Find an vintage dresser and fill it with jars of candy or kettle corn.
Garden Wedding
Stack personalized handmade craft beer soaps wrapped
with a thank you message from the couple.
Winter Wedding
Cover the table with a light dusting of “snow” and set out nests of Jordan Almonds. Festive and fun.
Vintage Wedding
Stacked suitcases topped with warm throws
for the guests to grab as the evening gets cooler.
Bend the rules!
There is nothing wrong with sticking to traditions, just as there is also nothing wrong with bending the rules — just a little bit!
When planning a wedding it’s easy to get so wrapped up in your expectations that some details slip your mind. Just remember keep it simple and easy. An elegant visual of easy to grab favors is a sure bet and your guests will love the effort. This is your day. Have fun!
Your guests will leave feeling like it really was the best day ever!
This past week, a bride-to-be started a WeddingWire discussion concerning wedding favors. She was asking for unique wedding favor suggestions and mentioned her intention to put the couple’s name on whatever it was they decided to get…
…and then the comments came.
Many comments included some great ideas [highlights follow], but there were more than a couple posts that were not just against the idea of personalized favors, but against any favors. A few of these comments were served up with a heaping side of attitude.
Most of the doom-and-gloomers reached their conclusion after their own favors had been left behind to be gathered up and tossed after the event — unloved and unappreciated — “a waste”. Their conclusion, “don’t bother with the favors, nobody wants them”. I disagree. Your personal experience doesn’t mean that all wedding favors are “a waste,” it may just mean that your choice of a gift didn’t connect with your guests.
To those whose gifts were “left at the alter,” why forecast disaster and disappointment for everyone? Whether or not to include a particular favor is a decision that requires more thought than it may seem — and with so many wedding related decisions to make, this one often is left undecided until there is not enough time — or money — to make the optimal choice.
I have summarized my pick of the many awesome suggestions that were included in the responses to help get your creative juices flowing while you still have time to dream big.
The “DIY “solution: edible and not
Weddingwire.com
Advantages: a personal gift without being personalized; truly unique, can be very affordable
Disadvantages: if you don’t already have a knack for making what you are thinking of doing— this is a really bad time to start; lots-of-guests means lots-of-hours baking/sewing/glueing and assembling; may require that it be done or completed at the last moment.
Examples: a mini-loaf of bread & some jam; hand-crafted stained glass candle holders; pop-corn seed jars with custom finish and personalized label, small jars of homemade apple butter for a fall wedding; miniature cookbooks containing the couple’s favorite recipes.
Advantages: edible, not as hard to organize and make happen as a DIY
Disadvantages: can get expensive, may need to be “last-minute”
Examples: so many great ideas… jars of honey from the beekeeper groom; bottles of wine from the vineyard where he proposed; take-home Krispy Kreme doughnuts (my personal favorite – I miss my Krispy Kreme’s right off the conveyor belt…); cupcakes in personalized to-go boxes; bags of coffee beans that say “the perfect blend,” or bags of tea that say “love is brewed”. I mean really – who can be upset with gifts like these?
The “coordinated” solution: favors tied to theme or individual passion
Advantages: able to purchase and/or assemble ahead and check-it off the list; can be used as part of decor or do double duty as escort cards or seating assignments
Disadvantages: could be costly; may not be appreciated by everyone
Examples: $1 lottery tickets in an envelope stamped “may the odds be ever in your favor”, for a Hunger Games theme; mini Moet champagne bottles; plantable seed heart shaped favors that double as a seating chart; gum ball machines that double as place card holders.
With some thought, effort and not necessarily a lot of money, there are plenty of favor options available that your guests will appreciate receiving and you will enjoy providing. Let the naysayer comments roll off your back and remember – it’s your party.
Don’t overlook the little things. How will you set the stage with your place cards? Place cards and their holders add a little ease of elegance to the event by gently guiding each guest to their seat.
Don’t want to have placecard holders for the guests? Use them to identify food on the buffet or which coffee is decaffeinated or regular (you don’t want to get that mixed up!).
Or, perhaps you’re tired of plain old place card holders and you want to give out something in lieu of traditional favors. How about a simple recipe for cookies elegantly displayed on a card – prop them up on guests plates with an antique holder to take home.
Don’t stress and have fun. After all the memory is also in the making.
