Favours

I personally think they are a waste of money. The times I have had to gather them all up at the end of the wedding for the Bride to take them home after guest have left them on the table is untrue.

Most people leave them, Men never bother to even look at them. All they do is add to the table decoration in my opinion.

Oh i completely agree, i refuse to spend silly money on gifts on the table which inevitably get broken or left behind at the end of a drunken celebration!!lol. We are just having minuture baileys on our tables for everyone and this works out at a £1 per person - some might say stingey, but the people at our wedding will appreciate a little tipple! lol

I don't see the point in them personally. I've seen so may left behind. I'd rather spend the additional 50pence - £5 spent on each guest on more booze behind the bar!

There's definitely an expectation these days for more and more - with no regard to how much it's already cost the bride and groom (and/or their families) to provide them with the day's food, drink and entertainment to have them there.

You can do a lot for favours by using Ebay and being creative.

One example being tubes of 'love heart' sweets with personalised labels - you can buy a 3kg bag of mini tubes from Bookers for about £15 (if you know someone with an account), then print your own labels using L7160 (7x3) or equivalent labels on a colour printer, and "roll your own" very easily.

Our colourscheme is Hunter Green - Bendicks mints come in a dark green wrapper. You can also get large quantities of various colour organza bags from Ebay for pennies.

The traditional favours is 5 sugared almonds which represent "fertility, longevity, wealth, health and happiness" and again can be bought in bulk from Ebay - but why not replace them with those Cadbury's mini eggs just to be different?

If you want to use little boxes instead (again, Ebay) then a trip to Hobbycraft or Ebay again for some coloured ribbon, bows, little stick-on flowers etc on the lid makes things look a bit more expensive than they are.

Don't let people fool you though - most favours (and their holders) will end up either being binned or stuck in a cupboard to be forgotten, so for the bridal party (bridesmaids, best man, ushers, parents etc) by all means splash out, but for every other guest, they shouldn't expect anything and be grateful for what they do get!

You can get ideas from sites such as https://www.ukweddingfavours.co.uk/ , https://www.weddingfavours4u.co.uk/almonds.htm or http://www.cameo-favours.co.uk/home.html?gclid=CIjNhNzamqQCFUg24wodvQszFQ but you may find that you can make what they offer yourselves for less cost - and if it takes a couple of weeks, so what? Hopefully you have the time - or some 'craft minded' friends might be willing to help you out.

I think there's a certain element of one-upmanship in favours. Originally you gave sugared almonds in little bags, the 5 almonds representing health, wealth, happiness, fertility and longevity. Nobody eats the almonds these days, they're thrown away after the event and have become pretty pointless.

I can understand wanting to give everyone a 'souvenir', but in all honesty half of them end up in a bin. I got a pen at the last wedding I went to, with the bride and groom's names and the date printed on it, it was very sweet and it went in my handbag. I remember using it a couple of times, but I've no idea where it is now, I probably left in a shop or restaurant, or my son borrowed it. The only people who really keep favours or souvenirs are the bridal party - and they're the people it really matters for anyway.

At the end of the day I'm providing a fully catered wedding, complete with drinks, and I think for people to expect anything more than a hearrty 'thanks for coming' is a bit much. But we'll probably end up getting some personalised choccies anyway, if only so we can keep some ourselves to look forward to after the honeymoon.

I don't know what to do about favours, whether to have them or not...!

I kinda wanted something people can keep but now i think as many have said, people leave them, lose them etc

But if it was food or drink like a couple of chocolates or a miniature as someone else mentioned I think this would work!

hmmm now im stuck....!

We are having chocolate bars with golden tickets inside as favours. They can eat the chocolate and then if they want to keep the ticket it can fit inside handbags or wallets

I been to a few weddings with a variety of favours;

Mini homemade jam (for the ladies) and chutney (for the men
Vintage teacups and saucers with chocolate hearts (ladies only)
Organza bags with little chocolates
Little boxes with a single thorntons champagne truffle in
Lottery tickets (ladies) and scratch cards (men) although I was the only one on our table not to win anything
Dishes of celebrations chocolates e.g. each table had a different chocolate name e.g. malteasers but we had all the variety in the dish on the table
A cd with the music of the couples first dance - which was fine but A) I can't stand the tune and B) Me and Mr T both got one, waste of money!??

