Need Ideas for Unique Wedding Favors

[JenCooks]

I'm in my best friends wedding in April and she has asked me to help her come up with an idea for unique wedding favors. I can't even remember what I usually get as favors at wedding and her fear is that she will spend money on something that no one will use or remember after the wedding. We are both foodies but know that others that aren't probably wouldn't use or appreciate any food related gifts.

The only unique idea I came up with so far was for her to donate the money she would have spent on favors to her favorite charity and let the guests know that is what she did instead of giving favors by announcing it at the reception. Other than that I can't think of a single gift idea that everyone would use and wouldn't be a waste of my friends money.

Help!! I've read a lot of other posts and I know you are a creative bunch so I am really counting on you for some great ideas. :D

[Robyn1007]

I really super duper like the charity idea! Honestly, I get so tired of things but feel really guilty throwing things like wedding favors out (I know, I know my issue but still) so I would love knowing that someone who needs the cash more than I will benefit.

[leightx]

The only 2 wedding favors that I can remember and actually use are an engraved pint glass, and an engraved shot glass. Both have the couple's first names and the wedding date.

[615bride]

My DH and I did that. We donated the money to the local greyhound rescue (where we got our dog) and had cards printed to put at each place setting letting the guests know. A lot of people commented that they thought it was a nice idea.

Good friends of ours had a wedding (not in Dec) where they gave Christmas ornaments. Beautiful glass ornament (matching their "color") with a small ribbon around the top with their names and the date. We think of them whenever we put it on our tree.

My brother gave everyone an ice cream scoop filled with Hershey's Kisses. The tag said "a scoopful of kisses from the mr. and mrs." It was cute and we use our scoop!

[Terri_A]

I don't know how unique it is, but when I got married we gave mini bottles of champagne. I know that several of my friends saved theirs and we all drank them together later ( a few still had them when I got divorced, so we had a bit of a party with them! ).

[cumulus]

My wedding is going to be a Friday night, and out favors are going to be gift certificates to the local Farmer's Market for the next morning. That way people will get to have a nice, homey breakfast and also get to get pit amd experience the city the way we remember it :) (Or at least, that's what I'm hoping for!)

[ErinM]

My wedding is going to be a Friday night, and out favors are going to be gift certificates to the local Farmer's Market for the next morning. That way people will get to have a nice, homey breakfast and also get to get pit amd experience the city the way we remember it :) (Or at least, that's what I'm hoping for!)

And with any luck, people will be up before 2 pm to enjoy the market! ;)

And Dane County will love you....

[veschke]

The charity idea seems to be popular these days, so I don't know if it's unique, but it would certainly be a nice gesture. I was just thinking about my wedding last night, and was glad that we hadn't spent a ton of money on favors (we had little bottles of bubble stuff, which the guests used instead of throwing rice or whatnot--I ran off labels at work and put little ribbons on the bottles -- cheap!).

If not that, I'd definitely go with something edible or otherwise meant to be *used* in a fairly short time frame. There's only so many little candles and doodads that anyone needs, and one does tend to feel guilty about throwing such things away. :) I'm sure they'll remember the wedding no matter what!

[ktg0930]

We gave away flower bulbs as our favors. Each person got 2 bulbs in tulle with a tag that had instructions for planting. We got married in the spring and these were bulbs that could be planted in the spring. The tag said something about the bulbs growing like our love. Now it seems corny, but I got the idea from several magazines.

As with most other gifts of this type, I prefer the consumable favor. I've received beach balls, CDs, and other such favors and they just end up being thrown away.

[MinEaston]

I like the charity idea. We didn't even do favors at our wedding (12 years ago).

At another wedding I attended, the favors were tiny round ceramic boxes, hinged, with the bride & groom's names hand-painted on the bottom. I do in fact use this little box for earrings.

