Favor ideas

Lindsayhuerta16

Hey ladies!
  We have a pretty large guest list, 200+ people, and I need help picking out a wedding favor that is budget friendly. I was thinking a box with candies in it but is that cheap? We want something fun and memorable. Anyone have any good ideas? I am up for DIY ideas too!

thanks in advance!

MLandCJ

This is off the wall, but I was thinking lottery tickets.

SoonToBeMrsHoz

I think a lot of us married knotties will tell you the same thing, skip the favors and put that money towards something else.

My MIL really really wanted favors and her and my DH's cousins spent hours putting together boxes of Jelly Belly's in our wedding colors and sadly most of them got packed back up in boxes and taken back to her house at the end of the wedding because even though we put them on the tables, VERY VERY few people took them home and most of are going to waste...

carmen9311

box with candies is always fun! i've heard of people making a cd of their favorite songs for their guests, which could be a cheaper option. we also thought about doing a candy station with some cute paper bags for people to fill up on their own. i think that we are going to actually opt out of doing a wedding favor and we might put a donation in to our favorite charity in honor of our guests instead (we'll make a cute note to the guests telling them so). 

MLandCJ

Yeah, I agree with MrsHoz. I'm not planning on doing favors. I never enjoyed anyone else's favors.

ezzyv

I am doing these with a candy I have not determined inside. And I can use them as place cards so it isn't a complete waste. :-D

fallbride1109

Even at $1 a favor (which is almost impossible), you are looking at $200+ that is better spent elsewhere.  If you feel like you must do something, do something edible, or offer a candy, dessert or snack bar at the end of the night.  I do like boxes of chocolates at each place setting--but with such a large guest list, you are looking at alot of money that is again better spent elsewhere. 

And this is coming from a bride that actually DID favors.  I wish I had listened when I was advised not to.

its apelila

I dont want to do favors.  I am paying for our wedding and it's just something that I dont feel is necessary, for many of the above mentioned reasons.  My mother, on the other hand, is insisting there be favors, since "people expect them."   Fine, she can be  in charge of them.

The only favor I sorta liked were customizable bookmarks, seen online, but when I showed my mom, she said they looked really cheap and chintzy.  Yup.  Like pretty much every favor, unless you spend a fortune. 

Oh well... good luck!

Tiffany618

Ditto Edible favors!

I went to a wedding recently where they made their last initial out of chocolate.  Apparently they melted chocolate and poured them in molds.... then wrapped them in clear plastic bags and tied them with ribbon.  Probably pretty time consuming, but it seems like it would be very budget friendly and it was really cute!

mseale

We had an M&M theme (Michelle and Mike)... so I just bought a few of the 10lb candy bags of m&m's from Sams and tied those up in some tulle.  Cute, took us 2 hours one afternoon, and pretty inexpensive.

serlace

We're doing a candy buffet.  The little take-out boxes were very inexpensive (see stephiehall's bio, because that's where I got the idea - I believe we bought them through papermart.com).  I'm currently tying ribbon around them all.  We will still have to buy the candy - probably at Sam's or Costco, so we can buy in bulk. 

I do agree with PPs though, that favors can be skipped. 

NMac2010

I didn't think I wanted to do favors at first either. But then we decided to, and spent about $200.

We did picture frame coasters. They came 2 in a package. On the front coaster, we put an e-pic of DH and I, and had "Thanks for sharing our day" printed on it. A friend of mine did all the printing and editing of the photos for us. She's an aspiring photographer so she is good at that stuff, and it didn't cost us anything. The back coaster we left blank because we knew most people besides a few family members would throw out our picture and use their own after the wedding.

We had lots of guests tell us how much they liked them, and we barely had any left over at the end of the night. One girl said she loved the idea so much she wants to use it at her wedding next year. One of my co-workers brought them to work, took out our picture, and put in a picture of her baby girl and uses it at her desk.

So, I think it just depends on what you do, your guests, and all the factors. They're not always a waste of money!

Not to mention, DH and I have a set on our coffee table that we plan on putting a wedding photo in!

fallbride1109

Hee, Lacy, isn't tying that ribbon FUN?!! 

I loved my favors--it's just that looking back on it, it wasn't worth the time and expense.  But then again, I kinda went overboard.  For 200+ guests though, I don't know if I would have tackled it.

