Charity wedding favours!

Give your money to the DEC or Medecins Sans Frontieres and feel a fuzzy glow that you've made a difference.

No need to advertise your charitable giving?

As both the Bride and the Bestman have used air ambulances within the last two years (both having been in separate RTAs within three weeks of each other!) we're giving to the Great North Air Ambulance and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance - both offer pins and little cards to put out on the table.

FTLOMB - I need to advertise my charitable giving, won't get the fuzzy feeling otherwise ?

I want to personalise it for my guests - e.g. my sis was at a wedding recently where each charitable favour was an item, e.g. bar of soap. Nothing wrong with combining charity and personal touches.

What does this mean? You want to personalise what exactly?

You want to give your guests a favour and also give some money to charity? Well, do that then....Make them some shortbread (maybe with initials iced on?) and make your donation.

Or does it really not work unless you tell them?

I'm not going to spell it out for you FTLOMB! Your posts imply I'm being superficial, I know I'm not, let's just leave it at that?

This is a wedding forum, if you want to debate with like-minded lefties, go visit Mumsnet.

It's boring debating people who agree with you. What's the point? It's not a debate, it's a circle-jerk.

Is Mumsnet very leftie?

Is it leftie to have an opinion on charitable donations that differs from someone else's?

Mumsnet is VERY leftie. I am too but I also think charity favours are nice!

I've said it here before (although I robbed it from elsewhere)....you never see a bride walking down the aisle in flip-flops because she's donated the cost of her shoes to African goats.

Anyway, you might be struggling to find appropriate cards/etc for the Philippines from Oxfam because the charities aren't likely to produce wedding favour sets for disaster relief. You will have to get creative.

Why don't you just give what you would have spent on favours to the DEC and either not bother with the favours at all (we aren't having any) or do what you suggested with a biscuit which I'm sure your guests would appreciate charity or no charity.

I don't know when your wedding is but I think the Philippines need the money asap so if it was me I would give now, have that feeling that I've helped in some way then carry on planning my wedding with my guests none the wiser.

I don't want to debate the merits or otherwise if having a charitable donation, but if you have favours and mention some sort of donations, I personally think it's a bit like telling everyone you donate to charity because you want everyone to know what a good deed you have done, which is a bit crass in my opinion.

Either go for favours, or go for charity, but both is a bit weird if you ask me. If you go for charity how about putting a note on the bottom of the menu cards, something along the lines of "in light of the recent tragic events in the Philippines, the bride and groom have donated their wedding favours budget to xzy charity to assist in their efforts to get aid to those in deparate need".

Most of charities have shops where you can buy "stuff" that you can give as gifts.

Bookmakers, cup rests, calendars, etc... Why don't you buy something from them and give them as favors?

Then you will be giving favors that helped the charity!

Is it what you were looking for?

Thanks everyone for your views I really appreciate it, it's interesting to hear that it could look a bit tasteless (I know no one actually said that but it's sort of implicit!). My sister suggested it to me and I really liked the idea as did h2b, the way I/we saw it was it was a way of having "favours" (I've been reluctant to do any to be honest, the biscuits were a begrudging idea) and doing a good deed at the same time. If I was a guest at a wedding which did this, I would have been like, aw, nice. But obviously not everyone has these views so it's interesting to hear.

As an aside: FTLOMB - I'm not spending a penny on new shoes for the wedding, I'm recycling ones I already have, they're my something old...

We're donating to charity that is very personal to us instead of favours. Each guest will have a small information booklet about the charity to raise awareness of the wonderful work they do.

But you're not telling guests you've made a donation?

Go onto Islam channel always have numbers to donate

I think it's a lovely gesture shows ur guests ur compassionate side as well as setting a good example to others

I think it's down to individual people if they want to donate to a charity or not. I wouldn't want a charity donation on my behalf.
I think if people want to give charity favours they should give a favour along with it so it doesn't seem like an easy way out.
I'd feel a bit silly giving out charity favours so i'm donating to a good cause, when i'm spending thousands on a wedding anyway and happily accepting gifts from people...when bringing charity into it i'd rather tell people a chosen charity and tell them they're free to donate to it instead of giving gifts.
However giving a badge or gift etc bought from a charity website along with a little cookie or other favour I find alright.

That aside this quote absolutely cracked me up..

Interesting comments from everyone thanks. Do people see it as bad wedding etiquette, along the same line as money poems?! I give to several charities each month without publicising it (until now obviously) so I don't think that part of it is justified, and it doesn't put me off. However I can sort of understand the point about donating on behalf of someone else, without them goosing the charity. HOWEVER an additional argument to this is that people get given favours/tat they don't want anyway, what's the different, other than this benefiting the less fortunate?

I always give to charities as well, a lot of animal ones mainly. If someone gets a favour that even if they don't want it seems like there's thought put into it, a specific gift for them and not just a charity donation.
People know how much weddings cost so i'd feel daft giving the guests a charity donation instead of a favour, rather than say for example..doing without cars or any add ons and saying "I've took that chunk of money for that and put it to charity" if that makes sense?
I don't see the problem with giving a little charity pin or gift off a website along with something so simple and inexpensive like a cookie or little favour box with chocs etc, it just shows you've still made the effort. I'd 100% rather not receive a favour at a wedding as a guest than a charity donation on my behalf

I really wouldn't care to be honest…most favours i've been to at a wedding I thought were a waste of time. If you gave me a charity pin I would much prefer that than a sugared almond any day

I feel I should defend the OP here, I think it's wonderful that you want to make a charitable donation when all the guests normally get at weddings is tat or something perishable. I also think it's important to tell your guests that you made the donation, not to show off but so they know you had a budget for favours but wanted to do something more sensible with it. Their gift for being there is enjoying your wonderful and probably quite expensive wedding including free food! Can't believe so many people are being negative about this.

Agree