15 Fabulous Favours Ideas

1. Make a donation to charity on behalf of each guest, presenting people with wristbands on the day. This is a nice gesture, especially when the charity has a special meaning for either the bride or groom’s family.
2. Tailor your favours according to the tastes of your guests, with mini-lipsticks or crystal nail files to the girls and chocolate footballs for the boys. (To get hold of the nail files try Bohemia Treasures, Tel: 01382 522 931.) Give animal-shaped chocolates if there are going to be lots of vets there or shot glasses if you’ve got boozy mates.
3. Make up a CD of your favourite songs and give each guest a copy, finishing it off with a personalised label.
4. Personalised bottles of bubbles and single-use cameras help guests to mix together at their tables, and can be offered in addition to, or as an alternative to, traditional favours.
5. If you’re a couple of nature lovers, give packets of seeds away and your guests will have a permanent reminder of the day when the flowers spring up.
6. You might think that traditional almonds are a bit boring, but anything edible is great for keeping the guests going until dinner. To give them a modern twist you can buy almonds that have been used to form the buds of a flower.
7. Personalised scented candles are a very popular choice at the moment. You can have them floating, made from gel, or decorated with ribbon, coloured pebbles, nets or pouches. Other items you can easily personalise are sticks of rock, teddy bears, handmade soap, or miniature bottles of wine.
8. Fridge magnets will give your guests a daily reminder of how wonderful your wedding was.
9. Incorporate one of this year’s key trends – enhance your favour bags or boxes with butterflies or sparkly jewels in bold colours.
10. Packaging can have an impact as well as the contents: for an alternative to organza bags and cardboard boxes try perspex hearts or glassine (semi-opaque) envelopes.
11. Acrylic baubles filled with marabou feathers make an attractive table decoration that doubles as a favour. They come in many different shapes, for example hearts, stars, eggs, bunnies and teddy bears.
12. Indoor sparklers can be lots of fun and look great too when you buy them to match your colour scheme. You can even get heart-shaped ones!
13. Fill favour boxes with sweets, crayons and toys to keep children occupied during the speeches.
14. Try old skool style favours for a bit of wedding day nostalgia – why not make up goody bags like the ones you used to get when you left parties as a kid? Fill them with Black Jacks, edible bracelets, sherbet dips, personalised Love Hearts and plain old toffee bonbons. Choose your favourite childhood sweeties and the memories will come flooding back. Just remember your teeth probably aren’t as strong as they used to be.
15. Once your photographer has taken a group shot of all the guests standing together, ask him/her to email it to your wedding co-ordinator at the venue. Buy some suitably shiny paper in advance and then you can have a copy of the photo printed out for each guest to take away with them.