Because we just had a small wedding we bought each of our guests a locally made dish to take home with them. We gave them out separately which gave us a chance to speak to each couple/guests properly and we made sure they got their gift.

That said, if there weren't favours at the next wedding I attended it wouldn't be a bad thing

A friend of mine just had favours for the ladies and that was just some chocolate hearts in an organza bag.

I'm thinking of just getting something similar or lovehearts.......my cousin had penny sweets and everyone ate them before the starter came round anyway and as everyone had something different it worked quite well when people were saying i'll swap your fruit salad for a blackjack ha ha!

The only thing I will be doing is getting some of the kids some colouring books and pencils to keep them occupied. We have 6 children between ages of 2-10 so trying to cater for them so they aren't bored! x

Isn't "amusing the children and keeping them occupied - and quiet" the parents responsibility rather than the bride and groom?

We have decided to do favours we dont have a lot of money so my sister is going to make small pots of jam and I am going to try to make baileys truffles!!

I'm planning on giving money to charity for our favours, which are a £1 each. You get little badges that I'm planning on putting in an organza bag with a little message. The ones that don't get picked up, I'll probably send back to the charity to recycle. I think this is a much better idea, at least you're doing something for a good cause rather than wasting anything ?

*sticks hand up*

totally agree..not sure who said it but they just seem to be another table decoration!

Saying that, I am having them though, but making cupcakes and putting them in clear plastic boxes...cakes generally tend to get eaten and if they dont and get collected up at the end fo the evening, then i have muchos cake to eat on the wedding night with the new hubby ?

You can do them really cheaply these days, you dont have to spent lots, we were just going to have some favour bags with chocolates in and the ywere going to cost £15 max. But now we're having cancer research ones due to something in the family and i think they are money well spent for that reason

x

We are having favours, i have made wine charms to put round the stems of wine glasses.... which i realise will probably get left behind and are mostly decorative, but we are having our reception in the local village hall so people are going to need to look after their glass as otherwise they will have to find another lost one and wash it up themselves i might add!

I agree - they are totally not needed, but despite that, I have spent £20 on 100 mini-scrolls which have a message on effectively saying "thanks for sharing our special day" but in a long poem.

They are small, and tied with a red rose - perfect for adding a tad bit of colour to the table but also very cheap/

I'm doing this too. I've chosen to support the British Heart Foundation as my dad died from heart troubles. I will be putting a little card in to explain our reasons why,although this is mainly for my OHs side as they didn't know my dad.

Ebony_rose, was it fairly simple to do this through a charity??

My dad (very recently) died of heart complications (both heart disease and failure) and I think this favour would be a lovely idea

any help would mean so much especially knowing you have lost your dad in a very simular circumstance

lol you would think so but I really don't think all parents take things to keep their kids amused we are getting goody bags for the kids just to ensure they are occupied. I would not feel comfortable knowing that there is nothing for the kids seeing as we have around 20 under 10 year olds coming !!

Personally I'd be quite happy without any kids at our wedding but she wants her family members to be able to bring them so we've got to have them. If everyone comes we currently have 22 under 16s out of 170 on the list (she has a biiiiiiiiiig family, and I'm an only child).

As far as I'm concerned, if a parent can't take responsibility for a) keeping their kids under control, b) keeping them amused and out of trouble, and c) sat still and quiet when they should be, then I don't think they should come - or certainly at least take them out the room when they start making a fuss for whatever reason.

Just seems to me that 'amusing other people's kids' is another expense that you shouldn't have to think about, that's all. Yes, we could hire a bouncy castle for £100 but why? Maybe we should charge £5 for each child that comes towards providing entertainment instead..

