wedding favor costs

sunflower331

I'm just trying to get an idea of what the average cost for wedding favors are for around 130 guests.....their are some really cute/practical favors, but they add up really fast....if anyone can help me w/this, I'd appreciate it...thanks

JBs_Bride

Edible favors are a great way to go.  We had chocolates and that's a pretty popular choice, but I've seen little jars of local honey, hot sauce, jelly beans, etc. It doesn't have to be super complicated, tho. It can just be a spoonful of M&M's in a favor box (they have those at Michael's, so if you have a coupon, it wouldn't be super expensive).

Another fun idea would be a photobooth. Everyone takes home their pictures and some of the companies will also give you a copy of the pics.

Karen's MOH

We are doing small jars of pumpkin butter and they are $2 each. Our wedding is about the same size as yours and we did 1 per couple.

I wasn't going to do favors if it was going to cost much more than that.

Blueyed228

We are doing a yankee candle votive in a box with personalized matches.  We have 270 invited so we wanted to do something we knew people would use.  You can get the votives cheaper at the Wrentham Outlets.  Total cost with box and ribbon came out to about $3-4 a guest.  The box and ribbon was the biggest expense.

This was the end result.

Lauren6277

Our are about $1.25/person. We're doing dress and tux boxes with chocolate. We splurged on the boxes for presentation (about .70 each) then found Dove chocolate for cheap at Target. I bought  inexpensive ribbon for the dress boxes.

Starmusica

we had favors for 160 and only spent about $250 or so. That included salt water taffy for each person in a personalized box..... it was a big hit I don't think you need to spend a lot to get a lot

megandjay

Edible favors are best. Nothing with a monogram with your wedding date/initials.

However, you can certainly skip favors to save your budget.

mjmessina

This place has some decent favors at a good price.  I bought coasters and frames for seating cards.  Both were nice.http://www.lovelyweddingstore.com/

redsoxfan619

Karen's MOH, where did you get the pumpkin butter? I was thinking of doing something like that.

Karen's MOH

@ Redsoxfan: I got it from Tyler at Tyler's Sweet Revenge (www.tylerssweetrevenge.com) I just picked them up this week and we HAD to taste test one and it is SO good! Highly recommend. He even customized the label for us.

jkepros

We skipped favors, but had other "freebies" instead!

-At the church we did bottles of water & a drink station. (<$20)
-We had sandalwood fans at the church for people (if they were hot). (~$35)
-We had umbrellas available for guests (good thing bc it rained!) ($75)
-We got inexpensive handkerchiefs that I ironed-on a pattern of something that was important to us (I printed them out with that paper that you print on to make your own iron-ons) (~$40??)
-Instead of throwing rice or birdseed or something like that, when we went down the aisle we had our guests ring tiny silver bells, and most guests took home the bells. (~$30)
-A few people took home the pew flowers (free//part of our flower budget)
-We had plastic wishbones in a bowl at the reception that some people took home as favors (~$90)
-We had flip-flops for guests (~$40)

Total we spent about $3-4/guest for ALL of these things, although we didn't use everything and I sold some of the extras after the wedding, so it was probably closer to $3/guest. 

No one minded not having a specific favor, and because we had so many things, people basically just took whatever they wanted/would actually use, so nothing was wasted.

Several people have told me that they've used the fans, umbrellas, and flip-flops since our wedding.  And a few guests were super excited--they commented on how they were glad they brought a big bag to bring home all the "goodies."

You don't have to spend a lot, and honestly, favors aren't missed!!!!  I think if you ARE going to do something, edible favors are best (we certainly prefer them to picture frames, coasters, candles, wine glasses, etc).  Oh, and another cool one I got once was recipes from the dinner (the groom's dad had passed, but had been a chef, and they had the caterer use some of his dad's recipes for the dinner, and then gave the guests copies).

noodle_oo

We set a budget for favors first and then found what fit our budget.  We didn't think it was worth spending more than $2 per person for favors, so we ended up doing Godiva chocolate truffles (the new prewrapped ones, they call gems, are like 80 cents each).  So we got 2 truffles per person, little boxes and ribbon and they were less than $2 each.

As a guest, I personally find favors rather useless unless I can eat them.  I've gotten wine corks, ice cream scoops, picture frames, votives with the couple's names on it and other useless stuff.  I always felt guilty to throw them away, so they usually sit on a shelf collecting dust for a year before I toss them.  Very few people need these things, so go with food, everyone likes that.  My favorite is candy buffets.  YUM!

christinymarini

jkepros- where did you get the flip-flops/how much did you spend per pair if you don't mind sharing?  This is something that I am thinking of doing because my venue has a strict policy about wearing shoes on the dance floor and I know that I have been to at least one wedding where my feet are killing me and I end up barefoot.