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Maybe you could do one favor per family at dinner too. You could get something like personalized (your name and date) bottles of wine or maybe a photo frame and be sure to take photos with each family and send them with the thank you.
I didn't want the dinner table to look weird with some plates having favors and others not, so thats why im unsure on what to get since i want each person to get something, but not have a whole family end up with all the same favors (exception are edibles, but we have diabetics.)
I guess i could just send the recipe books as thank you's so the dinner table isnt crowded with favors, but i would feel bad if i didnt have any favors!
Cookies, brownies, something nice and edible that they can have before they drive back that'll keep. I'm totally of the belief that something like that is always the best favour but I think in this case it'd be easy for you. What about a famous family cookie recipe attached to a small bag of cookies?
we don't want to do anything sweet since we have diabetics in the family.
what about something like mini homemade bread loaves? I can send you a great recipe if you want one. :)
What about a plant?
I was just at a wedding where they gave away saplings. I was also at a wedding once where they gave away tulip bulbs.
Is there somthing native to Hawaii that would work? Macadamia nuts?
One of my friends, at her wedding, she gave out wine as favours with one bottle per couple. Instead of having them at the dinner tables, she had them on a table by the door for people to grab as they left. You don't have to have your favours waiting at the tables as long as people know where they are.
Most of our guest will be family or very close friends.
We are doing candy apples. We also thought about flower seeds.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I should have been more specific. I wanted a favor that i could give to everyone - i have a younger sister that is 13 and my fiance's cousin is 14. The rest are adults. So i didn't want to do the wine as a favor because then i would either not have something to give them since the wine is for the family OR get something different for them - which i don't want to do. I have this weird "its not balanced" OCD when i have different favors. Not to mention that the restaurant is going to charge a cork fee for every bottle each guest decides if they want to drink it at the dinner. Believe me, his family are drinkers!!!
I really wished i could do something with sweets - maybe if i baked my own brownie pops with a sugar substitute like stevia? (i hate the other sweetners)
OR thanks to @beesgf i could do seeds. The hardest part about this is that Hawaii and Missouri obviously have different temperature climates, so growing something here over there will just die. I am doing cymbidium orchids as our bouquets and invitations. Those orchids are pretty sturdy - do you think you could grow them in the Midwest? Sorry if i seem stupid, but i have no clue about gardening and weather! lol
Ok, orchid seeds are out of the question:
"Growing orchids from seed is difficult. Orchid seeds require a symbiotic fungus to germinate, and it can take anywhere from 3 to 5 years from germination before a resulting plant blooms."
why not do a keychain it is small to put on everyones plate, and every one has keys to use them. just need to pick one that suites your wedding.
I love the recipe book idea. You can order them via shutterfly and put family photos all over them. Who says they have to be bound like traditional recipe books? Put in some photos of all your family, your engagement pictures, that kind of stuff. I think it'd be lovely.
If you bagged or boxed up the wine properly with a cute note ("for you to enjoy while we're on our honeymoon!") people would get the cue it's a TAKE HOME gift though.
@goofyquest: that's a great idea. Maybe with a Hawaiian theme ...
We did lip balm from local bees. Everyone can use lip balm. It had our names and date on the label.
If you do the wine, you could have a special bottle of sparkling apple cider or grape juice for your sister and our fiance's cousin....
Do the recipe book idea! However, instead of having them at the dinner table (and crowding the table) couldn't you just put them in their OOT bags (assuming you are doing these)? Add some of your own favorite recipes w/ room for them to add recipees. Check out www.blurb.com -- you can add in some family photos throughout the recipe books and they are relatively inexpensive!
Awww, I liked the cookies--you could make 5 different kinds from those family recipes and batch them so everyone gets a package to sample them all. But I get it you don't like sweets...
Um, this is going to sound completely out of left-field, but I once got a flashdrive. Yep, a flashdrive. And it was WONDERFUL because it was infinitely usable and on it, the couple had loaded a picture of them holding a sign saying "Thank you for coming!" You guys could load up the recipes in a Word file on the drive. Flash drives can also be personalized (so you could write your two last names or the date or something). BUT it's not friendly to more elderly guests who may not use flash drives and although places like dollar-tree will sell them pretty cheap, they're not dirt-cheap.
Other than that, I'm not sure. Oh! I DID see an awesome totebag that just had the names of everyone in the family in different fonts that had been put on using those transfer papers. It looked great and people could use it for groceries and what have you.
I don't know if this works but you could send them home with a centerpiece and a nice note to each person. I really like both your ideas already though!
Thank you everyone! Btw, how do you link's someone's name in a comment? I'm still new to this!
We're not taking our honeymoon right away since we will be moving to MO shortly after the wedding.
I'm not much of a keychain fan and i didn't want something that was too impersonal.
Lip balm - my older sister is allergic to bee's wax. :(
OOT bags - We're not doing them. His family has been here a BUNCH of times and knows Hawaii pretty well. He's been stationed in the Army out here for 8 years. Plus, if i put the recipe books in their bags, i would have to figure out a way to give them to my family who are locals of Hawaii so they wouldn't be favors.
I LOVE sweets, but i don't want to do them since his grandparents are diabetics and possibly my step dad too. I wouldn't mind packaging dry goods and giving a recipe and then they can tweak it from there, so im still thinking about that.
Flashdrives are an odd favor, but smart. Too bad it wouldn't work with our family, lol.
We won't be having centerpieces since it will just be a dinner at a fancy restaurant. The table is already cluttered with tons of plates and glasses. Plus, i wanted a favor that would be easy to travel with since half our guests are from Missouri.
I wanted to do something that reflected Hawaii, but not in a touristy way. So we're thinking maybe local coffee or tea. We have a toasted coconut coffee here and his family loves coconut. I might split the favors with tea since we have some people who don't drink coffee. Still thinking though!