Our favours are also place names aswell, truffles with a lollypop stick in them, then a flag style name tag coming off of it. Looks better than it sounds trust me

Helsbels35 - sorry to hear about your dad, how awful for you. I think it's a great way of doing something in his memory. for the British Heart Foundation, you can go to the link below, or for other charities, they normally have info on their websites:

https://www.bhf.org.uk/donate/give_in_celebration.aspx

Ebony_rose - I'm supporting Cancer Research because I know a few people who've either passed away or have been affected by cancer and also the RSPCA because I've always loved animals.

This has been the bane of my life. I feel like I have to do it, as all of our mates that have been married have done it and yes, as patetic as it is I feel the need for mine to be better. However, at least one of our mates had a much larger budget than we have (they spent £300 on special tissues in the toilets!) so I cant beat that.

I thought about doing the charity thing, as my dad died of Lung Cancer last year and it breaks my heart that he wont be there, but after much discussion I decided it might result on some of my family being quite sad and I dont want that on the day, its going to be hard enough.

In the end we decided we wanted the favours to say something about us. As we are both stationary addicts (I'm a teacher with an obsession for fancy pens and notebooks) we have decided to order pens and notepads with our name and wedding date on them. At least then, if they get left behind we have a lifetime supply of pens and notepads!

This is kind of my point. In a lot of ways I do want my wedding to be the best, but its the best for me, my husband and the kids, and then the family.

I want everyone to have a great time, but I don't want to feel that I have to bow down to any commercialised aspects. I don't feel like we should be just ticking things off a list of things that people want to sell you. I think we should be ticking things off the list that are the traditions we want to adhere to, and the things we want that make us happy.

But do some people have an expectation that somethings such as favours will be there? and will they grumble if they are not?

I do hope my guests wont grumble if we don't go ahead with "traditional" favours and do the charity thing for my dad. like everyone keeps saying its your day so you choose how you do it, who you have there and what you wear and do ?

Can I jus say that the charity favours is an AMAZING idea! My dad died only 4 weeks ago (so won't be walking me down the isle) and I am devestated, but that is truly a superrsuper idea and i'm stealing it! LOL! Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad i weet through this thread!

We wern't having favours, but I got 78 boxes (we have 73 guests) for under £4, bought some ribbon and a rubber stamp for £5 and we're putting heroes in them - and yes I will be buying the tins at xmas when ASDA have them on 2 for £8-10, so at a total cost of £30 ish I'll do it, and if the guests leave them, I'll refill the tins and enjoy them lol

Ah, this was the link I was going to post. ?

Helsbels35, sorry to hear about your dad.

I'm also having a BHF pin attatched somewhere on my dress. Not got my dress, so not sure where yet.

Natalie, Steal away! I know exactly how you feel - absolutely devastated my dad wont be there walking me down the isle, he knew about the engagement and was so excited for next year.

I dont know what to do about walking down the aisle, im thinking of doing it on my own or getting my mum. My grandad died 6 weeks ago, so all in all a very bad few months inside all the wedding planning as he would have been my backup....

What are you doing, have you decided??

PS If you want someone to talk to about the day feel free to email me **.***********@****.**.**

I know you are taking my thread off topic, but can I just advise you not to walk down on your own? I know what its like to not have people around that you still want to be here, and I really feel you'd be better with some support just someone to feel with as you walk down the aisle.

And there is nothing wrong with your mum, chief bridesmaid / best friend whoever you want. Just not one your own.

Chin up girl!

Sorry to take your thread off topic soontobemrssmith, i really didnt mean to ?

I think your right im going to get my mum or one of my dads closest friends to walk me down the aisle.

Did you decide what to do about favours? are you going to do them?

Sorry railroading the thread even further but I am sorry about the loss of your Dad. My died died 8 years ago at 54 of cardiomyopathy. Good Gods it was a hard time. You have my most hugest sympathies. (And if you want to talk, even if it is a weirdy internet offering it then I would be happy to).

I have to disagree too, I walked down the aisle on my own for my first wedding. My Mum and Step Dad walked my daughter (then 14 months) down the aisle first and I went on my own. It felt good to do it, I felt very proud. Do what feels right for you