Faux Birch Log Card Holders (package of 6)Silver Ball Place Card Holders (set of 8)Antique White Stationery Holder
Derek and I have been partners for almost 10 years. Our ten year mark is somewhere hidden within the 2016 year so we thought it might be cool to celebrate our 10 years with our wedding date. We’ve never quite pinned down the exact date because we can’t find “THE” date that made sense to celebrate. Gays have had to be creative with anniversary dates. Rent U-haul /move in day or our first debut at the club as a couple day… and on they go. Good times. We needed a wedding date so we had to decide. As we wandered through the year of our meeting we considered:
The date we first met. We met sometime in the spring of 2006 at the gym. For a while we probably just said hi or smiled at each other before making actual conversation. Neither of us could remember an exact day, so that one was out.
Our first full-on conversation: I won’t go into any awkward details here but I will say it lead to our first “date”.
Our first “date”. We can’t remember the actual day but boy do we remember the “date”. Two hours of actually watching a DVD, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”; slowly finding our way to a cuddle which then lead to kissing and well you get the picture. We do know this was sometime in April just before my, now our, son’s first birthday.
Our 2nd, 3rd or 4th date. Sometime in October. These were actual dates. One of them was Dinner at a Sushi restaurant on Beverly in LA —thank you Noshi Sushi! We saw Colin Ferguson from Eureka there and he became our touchstone to the moment. Chopped fish and Jack Carter. Pretty romantic. Cash only.
The first time we said “I love you”. This one we do know. January 1st, 2007 at 12:01:01 AM. Some moments deserve their own special date, so we left that alone too.
The point ends up being we could not really choose one overly romantic moment over the other. So we decided to pick a date that has meant something to us as long as we’ve known each other. A date that combines much of who we are — a family. We chose June 19th, 2016 – Fathers Day.
We are dads. It’s something we love being. We love being a family, with us, our son, two dogs and a water bug named Shawn our son keeps in a jar. We love having family dinner together [most] every night and talking about our day even when our son doesn’t want to talk…especially then. We love movie nights with the three of us on the couch staring at the TV; dogs sleeping on the floor next to one of us. We love flying kites and game night. We love shuffling our son to school or soccer. We love all of it.
Ok so I just re-read all that and it does sound a little perfect pollyanna. So don’t get me wrong, we don’t love it all – all the time. Those “other” moments are for a separate blog post – a bottle of wine and a quiet & kid-free house post.
Anyway, It’s who we are. We are dads. Fathers Day seemed like the perfect fit. It will be the best father’s day gift ever.
One reason David and I started Taylor Street Favors was to leverage our experiences as gay men and as an adoptive family to support and encourage those whose lives resonate with ours. Too often, same sex couples still must search out reaffirming and supportive businesses and products, particularly when it comes to new territory like marriage equality and raising children. Negative and judgmental messages are part of our everyday. Most of these slights, taken in isolation, could be ignored, but added together they can become more potent and internalized.
For me, early morning impressions just feel bigger and stick longer. Phasers and filters are not fully functioning. That makes what happens during my 5:45 a.m. spin class a bigger deal. And since moving from Portland, Oregon to the central coast of California, I’ve noticed more than a change in the weather.
The spin instructor’s comment was intended as a joke about this area’s reputation as socially conservative. He was hoping to get a rise from the sleepy early morning crowd. He did. What followed his comment were a number of generic gay insult one-liners from a few of the men to my right. I was instantly transported back in time [a l-o-n-g way back] to re-experience as a young adult that vague sense of shame and embarrassment for being who I am — guess one’s chronological age doesn’t mean much when it comes to being the butt of jokes and ridicule. I didn’t notice anything from the women in the room. Either these men were too loud, the room was too dark or — hopefully — the more evolved sex of our species just didn’t think the comments were funny or appropriate. I doubt anyone in the room intended to offend.
This was a great example of a mind-set — homophobia — so baked into our culture that it passes for acceptable banter. Reinforced for me that a business like Taylor Street Favors, with an intentionally inclusive and welcoming message, can make a difference. Being able to shop at a store that intentionally presents the LGBTQ community and modern family celebrations in positive, everyday displays matters. It matters not just to gays and lesbians, but also to our friends, our families, our children. It matters to our future.
What happened next got me up and over. The woman on my left caught my eye and let me know with just the slightest roll-of-her-eye all was well and she was glad I was spinning next to her. I returned to the moment. We had our imaginary riders to chase down in front of us and the instructor was already telling us to stomp on those pedals and dig-deep.
You can guess the group I imagined in front of me as I passed without looking back.
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