THANK YOU!!!
I know you don't want to do something sweet but maybe something edible that's savory? Popcorn, pretzels, nuts, gourmet mustard? I also really like your tea idea.
Here are some along those lines:
http://www.teaforte.com/store/gourmet-tea/package-options/wedding-favors/
http://www.stonewallkitchen.com/prdsell.aspx?L0=SpecialtyFoods&L1=Mustards&L2=RoastedGarlicMustard
Hawaii has some delicious macadamia nuts. you can do chocolate dipped ones for the non-diabetics, and sugar-free chocolate ones for the diabetics.
There's a lot of awesome local food to hawaii, you should tap into it. You can do little gift bags with a small bag of nuts, some coffee (kona! woohoo!) and a can of spam. Just to be funny =]
Is there a show or something around the time of your wedding (next day maybe?) that you could do tickets in envelopes as a favor? That would be locale-specific, no one can be allergic to it (haha), and age friendly.
Could you do frames and then send a nice photo after the wedding? Or, a candle based on the scent of the day (either from your flowers or something else unique to the day)?
I also live the idea of potted plants or succulents as favors.
I'm planning to do a Jo Malone gift box of a house candle per couple. This isn't a budget favor, but my guest list will be small. And I'll be burning a certain scent of their candles for the wedding day - so I'm hopeful that by having the same scent to take home, they will appreciate the thoughtfulness of that. Plus I adore the chic cream and black boxes!
Okay the one thing that i remember most in terms of a souvenir from Hawaii was these bars of soap! lol they had the most amazing scent and were really pretty. I got mine from a market but here is a website that has soaps, candles and other gift ideas from hawaii- coconut candles too ;-)
@fire gypsy: i think that coffee and tea are great ideas!
BTW to @ someone's name just click 'reply' at the bottom of their post and it will plunk it in your post. You can reply to mulitiple users in the same post.
@fire gypsy: With the tea/coffee idea could you do personalized mugs for everyone? Either with their name or your names and wedding date? Not sure how expensive that is but you can probably search around online for some deals.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!
I realized last night that some of our family members have that Kuerig coffee maker that comes with its own coffee in those little K-cups, so we are not going to do coffee.
@Allyser: Soaps are a popular thing in Hawaii, but i didnt want to use them since i don't know what people's skin sensitivity is and a lot of soaps have fragrances that are too harsh for your skin. We have elderly guests and my sister's skin is so sensitive, that she can only use organic products. Also, i didn't want anything that would have a strong perfume smell since it could overpower the dinner. I'm a cooking fanatic and i learned that restaurants dont use scented candles for this very reason.
@knikolle: i heart tea forte. I'm still debating if i want to do tea though.
@ohnyc: I wanted to do something that is original or unique, so i'm trying to stay away from pictures, frames, candies, etc.
@daydreamwanderer: Shows in Hawaii are over priced and junk. They have luau shows here, but the food is horrible and the show is so touristy.
@ejs4y8: Yes, we are definitely thinking about local foods, but i didnt want to do something that was already popular. Plus, i don't think mac nuts are that great. Maybe because i grew up with them, lol.
Thank you everyone for suggestions!!! We thought about making homemade coconut syrup! Yes, it is sweet, but i'm going to do a test run with some diabetic approved sweetners. This is something that our families will be able to use and won't seem so tourtisty! I'm hoping it will turn out great!
Coconut syrup is a NO go. Coconut milk just doesn't last for that long - so...we're making diabetic friendly coconut macaroons!!! *HOPEFULLY* 
What about making several of the desserts (could use splenda for some of the recipes for the diabetics) and wraping them up with a tag saying it was from the recipe book given to each family.
@tksjewelry: we decided to not do the recipe books to save money and make homemade macaroons. I've been looking at the French Market labels at myownlabels.com and they're going to be awesome!
thought i would share these from i-do-it-yourself.com
free-printable-vintage-labels-2.jpg (213.5 KB, 34 downloads) 1 year old
WHAT ABOUT MAKING CDS WITH ALL OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS OR A DVD WITH A COLLAGE OF PHOTOS OF YOU AND YOUR FH AND THEN FAMILY PHOTOS! THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING AND THE BEST PART, YOU PERSONALIZE THE LABELS AND INSERTS AND THEY COME FROM THE HEART!
What about stationery?
Homemade personalized correspondence cards.
Buy some plain correspondence cards and matching envelopes,and use your computer to print their names and return addresses on the card and the envelope. Give everybody 5 or so.
They'll be individual, useful for all ages, and kind of neat.
Put a logo or small design on them that's relevant, if you like, but even just putting their name on the stationery would be really useful.
Similarly, you could look into notepads w/ their names on them.
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So my fiance and i have a little predicament. ALL of our 25 guests are our family members. Parents, grandparents, siblings, etc. We originally wanted to do handmade family recipe books to blend our two families together. It was a great idea until i realized that since our guests are either couples or families - one family could have up to 4 of our recipe books since each person has to get a favor!!! Now we are at a loss. I didn't want to do anything sweet since everybody does that and we have diabetics.
I came up with the solution to send our recipe book favors as thank you's so each family or couple will receive one recipe book. Our reception is a dinner at a fancy restaurant so im still debating if a favor is even appropiate.
My fiance came up with the idea on giving our guests handmade wine. We have a local winery that you are able to make your own wine and bottle them, but since my fiance's family is out of town (we're in hawaii and they're in MO) having a bottle of wine while traveling is not a good idea. Let alone, the restaurant charges a cork fee of $25 PER BOTTLE!
Any help or suggestions is greatly appreciated!!!