[LaraW]

We did a little "pouch" of tulle with Hershey's hugs and kisses in them. The tags said something like "Thanks for sharing our special day. Hugs and kisses from Jeff and Lara" and the date. It seems kind of corny but people liked them and they were consumable.

[avariell]

i love the xmas ornament idea and the ice cream scoop! so cute!!

my best friend's sister passed away from bone cancer before her wedding. instead of that whole fork on the glass thing to make the bride and groom kiss, i was in charge of a box and a bell - if you wanted them to kiss, you had to put money in the box to ring the bell. all the money was donated in her sister's memory to the make a wish foundation. i lovvve this idea (love the idea in relation to a money dance too).

[SusanMac]

*Love* the farmer's market idea! And the flower bulb idea.

I think it's tough to say w/out knowing more about the wedding. Formal/informal. Colors. Style of the whole event, ya know?

I went to a beach wedding this summer, and we all got flip flops, which I loved!

Our own wedding was at a dude ranch, so we gave everyone bandanas that were printed w/our wedding info. We also made home-brew beers w/a hand-drawn picture of us on the label. I know several friends still have kept their bottle after all these years.

[beckms]

We didn't do favors, but our centerpieces were beautiful ceramic blue flowerpots with homemade (by mom) potted plant arrangements of heliotrope and other small perennials. People were encouraged to take them home, and several people did.

[kim21]

I really like the donation idea, as well...it's a really meaningful way to honor their guests, their wedding, and the charity. Everybody wins.

[stefania4]

I like the charity idea, too. My sister and I spent HOURS, way past midnight, making her chocolate wedding favors and only about a third of the guests took them. And chocolate is popular!

The only caveat on the charity is that it works best when it's a mainstream, non-controversial cause. Donations to the Local Anarchists' Militia or the [Fill In Known Criminal's Name Here] Legal Defense Fund, generally not such a great idea for donating in honor of guests. :)

[bekki]

We filled small chinese take-out boxes (I found them online for super cheap) with some of our favorite snacks, like small cookies from a local company, candies like sweedish fish and necco wafers (my husband's favorites) etc. I also got some custom stickers that said something like "Sweet Dreams" and our names and the date. People really liked them, or at least the said they did :)

I've seen something similar where people put out a bar full of jars of candies with little bags and scoops so that people could basically make their own favors. There's tons of bulk candy online, so you can do it fairly inexpensively.
http://ourworld.cs.com/AdrienneGardner/candy_bar.JPG

[gertdog]

We gave truffles as favors- 1 large one per guest. People seemed to like them.

At a recent wedding in Atlanta we received a "6-pack" favor that was fun (but had to be $$$). It was a Coke 6-pack container that had two glass bottles of Coke (bride was from Atlanta), two mini-bottles of California wine (groom from CA), and then the other two compartments were filled with a Georgia peach and Vidalia onion salsa, and a small bag of California almonds. I liked that they chose things to reflect the places they grew up- that kind of thing doesn't *have* to be expensive.

At another wedding the favor was a wedding "survival" kit- really just a mini first-aid kit that had band-aids and tylenol, plus a mini-bottle of vodka and some bloody mary mix for a "hair of the dog" cure. It was fun, and it suited the wedding guests- I have never seen more alcohol consumed at a wedding!

[AndreaU]

I really like the consumable idea. I'm with others who get cluttered up with glasses, candles, picture frames, etc. I loved when our friends gave everyone a tree seedling, something like this: http://www.plantamemory.com/accent/seedlings-by-the-bunch.html

We did something similar to what bekki posted... help yourself favors!

[EmilyD]

I just saw today that St. Jude (http://www.stjude.org)(the children's hospital) does wedding favors and provides either a bookmark or insert for you to give the guests.