NMac2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_favor-ideas?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:102Discussion:419240ae-4dd6-425b-821b-a190d1513026Post:5ab3c184-9c71-419b-a379-fe020b586147">Re: Favor ideas</a>:
[QUOTE]Hee, Lacy, isn't tying that ribbon FUN?!!  :) I loved my favors--it's just that looking back on it, it wasn't worth the time and expense.  But then again, I kinda went overboard.  For 200+ guests though, I don't know if I would have tackled it.
Posted by stephiehall[/QUOTE]

We worked pretty hard on ours. We had to take them all out of the boxes they came in, untie the ribbon, and tie them back on once we put the pictures in. But, DH and I did it together and it's something we look back on and laugh. So, it made a memory for us.

We could have used that money elsewhere, indeed. But for us, it was money well spent :)

linzcw04

We had custom koozies made for like 79 cents per koozie - they were supper cute and arrived quickly. You can check them out at kustomkoozies.com
There should be a picture in my bio of our finished product

bethlovesjim

My mother made homemade pickles for us.  She grew the cucumbers this sumer, and just finished pickling them a few weeks ago.  Our wedding is in July, so they will have plenty of time to pickle and get nice and tasty!  We are also going to do salsa, in the same manner, homemade. Hopefully jim's Aunt will take on that task for us... if not, then we may be buying the salsa (which I kinda really dont want to do)  We like the homemade factor.
The theme is Red and Green, and Pickles are FI's favorite, and Salsa is my favorite!
We plan on decorating the jars with custom labels, maybe ribbon, we will see.

prlmrg08

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_favor-ideas?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:102Discussion:419240ae-4dd6-425b-821b-a190d1513026Post:cd56fb00-fad8-4fec-aa1c-6c837a4c3c6a">Re: Favor ideas</a>:
[QUOTE]Even at $1 a favor (which is almost impossible), you are looking at $200+ that is better spent elsewhere.  If you feel like you must do something, do something edible, or offer a candy, dessert or snack bar at the end of the night.  I do like boxes of chocolates at each place setting--but with such a large guest list, you are looking at alot of money that is again better spent elsewhere.  And this is coming from a bride that actually DID favors.  I wish I had listened when I was advised not to.
Posted by stephiehall[/QUOTE]

This....

Or make a donation to a charity of your liking in honor of your guests...

prlmrg08

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_favor-ideas?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:102Discussion:419240ae-4dd6-425b-821b-a190d1513026Post:13e23388-5d8b-4ae9-82d7-d7ada90a5f68">Re: Favor ideas</a>:
[QUOTE]My mother made homemade pickles for us.  She grew the cucumbers this sumer, and just finished pickling them a few weeks ago.  Our wedding is in July, so they will have plenty of time to pickle and get nice and tasty!  We are also going to do salsa, in the same manner, homemade. Hopefully jim's Aunt will take on that task for us... if not, then we may be buying the salsa (which I kinda really dont want to do)  We like the homemade factor. The theme is Red and Green, and Pickles are FI's favorite, and Salsa is my favorite! We plan on decorating the jars with custom labels, maybe ribbon, we will see.
Posted by bethlovesjim[/QUOTE]

I have a REALLY good (and easy) Salsa recipe that I make if you dont want to buy the salsa!

serlace

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_texas-dallas-ft-worth_favor-ideas?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:102Discussion:419240ae-4dd6-425b-821b-a190d1513026Post:5ab3c184-9c71-419b-a379-fe020b586147">Re: Favor ideas</a>:
[QUOTE]Hee, Lacy, isn't tying that ribbon FUN?!!  :)
Posted by stephiehall[/QUOTE]

No! :)  You should see my dining room table right now.  It's covered in little white boxes, ribbon, stickers, little sticky glue dots.  It's a pain!  I'm just glad I have all the stuff this far out, so I can work on like 10 boxes a night. 

fallbride1109

If I had to do it over, I totally would have splurged for colored or frosted boxes and just added the sticker!  They were a labor of love, I'll tell ya!

KellyLovesJames

We're doing chocolate covered apples!  As a bonus... they are our favorite treat and we'll have family in town, so if there are several left over... YAY us! 

DFWIndian

We have 500 guest now... We decided to do favors. We are doing little shot glasses with candy in them and wrapped. We are only doing 1 favor for every two people. Most of our friends are already married or coming in family sets. I don't want a bunch leftover, but I hope it'll be enough.