping our wallets off. Let me know what favors are you having...where did you get them...and if you did them yourself...
THANK YOU GIRLS!!!
We aren't doing individual favors but we are doing a candy buffet so thats kind of in between.
That is actually a good idea...sounds yummy! 
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I have pretty much decided against favors because of budget and the fact that I either don't remember or don't use the favors I've received from other weddings. We may do suckers/lollipops made in the letters of our initials just because I saw them somewhere and thought they were cute. I've also seen cookies with the monogram done in icing. Both of these are pretty simple to make and easy on the budget. Depending on the season of your wedding, you may be able to get something like seed packets or drink mixes (hot chocolate, cider, tea, etc). Good luck!
For our outdoor wedding I scoured the internet for low cost fans, I was able to get very pretty sandalwood fans for less than $2 each, and almost everyone, even the men were using them! It was a conversation starter too - with people trying to show off their fan flipping skills (you know like a Spanish lady, where you pull out the fan and unfurl it in one quick motion?)
So, if you do want to send your guests home with something physical, like pp said above, something that ties in with the season or setting of your wedding can easily be done on a budget.
I once saw in a knot bio a very neat favor display - the couple were big readers and they had a display of small books - Dover thrift editions that are usually $1 or $2 each - a very unusual idea!
I'm a huge fan of koozies (huggers/ beer holders/ whatever you happen to call them), and you can get great deals on them--.89 a piece for 200. You can have them personalized with your monogram, or something along with the theme, or your names and the date. I think this is a regional thing, but we love getting them as favors, because you can never have enough of them when it's 100 degrees outside and you're trying to keep your cans cold!
We haven't decided on our favor yet, becuase we are struggling with wanting to pick something meaningful for us and useful for the guests. I am a big fan of a simple picture frame (4x6). It can double as a seating card and the guests can use it to remember the day. Another bonus for the frame is that you could just do one per couple or family to cut down excess and costs. I would LOVE if we could end up mailing a pic of the guests (for the frame) with the Thank you card.
We did a large candy buffet and it was a huge it. And I don't think thanking your guests for attending your wedding is a waste of money. If you aren't keen on favors you could make a donation to a cause that you believe in and leave a card at each place setting describing the donation.
The candy buffet idea is so cute. I love it. And the donation too. I agree with showing your appreciation to your guests. You certainly don't have to make it the traditional stuff trinket box or whatever. The most practical has to be something edible. Who doesn't enjoy a cookie? And it doesn't clutter up your house, just your tummy!
Personally for what i can afford... i cut out the wedding favors and instead having a chocolate fountain... something extra the guest can enjoy AT the wedding instead of after... :)
My own take on it is that the best way to show appreciation to your guests is to throw a great party, and make sure you talk with everyone and tell them how glad you are they could be there. I've been at weddings with favors and weddings without, and as a guest, I've never thought "gee, they didn't give me a favor, they must not be glad I came."
If there's something you and your FI would really like your guests to have, that fits perfectly with the theme of your wedding and fits in your budget, that's fantastic. But I hate to see couples stressing out over the favors and thinking that they have to do them. Your family and friends will still feel welcome and appreciated even if they don't get a bag of candied almonds at the end of the evening!
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I saw recently online some beautiful boxes shaped in the design of a piece of cake. Each decorated "slice" box could be arranged to form a wedding cake! It was really cute! You could gift the guests in the gift boxes the wedding cake at the end of the night. I'd do that but definitely have and offer another dessert to them after dinner...let them leave with cake!
We may do brownie pops with icing initials on them. If we do opt for a beach wedding, I would invest in palm fans for the guests too. One of my fav party favor sites that I've used for years for inexpensive favors for my son's birthday parties is oriental trading (www.orientaltrading.com ) and they have some palm fans for a very reasonable price and you could put a logo sticker or monogram on them or a gift tag. Very reasonable too.