When I got married several years ago, we bought mini-tins of Altoids (about 1" x 1.5") for the guests. They were also shrink-wrapped so we made labels on the computer with our name & wedding date on them and stuck that on. Since the tins are metal, we also put a small magnet on each that coordinated with our decorations. Neither the tin nor the magnet stayed personalized so I felt like this was a good way to commemorate without leaving guests with something emblazoned with our names forever. And nearly all of them were taken from the table; we had just enough to keep a couple for ourselves and our moms. Best of all, I don't think we spent that much, though I don't remember the amount now. I do know that until we got closer to having everything else booked and a known cost, that favors were in the optional part of our budget til we knew we were under.

Have fun planning and executing the idea!

[DebGo]

add mine to the list of "very corny!"

for our wedding 10 years ago i made a contribution to an organic farm and they in turn contributed 75 packages of sunflower seeds -- i attached a 4x6 card which i made on computer that had our names/date but written across the top was, "he loves me, he loves me not, HE LOVES ME!"

most commented about how they would take them home and plant them and think of us when they bloomed! (of course that's the idea :rolleyes: )... a few years back my uncle who's an avid gardner sent me an envelope full of sunflower seeds along with a note saying how every year he harvested the seeds from the flowers and replanted some the following year and these were a few as a result of our original packet!

talk about a gift that keeps on giving! :p

[syzygy]

My DD gave out fortune cookies which she had printed up with 5 or 6 different "fortunes" (see here (http://www.weddingplanningwiz.com/0chapters/z-verses.htm) for some examples that are typical for weddings) or quotes that were meaningful to her and DSIL. They were a big hit and one of my favorite "candid" pix from the wedding was one that a guest did of a broken cookie with each of the "fortunes" displayed on the table.

If this interests you, you can google "custom fortune cookies" and there are loads of places out there that do this.

[gobluem82]

I was going to suggest flower bulbs as well. Some friends of our gave away lily bulbs as wedding favors a few years back, and every time they bloom, I think of our friends.

[erinlovesmarc]

we gave coasters...you can never have enough coasters when you have wood furniture! They were a set of 4 glass coasters etched with designs...they were pretty affordable too...

[SusanPC]

We had the woman that made our cake make cookies in the shape of the cake and decorate with our colors (Tiffany blue and silver, it was a Dec wedding). I love giving cookies as favors, recently did the same at a baby shower and a bridal shower I hosted.

[syzygy]

At a friend's son's wedding, as we left the reception, there were catering staff handing out small wax-paper bags with the bride & groom's name and date on it and inside was the most w o n d e r f u l huge warm chocolate chip cookie. OMG was that a great way to cap off the evening!!!

[schuh]

We didn't do favors -- it just wasn't a "thing" when I got married -- but I do like the idea of consumables.

A winery near me does small bottles of wine that can have a custom label on them. I've also seen different molded chocolates as favors.

For my stepsister's wedding, her sister did handmade votive candles that had herbs in them. There was a small sheet that explained what each herb symbolized.

[MrsReber]

The only unique idea I came up with so far was for her to donate the money she would have spent on favors to her favorite charity and let the guests know that is what she did instead of giving favors by announcing it at the reception. Other than that I can't think of a single gift idea that everyone would use and wouldn't be a waste of my friends money.



My best friend did this. Her brother died of lung cancer at 35 and her husband's aunt died of cancer as well. Both relatives had gone into hospice care so they donated the money they would've spent on favors to a hospice center. They wrote a wonderful card explaining it all, too. I thought that was great and extremely meaningful.

As for me, I was the wedding favor queen. I got matchboxes with our names on them. Not the regular matchbooks, but the boxes. I still have some (8 years later!). I also got M&M's in our wedding colors and put them into little favor boxes. At that time, I couldn't get them personalized, but now you can put any message you like on them. Our guests loved them- and devoured them. (I also had photo frame place cards and coasters. I love favors!)

My brother and SIL planned their wedding in about 6 weeks. It was a small wedding. They bought little boxes of Godiva chocolates (4 in a box) and put a personalized ribbon on it. Elegant and very simple- and very tasty.