Wedding Favors & Wedding Planning

As your wedding planning gathers pace you will eventually come to the moment when it is time to consider your wedding favors. Whilst choosing the type and style of your favors is a hard enough task, knowing where to shop for them can prove a difficult choice too!

It is important that when you begin your shopping you not only stick to the budget you set out at the start of your wedding planning, but that you also make sure you order your favors in time for the wedding day! Ideally you should begin looking for your favors around six months before the wedding and aim to have ordered them by at least six weeks before.

These days most brides will purchase their wedding favors through online stores. There are many sites dedicated to favors and most will compete with each other in terms of price, discounts and offers. Check out two or three of these and take note of what their shipping terms are, minimum order levels for discounts and any special offers they may have. Many sites will also tempt you to sign up for their newsletter which may also carry a further discount code once you have signed up. Signing up for newsletters is a good idea as you will be informed whenever there is new stock, new offers, discounts and sales, meaning you can take advantage as soon as they become available.

Another way to purchase your wedding favors is to shop on your local high street. Some larger bridal stores may stock a range of wedding favors, whilst stationers, gift shops and dollar stores are all good places to find things suitable as favors. Be careful with dollar stores as sometimes the quality of the product is not always that good.

Supermarkets are another place in which wedding favors can be found. Think about gourmet teas, coffees and other foods such as chocolates or candies. Non-edible items such as candles or mini soaps can also be purchased relatively cheaply from supermarkets and you don’t need to worry about them arriving in time for the wedding!

If you are having a very large wedding and need to purchase favors for a large number of guests then wholesalers are your best option. Whilst many favor stores will offer quantity discounts, wholesalers can offer you better prices on large quantities and with cheaper shipping costs. Do some research online for favor and gift wholesalers, whilst locally you may find wholesalers for a range of goods such as giftwares and food and drink.

If you become a savvy shopper you will find that you can stretch your wedding favor budget beyond your expectations and achieve stunning, memorable favors that your guests will delight in.

Wedding favors are an important part of your wedding celebrations. These simple little gifts are a token of thanks to your guests from yourselves, for joining you on your special day. However, when many couples begin their wedding planning they fail to include them in their initial wedding budget.

There are those that do put them in of course, but the figure they apply is hopelessly unrealistic and they end up having to find extra funds later on to make up the difference. It is true that when you begin your wedding planning you will probably have no idea what your wedding favor will be, let alone an idea of how much they will cost. But there are ways to apply a figure to your budget which will be realistic and which will allow you a wide choice of favors and packaging when the time comes to purchase them.

As you work your way through your wedding budget you will probably be researching prices for various things either by a direct call to vendors or through the internet. This same method of research should be applied to your wedding favors. As most wedding favors are sold online it is a simple task to visit a few of the large favor sites and to gauge an idea of cost.

It is always advisable to work on a per head basis when estimating the cost of your favors, rather than applying a lump sum from your total budget. The majority of wedding favors fall in the $2 to $3 price range, but you will also need to add in the cost of packaging, decorations such as ribbon, tags and labels, shipping and taxes. Many vendors offer discounts for bulk purchases and free shipping on orders over a certain amount.

Whilst these offers are certainly worth considering you shouldn’t take the potential savings off your budget as you do not yet know how many favors you will need to purchase. If you have already drawn up your guest list then you can take the number of guests on it as your starting point. You don’t have to give favors to those who will sit on the top table as it is traditional to give them more expensive gifts as a thank you.

Typically you can work out the cost of your favors by adding together the cost of the favor, the packaging and decorations together. Shipping is generally a fixed price so find this out and divide the figure by the number of favors you will need. If you know how much any applicable taxes will be, do the same again. This will give you a price per head for your favors, which you can then multiply by the number of guests to give you a figure to enter on your budget. As you received replies to your invitations you can adjust this figure according to the number of acceptances.

Weddings during the festive season make for extra special affairs, perhaps because the time of year is so strongly associated with family and reunions. So if you are planning a festive wedding then here are some ideas for festive wedding favors to delight your guests.

• Bottles of mulled wine or sachets of mulled wine spice with a recipe make for favors with a scent that is so evocative of the season. These can be even more special if you serve your guests a glass of mulled wine as a welcome drink at the reception.

• Christmas is a time when we like to indulge ourselves with an assortment of foods and confectionary. Give your guests favors consisting of festive candies such as candy canes, marzipan fruits, nuts and liquor chocolates.

• Treat your guests to some mince pies, gingerbread cookies or cinnamon cookies. You can have them iced in a festive theme as well.

• How about jars of preserves of condiments typically associated with the season. Try cranberry sauce, spiced apple sauce or preserves such as marmalade.

• Give your guests jars of homemade mincemeat as wedding favors complete with a recipe for the ultimate mince pies!

• If homemade mincemeat is not your thing then include some pastry cutters with the recipe.

• Look out for scented candles which have festive scents such as mulled wine, cinnamon and apple or pine trees.

