Favors at the reception?

KCLindgren · July 2013

Are you planning to do favors at the reception? What will your favors be?
Married girls, what did you do?

Looking for inexpensive ideas. Thanks!

MoonlightSilver · July 2013

We skipped favors. Saved a ton of money. Most people only like favors if they are food.

gracediva · July 2013

I will not be doing favors (I think)

Moonlightsilver.... I am in love with your wedding photo. Did you get a frame for your house? It's really amazing.

Ohashes11 · July 2013

We are planning to have a whisky and cigar bar for the guys instead of favors. I'm thinking of doing pashminas for the ladies since April can be chilly. Another idea I liked was doing a donation.

Teacherbride77 · July 2013

We're not doing favors, in lieu of favors we are making a donation to the carcinoid cancer foundation in honor of my aunt & to the boys&girls club in our town. We plan on letting our guests know why we are passing on the favors.

Ohashes11 · July 2013

I think some organizations even give you cards saying a donation was made for you to leave at each place setting. I know st Jude's does. I've been to a lot of weddings that did donations instead and I think it's a great idea. I mean like someone else said unless its food no one usually cares about the favors, better to make it something meaningful

Aray82 · July 2013

I've been thinking about something coffee-related (flavored stirrers, chocolate-covered espresso beans...) since FI and I met at a coffee shop. I'd love to do cookies or little bags of coffee from the place where we met, but since the wedding is in my hometown the shipping costs might be a bit prohibitive. Also, totally second MoonlightSilver--only wedding favors I've ever used have been food!

KCLindgren · July 2013

Aray82 said:

I've been thinking about something coffee-related (flavored stirrers, chocolate-covered espresso beans...) since FI and I met at a coffee shop. I'd love to do cookies or little bags of coffee from the place where we met, but since the wedding is in my hometown the shipping costs might be a bit prohibitive. Also, totally second MoonlightSilver--only wedding favors I've ever used have been food!

Love this idea!!! So cute and personal!

KCLindgren · July 2013

I don't think I'll be doing favors. Since the majority of our guests are from out of town, I will probably do welcome baskets in the hotel rooms instead.

MoonlightSilver · July 2013

gracediva said:

I will not be doing favors (I think)
Moonlightsilver.... I am in love with your wedding photo. Did you get a frame for your house? It's really amazing.

@GraceDiva We're really bad newlyweds... we haven't put any wedding pictures up on the walls, even though we have frames and even a canvas print.

Re: donations instead of favors - please be careful doing that. Some organizations, while sounding nice, can make people upset if you donate "in their honor" or in their name. It might be best to just make the donation and not tell your guests about it.

shanhou3 · July 2013

My best advice would be that whatever you decide about favors, don't overthink it... if you go with a favor, pick something YOU think is cool and don't worry what other people will think! The truth is, most of your guests will probably like whatever you pick because they love you, and then they will probably forget about it by a few hours after the wedding. So you might as well go with something YOU and your future husband like (even if that ends up being nothing at all!)!

I'm not even sure people will notice if you don't do anything... I was thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure one of my girlfriends who got married last year didn't do a favor at all. If she did, I literally have no memory of it whatsoever. I don't even think I noticed this at the wedding, and unlike most of her guests I was planning a wedding myself at the time, so you'd think of all people I would have noticed! But nope.

We did custom beer koozies (despite me worrying people would think they were tacky, after reading some snotty posts on the knot of course), and our guests were seriously obsessed with them. Even non-beer drinkers were using them for their cocktails, and one friend somehow even got it wrapped around his wine glass. Haha! Earlier today one of our guests actually emailed me to ask where I got them because her friend saw it at her house and wants to do it for her wedding. It makes me happy to know that even a few people will keep them around the house for a while, and I love having a few leftovers that I use at home, it just adds a little jolt of excitement to drinking an otherwise boring beer :-) We got them at totallyweddingkoozies.com, they had really cute designs & colors and were VERY affordable (I think they were about $1 each). To make them nicer, you could fill them with a little bag of candies, a little note to your guests, or some other trinket.

I also thought about doing a donation, but in the end I thought favors would be fun so I did that. I've been to weddings where they made donations instead though, and always thought it was very nice! You also don't have to disclose the amount of the donation, so you can save a bit of money this way by making whatever size donation your budget can comfortably afford ;-) You could even use the "200 free business cards" from Vistaprint to print off little "a donation has been made in your honor..." cards for your guests, and voila! An inexpensive "favor" that does some good for the world!

banana468 · July 2013

We did glass sailboat tea light holders with a tea light for all guests. We tied them up in tulle and they had a removable label that said Banana468 & Hub, August 4, 2007. We hoped for a waterfront wedding and instead had our reception on a golf course. This was part of our way of bringing the water to Monroe (and DH popped the question at Harkness too).

KCLindgren · July 2013

banana468 said:
We did glass sailboat tea light holders with a tea light for all guests. We tied them up in tulle and they had a removable label that said Banana468 & Hub, August 4, 2007. We hoped for a waterfront wedding and instead had our reception on a golf course. This was part of our way of bringing the water to Monroe (and DH popped the question at Harkness too).

Adorable!!

Favors at the reception?

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