Let me tell you, I applaud Meg for her decision to forgo favors at her wedding.
I mentioned before that my mom is an ebay addict. Well, months ago we were inspired by a barn wedding where the bride and groom gave out vintage salt and pepper shakers to their guests. My mom scoured the 'bay. Boxes of shakers were purchased (to be specific, a hundred vintage shakers were purchased). When we finally got around to opening them we realized they were nothing like we expected. I changed my mind. The shakers had to go. They are now tucked away in the back of my mom's closet.
image from hereThen it was my mom who decided a great green favor idea would be to give our guests bonsais. Again, she turned to the 'bay. A box of bonsai jade trees was purchased. We had plans to scour the beach for bits of seashell and driftwood to decorate the planters. Then we started doing the math on how long it takes to prepare and plant bonsais. We were talking days upon days of labor. Nick started to sweat.
(If you look close enough you can actually see him sweating)I reasoned that we would spend days preparing these lovely bonsais for our guests, then come wedding day half of them would get left behind, and the ones that were actually taken by our guests would most likely just be discarded somewhere and left to die (I'm such a cynic).
Bonsais: out. Back to square one: knee-deep in favor hell.
My mom fell in love with an idea she saw in a book where the bride and groom made a special blend of tea for their guests and packaged it in a sack with a serving spoon. This is great because Nick and I are big tea drinkers, but that can get pretty spendy. Those serving spoons alone run about $3-$4. All I can envision is a drawer full of tea scoops that were left behind by guests. Tea scoops in the trash. Tea scoops on the floor.
tea spoon infuser hereI'm now pondering bags of saltwater taffy. Flavors. Packaging. Thrift.
I'm going insane.
Posts
16 comments:
I feel your pain! It's so hard to think of something that will be meaningful and that won't just get tossed in the trash---and that's budget conscious of course! I ended up going with homemade blondies and brownies, baked the day before the wedding in huge rectangular pans, cut into squares with the greatest of ease, then put in brown kraft paper boxes and tied with white organic cotton ribbon bought in bulk. A little time consuming but not too bad, and people thought they were really yummy! plus so much of it is the thought---rather than the actual object.
I love the idea of taffy because it's something you can pack up well in advance. I also have some great homemade candy recipes (like a salty sweet cashew brittle!) that are SUPER easy and REALLY delish if you want! Fudge would be tasty too...
P.S. Let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a pic of how my favours turned out, along with some great links to internet suppliers for packaging...
For our welcome bags we bought salt water taffy here and it was inexpensive :)
www.groovycandies.com/GC2SearchResult.asp?SR=1&textfield=salt+water+taffy&Submit=Go
Then I just put them in clear bags I found at Michaels and tied them closed.
Depending how much you wanted to spend you could also put them in small mason jars :) I love the salt water taffy idea :)
I think the taffy is a great idea. You can never go wrong with food. I bet food favors rarely get left behind!
Yes, I would love recipes/links!
Melissa, I think the mason jar idea is great too. I'm going to look into that. Ebay perhaps? ;)
I'm a littl ashamed of just how many "almost projects" I've purchased the materials for, only to abandon, long before finishing (and in most cases, long before beginning).
I like to think it's a sign of creativity that we come up with too many ideas to possibly be able to execute them ourselves. (But then, execution is why we have men, right?)
I say go for the bags of saltwater taffy! Favors are awkward because so often they are just random things with the couples name on them that get thrown into the junk drawer. We decided to do homemade cookies in Kraft tin tie bags from Paper Mart. It cost us $30 for 100 bags that have little glassine windows, and I bought marigold cotton ribbon for like $10. Cheap and delicious! And definitely something that I will be stoked to have leftovers of, although I don't know a single person who can pass up my mothers cookies!
I like the cookies idea.will most of ur guest like taffy? we are doing either chocolate dipped strawberries and or cookies. I figure almost everyone likes cookies. and im with you. . . I don't want to give anything that people will deem as crap and leave behind
I love the idea of edible wedding favors. That way if you don't want to bother with carrying them home, you just eat them on the way. I saw one wedding with Caramel apples, and it was tied with a ribbon and a little card that had the monogram and date on there. Those looked yummy!
I like the taffy idea, or cookies. You can't go wrong with yummy foods.
In fact, if you really really don't want to drive yourself crazy, just buy a bunch of cookies and have the caterer bring/set them out after dinner!!! 'Help-yourself' cookies! I was at a wedding where they did that, and it was awesome. So awesome that we did it at our wedding! And if you really wanted to be crafty, you could make a sign for the cookie display (ooh, or cookie & taffy display) that says something along the lines of "It was sweet of you to come" or "Love is sweet"....
We didn't have favors either, so don't stress over it. I know, it's always the little decisions that totally stress you out the most, but honestly, favors are not a huge deal. And like others have said - it's better to not spend much money there than to spend a lot and have people leave the stuff behind. If you are going to do favors, make sure they're 1) delicious and tasty if they're food 2)useful and pretty, but more useful than pretty, if they're anything else.
Hope you have a great weekend girlie!!!
You are a warrior. Stay strong. Saltwater taffy rules - in any flavor.
I'm skipping favors because I just can't think of anything that people will enjoy enough to justify the budget for it. I figure they're getting a great meal and a piece of cake out of the deal--they can do without a couple pieces of candy or a cheap tchotchke with my name on it.
F* the favors. You are making me tired.
I second kate & eastside, we just didn't. But more importantly, what in the name of all that is good and edible is saltwater taffy? Sorry, cross-cultural ignorance and I keep reading about it but never want to ask!
Ha! It's so funny that you mentioned me in the middle of the favor discussion, because I was reading it and every time I read the word favor my shoulders would tense up.
I'm with east side. I've never gotten a favor I kept, or ate, ever. Food is rad, but you are already feeding your guests and giving them cake too, so the taffy will land in the purse, and then, sadly, the hotel trash.
If you don't give it to them, they won't miss it. F* the favors! (but you know I'm biased...)
Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!
Post a Comment