• Christmas decorations have to be the ultimate festive wedding favor and possibly the first you thought of! Look out for personalized baubles or hanging photograph frames shaped like snowflakes.

• Check out your local Christmas shop for some unique glass baubles. Buy lots of different designs and give them out as wedding favors. The uniqueness in their design will make them treasured keepsakes for many years.

• Give your guests some festive tea light or candle holders. There will be a great range to choose from at this time of year, including stylish elegant designs and whimsical festive designs, so coordinating them to your wedding will be easy.

• The shops will also be full of stylish candles, including advent candles and carved or molded designs. Many people choose to never lit these instead using them as part of their Christmas displays every year, so they make ideal keepsakes and are perfect as wedding favors.

• Finally why not make your own CD’s of festive music. You could coordinate the songs to the style of your wedding, for instance a formal, traditional wedding could have traditional choir songs and festive hymns, whilst an informal wedding could have popular Christmas songs from the charts, such as Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

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The question of when to order your wedding favors, or to even start looking for them, is one which will plaque most brides during their wedding planning. When to start looking for favors will be dictated by the size of your wedding, the style of your wedding and your wedding theme if you are having one.

Unless you are purchasing edible favors then there really is no reason why you can’t look for them early on in your wedding planning. So long as you have set your wedding style, theme and colors you can start looking as soon as you want to. What you shouldn’t do is forget about them and leave it till the last minute to order them. Not only will you risk not receiving them in time but you may not have any time left in which to put them together.

It is usual to order your favors as soon as you have a firm idea of numbers. You may want to wait until you have your final numbers, although if you do end up with more favors than guests you could always send the extra one’s to those guests who couldn’t make it. By the same token, it is always a good idea to order slightly more favors than you may need in case of any last minute guests or even breakages.

As wedding favors should be unique and personal to your wedding it is a good idea to take your time to consider all your options before making your final choice. Visit several shops and websites for some ideas and use your wedding scrapbook to create a collage of potential favors and presentation ideas. Many brides will go through an agonizing decision making process when it comes to wedding favors so the more research you do and the more time you take to decide could help you to that Eureka! moment when you finally realize the perfect favors.

Edible favors need to be treated a little differently because of the issue of them going off before your big day. Most will keep for long periods of time, such as tea, coffee, candies and alcohol. However, favors such as cookies, cakes and chocolate brownie pops will not have such as long shelf life so you will need to check this out when you order.

Aside from the favors themselves you will need to think about how you will package and decorate them. Many favor stores will carry a selection of favor boxes and bags, however there are other stores that will carry far more extensive ranges as well as decorations, ribbons and tags.

If you order your favors and packaging separately take a note of the delivery times so you can be assured that both deliveries will arrive in time – it could be a potential disaster to have the packaging arrive but no favors!

Traditionally we associate crackers with Christmas, but they are a perfect design for wedding favors too. They are many companies now who will stock a range of wedding crackers to give as favors & many will offer the option to build your own by choosing your own papers, novelties & mottos.

Usually a cracker will consist of a snap (the bit that goes bang when you pull it), a motto or joke, a novelty/toy/gift & for Christmas crackers a paper hat. The beauty of using crackers for your wedding favors mean that your guests will be wowed to see something so elegant adorning their place settings & they will have great fun pulling them too. Crackers also offer up the potential to get guests interacting with each other & therefore creating a party atmosphere that is so often desired at weddings.

So what are your options for wedding favor crackers?

Ready Made – as mentioned earlier many cracker companies produce crackers for weddings, corporate functions & other occasions. However you will be restricted to a set choice of designs & inclusions, which can make coordinating them to your wedding style a difficult task.

Build-Your-Own – many of the aforementioned companies will also offer a build-your-own service where you can choose from a range of paper designs & inclusions. However, again you will be restricted to the choices they have in stock.

DIY Crackers – this one is for the creative brides amongst you, although they are not difficult to do. You will find cracker kits or components for sale through cracker companies & specialist craft stores. Generally they will consist of a card inner & a snap & perhaps a printable set of motto papers. It is then up to add your own gift & assemble the whole cracker with your choice of papers & decorations.

Making is probably the best option for most brides who want crackers as wedding favors as it gives them total freedom to coordinate them with their wedding. It is advisable to choose your cracker kit/components first so you know how big the cavity will be inside. Then you can choose your gift accordingly.

Scrapbook papers offer a fabulous range of patterns & styles to choose from allowing you to create some truly beautiful & unique favors. You can then decorate with ribbons, stick on gems & embellishments such as flowers.

For your motto you could simply have a thank message or choose something more unique:

· A poem

· An original piece of prose or poem written by yourself

· A joke

· A fortune

· A saying or anecdote

Wedding favor crackers make for entertaining & unique favors which will delight your guests & provide an elegant finishing touch for your reception tables.

Remember crackers are not just for Christmas – they are for weddings as well!