Unusual favours

[StrongInside]

Hi,

I know there were several threads discussing favours but I wonder if anyone has any fresh ideas. I am trying to think of ways to make the wedding memorable for its fun and unusual details. Changing the traditional reception table layouts, playing about with ceremony seating etc. So I would like the favours to be something quirky too, if possible, ones that our guests will actually want to take.

We don’t have a theme as such, just a specific colour scheme.

Chocolates, drink bottles, mini plants, mints- all so commonly done, it sounds boring to me. And some of it too random, like tea bags??

I don’t like a charity donations idea either- I actually want guests to have a physical thank you gift.

Any ideas?

My aunt sorted out our favours and ended up ordering personalized m&ms with a picture of us on them. Cheesy but they all got eaten!

Painted pebbles ( doubling as placement cards)

I did a thread like this and the resounding response was edible favours unless you want them left behind!

We did marshmallows from a wonderful company called la Maison guimauve, we chose colour/flavour/decoration and they came 2 per cellophane bag. They tied them with a ribbon and attached a personalised tag with a message thanking our guests and inviting them to toast the marshmallows at our fire pit. I then bought 100 long toasting sticks for £15 off amazon and put them in a tall vase by the fire pit.

They went down a treat with both kids as adults, some of our best pics are of people toasting around the fire!

I also did personalised activity boxes for kids (£3 from Etsy) such doubled as their place name. All were used and taken.

I had macarons in the wedding colours. All got eaten.

I honestly can't remember any favours (apart from one) I've got from a wedding. It's just an extra thing you have to carry around. 90% of the time I forget to take them home! The only good one I got was a framed print of the wedding venue (a beautiful old church) painted by the bride's father who is an artist. It's now hanging on my wall. Unless you can provide something equally good it's just a waste of money.

I agree they seem to be wasted - shame as I love them and clean up at a wedding 😂

We got married at Christmas, i bought baubles and filled them with chocolate and wedding sequins and spent hours writing our names and wedding date in them thinking guests would keep them and put them on their tree. I was gutted to see all these open baubles at the end of the night.

Another wedding I went to the favour was trolly tokens which I thought was genius. I took about 6 home that was left on our table and gave them as part of Christmas gifts to our family 😂

Probably one of the best used I have seen was kinder eggs. They got eaten and the toys played with.

Whatever you go with expect most to be left.

A wedding I went to went over the top! Originally she intended to just have a plant in memory of her dad who had just passed away. She ended up having glasses, coasters, sweets, playing cards and personalised soft drinks. Most of which just got left on the tables and thrown away.

Male guests were given cigars.
How bizarre. Such a small number of people smoke these days, let alone cigars. Surely they all ended up in the bin or given to that one uncle who does smoke cigars.

My favourite was a friends wedding where each guest had a badge with a photo of them with the bride and/or groom from over the years. You could do it as a little photo frame instead. Mine was a photo of me and the bride in our school uniforms when we were at secondary school. It was a good ice breaker as got people talking about how they met the bride and/or groom.

Having been to multiple weddings with multiple unmemorable favours, the ones I do remember are the ones I could eat or drink (apart from the wedding where the bride and groom gave everyone a CD of their favourite photos of themselves... )

People in general aren't bothered by wedding favours, and I think you can overthink or get too stressed over something the majority of your guests aren't going to remember.

My DH and I went for homemade gin for our wedding in little bottles with corks in them, knowing full well people would appreciate a free drink, just as we have done at other weddings.

Scratch cards always give a little excitement. The only favours we have kept are stones with our names written on. They live in our plant pots, we've had them for 18 years!

Haven't read the whole post, so someone else might have said it. Best (and only memorable) favour I have received was a minature polaroid picture of me and the groom, on a wine/champagne cork. Doubled up as a name card for table. Everyone had a picture of themself with the either the bride, groom or both. It was amazing and everyone loved it. Only really works for weddings where everyone is close enough for photos with either the bride or groom though! They spent the year before making sure they caught everyone.

OP I mean this gently but I think you’re overthinking things.
Your wedding will be unique because of you and your DH and the mix of guests that come together because of the 2 of you. Your wedding isn’t part of a competition where you have to find the coolest, most unusual way to get married. I agree with the PP who suggested using ideas that mean something to you, not just ideas that are unusual for the sake of it. That way you have a wedding that makes sense for you and isn’t a cookie-cutter of someone else’s.
You say you’ve never been to a wedding with a colour scheme of more than one colour with white. I swear that 95% of your guests will not remember your colour scheme the day after your wedding. I had three colours (none of which were white). It looked beautiful but no one remembers that and no one (apart from me) really cared on the day; it just looked pretty.
For your own sake just take a breath and focus on what’s really important about the day.
That said, I wish you a wonderful wedding and long and happy marriage.

