I just saw a picture of someone who had cards at every seating place at the reception that indicated the couple would be donating $10 to charity for every guest instead of handing out favors. Because who remembers wedding favors, anyway? What do you guys think of that?
Also, follow up, I was thinking that if we do that for ours, I would make it a bit more personal due to our situation. Here's what I'm thinking:
"In 2004, Aubrey lost her father and Richard lost his mother to addiction related causes. In lieu of favors, we are therefore donating $10 for every guest to the Betty Ford Center in the hopes that recovery assistance will allow many more loving parents to attend their children's weddings."
I dunno, need to tweak it more, of course. I personally think it's a great idea to honor our parents that can't be at our wedding. However, some issues:
1. I want the message to be hard-hitting because it is such an important topic, but I also don't want to sound bitter towards our parents
2. My father died of causes related to smoking cigarettes. Is it okay to lump that under "addiction"? I don't want people to assume that other drug usage was going on that they don't know about.
3. I also don't want to be too specific about their particular addictions because his mother did die from a heroin overdose, and I definitely don't want to write that down.
Any suggestions here?