Here's the fans I like: refreshing fans http://image.orientaltrading.com/otcimg/34_1124.jpg?resize(250x250)
I don't think favors are a waste of money, but I also don't think they make or break the big day either! We did chocolate bars with custom wrappers. We ended up getting a great deal on them and they were super cute. We ordered from http://wrappedhersheys.com/ - if you sign up for e-mails about sales, you'll get an email coupon for 10% off your order total within 20 minutes of signing up. That covered shipping for us! The back of the wrapper we chose had our dates for our first date, engagement date, and wedding. Super cute!
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we decided to donate to a friend's charitable foundation... we printed a line at the bottom of our menus with this info, and then FORGOT the menus at home on the big day. so no one even knew. i don't think they even noticed!
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I am with you, favors are a waste of money!
BUT I came up with an idea that I really like... it's a "green" idea. I want to give out wildflower seeds, because there is a big movement to plant wildflowers to encourage honeybees to continue to flourish (bc they are dying out in the US right now). My sister is an artist so we're still trying to figure out how we want to package them, but we are thinking of putting somewhere on it, "Love Spreads Like Wildflowers" or "Meant to Bee". Or maybe both! We've also considered putting seeds with the invites (we are doing invites printed on material instead of on any type of cardstock).
I just like the mood that it sets for the wedding! Plus I like the little sayings AND the significance of helping the earth.
You can get discount wildflower seeds in bulk here: http://www.flowersoul.com/flowerseeds.html
Personally, I think a lot of brides get caught up in the fact that they have to do favors and its really odd to me.
For my wedding, the thought was to try to do something that really enhanced our guests' experience along with something fun.
We opted for doing a candy buffet - and tried to pay homage to not only our favorite candies, but one's that reminded us of our families and friends. For instance, we wanted to include salt water taffys - but since my husband's family has always gone to Ocean City (NJ) while mine always went to Atlantic City (NJ), we bridged the gap and bought taffys from 3 different salt water places, so everyone was included.
Here's a photo of how it turned out:
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i think it's a personal preference. my favors are part of my theme! i'm having an ice cream sundae bar (cold stone) and ice cream scoops as my favors. :)
We did 2 favors, I love to bake, (even made the wedding cake) So I made cookies with our initials.
But my husband really wanted a CD with songs from the day, so we made that too.
Both projects were really fun to make, but I think the cookies were more popular.
You guys have the cutest ideas for favors! I think the customizable chocolate bars are great, but our venue may be kind of warm so they might melt and thus I don't think it will be possible for us. We LOVE giving people CDs with music on them, so that might be a good one for us. And the idea of a decorated frame and sending a guest a photo with a thank you...that is SO cute! I think that's my favorite so far!
We're doing wildflower seeds too. I'm making the packets myself (you can get templates online, then just print out, glue together, and decorate (I'm stamping "Love Blooms" and some flowers on them)), and getting seeds in bulk. So it's a cheap but time-consuming choice. My fiance's 1000 miles away till the wedding, so I like having time-consuming wedding stuff to do so I don't sit around missing him. ^_^ I definitely would consider them a waste of money if you just do them for the sake of doing them and there's no personal meaning or anything. I've never heard of anyone getting offended that there was no favors at a wedding.
Another thing we thought about doing was having all the local family members make cookies or brownies or something and doing a sort of baked goods bar. We could provide boxes or baggies for people to pick what they like. Again, I was going to print off box templates online and make myself.
I love favors! I think they might be the favorite part of the planning for me!
After a little delibaration, we decided to get some small jelly canning jars and fill them with candy orange slices. We'll have a little vintage label on the jar, (aqua, navy, and orange) with my new last name as the "brand name" and the date of our wedding.
It'll be a little under $2 per favor, but it'll be a really sweet keepsake for our family and friends. Plus, the orange slices were my father's most favorite candy. Since he is no longer with us, I wanted to bring something to the reception that he would have enjoyed greatly.
I love the donation idea. I think it is really thoughtful to think of someone else on your big day. All of the people that I talked to about it agreed that is was more meaningful than something that may end up in the trash. I am also a fan of anything edible. Candy buffets can be creative and fun.
i like sparkelers, but i'm a chemist so i think i just like making sparks. You can tie them with ribbon in your colors.
Candy buffets are great!
