How many wedding favours have you received, and how many do you remember?
Image by Studio Rouge
Wedding favours are a wonderful way to reflect your interests as a couple. Love gardening or being in the great outdoors – think about bee bombs or seed packets. Love a good party – try drink vouchers or personalised shot glasses. They don’t have to cost a lot to mean a lot either. We’ve seen almost everything over the years so we thought we’d list some of our biggest hits and greatest newcomers to the growing world of wedding favours:
Off to a flying start
A growing trend is to provide welcome bags instead of the traditional parting gift. It’s all about making your friends and family feel welcome, thinking about what you would give them if they were staying with you in your home. Small hampers left in their hotel rooms will ensure they know you’re thinking about them right from the off. Consider including bottles of water, light snacks, painkillers, a copy of the plan for the day, local treats etc.
Keeping it local
Speaking of local treats perhaps include something to take home that they’ll be able to eat or drink while also supporting businesses in the area. Some jam or chutney from the farmers market (local to you or local to your wedding venue) or a handmade trinket from a local craftsperson. We love liz, from LoveHeart Wood, who creates contemporary wooden gifts, favours and place names. You could even make a day of it and speak to some of the vendors and taste the products available before deciding.
We made it!
Why not try your hand at some DIY. Make your own preserves (an oldie, but a goodie!), create pre-measured cake mix in your favourite flavours, create a wedding hangover kit (paracetamol, eye mask, ear plugs, vitamin tablets etc). They don’t even have to be entirely homemade, bulk order some plants and place in hand painted pots. You could even make it part of your pre-wedding events and gather some friends and family to help you over a glass (or four) of something bubbly…
Light of my Life
An old favourite is a scented candle, and it’s a favourite for a reason. Order a few spare and light them on the day, this will let your loved ones recreate the feel of the day later while they reminisce over the Insta pics!
FUN-ctional
We’ve all been to a wedding or two where we’ve seen unwanted favours left on tables as the night winds down, avoid this by looking for things that your guests will want to keep (or consume!). Personalised bottle stoppers (for wine or even gin) make a great gift. If you’d like to light sparklers at the end of the night, gift these on the tables, or a cute package of after dinner mints ensures they’ll all be used and appreciated! You could even box them up and label them to double them up place names at your Wasing Park wedding.
Aw…sweet!
Who doesn’t love a sweet treat? Let’s be honest, everyone will probably eat them before the starters are served! We’ve seen our fair share of initialled biscuits, jars of sweets and personalised chocolates. Cocoapod can provide gorgeous chocolate treats with your guest’s initials on, maybe use them to double up as place names.
Charity begins at home
There are so many worthwhile charities that offer alternative wedding favours, a quick search will show you endless options. For example, Wildflower Favours supply seed packets containing British-grown wildflower seeds. They support a number of environmental charities such as Action Against Hunger and Tree Aid, the seed packets offer a donation to a chosen charity from each packet sold.
Love is a Lottery…
Buy a cheap scratch card or lottery ticket for each of your guests and place them in adorable scratch card wallets. Fingers crossed you get a winner! Top tip – when buying lottery tickets you should save all of the numbers on a spreadsheet so that you can give people a heads up if there’s a winner!
Just remember that wedding favours don’t have to be perfect and shouldn’t cause you any stress, so pick wisely and don’t forget that they should be fun and not something that keeps you awake at night!