The only reason, in my opinion, that most weddings aren’t memorable is because they follow the traditional format, with same type of favours, roses in bouquets, three tiered white cake etc. If we do something different, whether a fun looking cake, unusual favours or unusual seating layout (which our hotel has already said has never been done before by them, and they host loads), I think our guests will remember. In any case, it’ll reflect my personality and I will remember it.

Thanks everyone! Pebbles/stones is a nice idea, and so was the slate coaster, especially as it was from a memorable place. I think it’s very rude of guests to leave their favours behind- you don’t leave your birthday gift behind for the giver to take, wedding favours are small gifts so the same as any other gifts in my eyes. What people do with their gifts after the event is their business.

I’ve settled on colourful bee seed bombs from Etsy. Ace idea- inexpensive, not overdone, good for the environment and can be used by us if left behind by guests. We’ll be having a dessert table and several cake flavours, so plenty of edible stuff for our guests to be treated to anyway, without the favours also being edible. Good to brainstorm!

Good choice

I didn’t want edible favours for same reason as there was so much other food and sweet stuff available on the day

I'm intrigued by the "unusual seating layout". I think I'm with Clare Dunphy in Modern Family on this one when Phil tries out his quirky Thanksgiving seating arrangements. "One long table honey. If it's good enough for The Last Supper, it's good enough for us"

Talking about seating layouts, we loved the curved chair arrangement for the ceremony as pictured here

Vs the straight lines and isle in the same room as pictured here

By the way, the photo with bride and groom was also a good idea as a personalised favour but we don’t have any photos with half of the guests😊

@NemophilistRebel that’s exactly the sort of thing I want for the ceremony and then a differently shaped seating for the meal. How boring to have straight rows of chairs at the ceremony, and then round reception tables, no wonder most weddings aren’t memorable!

@StrongInside - did you get your venue sorted eventually? Do you love it?

We've only got 23 coming inc 4 kids and all are staying the weekend so we're giving them goodie bags of things like hangover kits, locally made sweets, crisps and cookies and some water etc. The kids will have some age appropriate gifts in them to keep them entertained.

We're having several aspects to the ceremony that are a bit unusual, we're having a hand fasting and jumping the broom, both of which I have managed to get made in our colours and as I'm Scottish we are having a quaich ceremony. As its for such a small number, we wanted everyone to be part of the ceremony so the celebrant is reading a specially written poem during the quaich so that everyone knows they are part of our family circle.

I'm probably going way over the top but its what I want and you should have exactly what you want, the way you want it. Doesn't matter if you're the only one that knows/notices, at least it will be special to you.

I don't want to pee on your parade, but those bee bombs have been the favour at the last 3 weddings I've been to, and I've never been able to find a spot where I can use them.

Oh and I know you don't think it's 'memorable' enough but I canvassed opinion for planning my own and absolutely every.single.person begged me to have round tables. At least in my circle, people really really seem to hate 'different' table layouts. Round is popular for a reason, it's the easiest way to be able to see and speak to the maximum number of people.

@Pukkatea I still think they are the most original idea that’s also small enough for people to take home. Most, if not everyone, who is attending our wedding have access to a patch of grass or have elderly relatives with a garden.

I honestly hate round tables, so so traditional and overused. I’m not going to ask guests for their preference- they are getting loads of free food, drink and entertainment, so if they don’t like their seating arrangement, I choose not to worry about that. I’m definitely up for something more interesting, if the hotel can make it happen, but thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I can only think of maybe... 3 ways to have tables at a wedding, round tables (my personal favourite) long banquet type tables in lines, or long tables in a horse shoe pattern.

How are you planning to have yours set out?

The bee bombs sound like a nice idea, just remember that not everyone will want to keep a wedding favour. So just don't be too disappointed or take it personally if there are some left behind.

Bee bombs are a nice idea but don’t be offended if they don’t get taken home, it’s another thing to add to a tiny bag

At least you haven’t gone down the route of having different favours for male and female guests which I think is really naff. Especially when the men get something different and the women get a hand made lip balm or something shit.

What’s your unusual seating arrangement? I used to work in events and not sure I can think of an unusual arrangement....