Little takeout boxes with prepackaged candy works well too!! Great for guests to pick up as they exit. You can even add a note to the takeout box via sticker or tag, and write something "Hugs and Kisses from the Mr. and Misses" or "How Sweet it is that you can be with us today". Fairly inexpensive when buying in bulk.
I will be doing 5 Jordan almonds per guest, wrapped in tulle. That's all. It's an Italian tradition.
I considered burning a CD for everyone, then decided against it. It'll take forever to burn 100 CD's!
We are doing custom fortune cookies with things like " thanks for sharing our day, names and date " we got 200 of them for around 40 dollars plus spent another 30 on 200 organza bags to enclose them but you could also use tulle!! It's a cheap way to say thanks!
Favors are a waste of money because people either never use them or even take them home! My FI and I were discussing it... his sister gave these silver clocks w/ their wedding date on it- he was like, I would have kept it had it not had their date engraved in it. People aren't nearly as sentimental as we think or expect them to be lol.
However, on the flip side- there are some people who will expect a favor and feel completely ripped off (what? Dinner wasn't enough!? Sheesh!) So to continue w/ our travel/airplane touches we're just putting a giant yummy chocolate chip cookie in a cellophane flat bag & stapling a label saying "Thank you for flying PayberAirlines" (a combinationf of our 2 last names) It looks like something you'd get as a snack on an airline :) Because we're getting the cookies from costco, buying the bags in bulk & using extra paper from my DIY invites: Each favor is costing us 52 cents each. People can eat them on the ride home... Everyone loves food favors!
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I think for our favors, we are just going to have little cute candy dishes on each table filled with white Jordan almonds. I'm part italian, and he's Turkish, and both of our backgrounds use these at weddings.
What if you did mints? People use mints!
Also, I have seen things done where people will use the favors as the place cards also, so at least you know they are getting some usage out of it.
That's about all I got for ya!
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The amount of cheap and tacky wedding favors that are out there makes my skin crawl, but if you can find something tasteful and useful/yummy, then by all means go for it. No one needs a picture of you or a little Eiffel tower or a keychain though. Sorry folks, they either get left behind or thrown out and then you've wasted your money!
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My family thinks it is 100% necessary to do favors, but I don't have a lot of money in my budget for them. I am leaning towards something that will add to the decoration of the table. I found shot glasses that are taller than normal and flare out a little towards the top. I am going to put one at each place setting and put 3 old fashioned candy sticks in each one in the colors of our wedding. I might add a few jordan almonds to them to help stablize them if I need to. I found the shot glasses for $0.65 each and about $0.75 each if we have them engraved. The candy sticks are pretty cheap from candywarehouse online.
I don't think anyone will notice if the sthot glasses are not engraved, but my mom wants me to consider engraving them. I personally think people are more likely to use them/keep them around if they don't have mine and grooms name and date on them, but I guess that is up for debate.
We're giving decorated sugar cookies. I didn't want any silly little things people would just throw away anyhow, but I figured everyone could use an extra snack for the ride home.
I really, really think that engraving favors is a big waste of money! Those engraved little items will NEVER be used again & people will feel obligated to keep them. I have a drawer full of wedding favors that I can't purge because of the guilt factor... and "Aww remember when..." is not the first thing that comes to mind. lol
Again... no one is as sentimental about the day as we are! :(
@emmerzwithcheese I agree with you: people will use them if you don't have them engraved. People will probably not use them with your name and wedding date on them.
Initially we weren't going to have favors due to tight budget, but we ended up getting 150 free truffles with our cake (winter special) so we were able to use it for: (1) favors and (2) part of the table decor! We had the cups that held the truffles match our wedding colors.
@Mrs.WH: Score!! I love it when vendors throw in a bonus here or there :)
To favour or not to favour?
For the kids, I'm planning to make them loot bags with a toy Vespa as the key piece. It ties in with our theme.
For the adults we're getting chocolate from a very famous choclatier in Victoria, which is where we're getting married.
I really would much prefer to just make a donation to a charity but my fiance was not keen, so instead we've posted our charities of choice at the top or our Gift registry.
For those considering cookies or cupcakes, I'm sure your cake designer can make them for a reasonable price...
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