Candles make good gifts whether they’re for birthdays, anniversaries, or weddings. You can get candles in pretty much any shape or form you want. For example, if you need beach wedding favors, you can buy beach pail candle holders to go with the theme. If you’re getting married in the fall, you can buy autumn-inspired candles. There are snowflake candles, gel candles, tea candles, votives, candles that look like three-tiered wedding cakes, mini coffee cup candles, and any other candle you can imagine.
Candles are very traditional, so if you’re going for a more alternative approach to your wedding favors, consider doing something really different like bundling sticks of incense together and tying them with ribbon. Then again, if you just can’t get candle wedding favors out of your mind, you can still exercise a little creativity and originality by making your own candles. Visit a craft retailer for DIY kits. Keeping with the whole candle theme, you could also place candles into empty wine bottles and light them until the candles begin to melt. The melted wax will form long tendrils down the base of the wine bottle, making elegant candle wedding favors. Instead of using full-sized bottles, try small candles and small bottles for the same effect.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: Cheap Wedding Favors
Cheap wedding favors come in all shapes and sizes and can fit into any wedding theme. Just because a wedding favor doesn’t cost a lot of money, doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be appreciated or well received by the guests. The trick is turning the wedding favor into something wildly creative and fun, something your guests will remember forever.
You’ll need to decide if you want the wedding favors to reflect the overall theme of the wedding, or if you want the wedding favors to reflect directly on you as a couple, your personality, your hopes, dreams, and fun sense of humor. Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. These can all be altered to fit your individual style. Take an idea and run with it! Turn it into something uniquely yours.
1) How about a DIY favor kit for the guests? If you’re having a relatively large wedding, there’s sometimes a period of time when the guests are waiting for the bride and groom to come back from having photos taken, etc. While the guests are waiting at the tables, why not leave them each a little something to keep them occupied? Buy small wedding tins, small white cardboard boxes, beads, a glue stick, ribbon, sparkles, etc. Leave them at each seat with an invitation to create the best wedding favor ever. Whatever they make is theirs to take home as a memento.
2) Instead of buying everyone a wedding favor, buy one or two “door prizes” and ask the guests to enter the names into a draw. Door prizes could be anything from a Dinner-For-Two gift certificate to a bottle of champagne.
3) Homemade treats always make great (and cheap) wedding favors. You don’t have to order specialty cookies for the big day, make your own! If you’re not sure about piping your initials or wedding date into the frosting, just spread a thin layer of white frosting over the cookies and dip them into fine white coconut, or shiny edible sparkles. Place one or two in a sheer organza favor bag and voila!
The choice is yours! Use your imagination and have fun creating your own cheap wedding favors.
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Make Your Own Wedding Favors
Making your own wedding favors are a frugal way to create charming gift favors for your wedding guests without breaking your budget. Wedding favors do not have to be complex to be attractive and useful. Homemade wedding favors also have a certain charm to them and they can be very unique, because you cannot buy them anywhere.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: Place Card Holder Favors
Say “place card holders” and we all think of the same plastic or metal clip that holds a little card with your name on it at the dining room table of a formal party. You don’t typically think of tiny teapots, mini shoes, purses, or seashells. Yet these are all place card holders used in weddings. If tiny teapots holding slips of paper with your friends’ names on them isn’t your cup of tea (pun intended), why not turn the place card holders into place card holders favors by adding more than just names to them. Slide individually packaged specialty teabags into the place card holders favors for a unique wedding favor idea, especially if you’re using teapot place card holders.
Try to match ideas with whatever type of place card holder favors you’re using. Using tiny shoes or purses as place card holders? Create a miniature calendar page and tuck it into the place card. Circle your wedding date and invite guests to “walk” over to your place for a visit on your first anniversary date.
Place card holders make great wedding table decorations and can easily be turned into the actual wedding favor itself with a little creativity.
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Wedding Favors For Everyone
The best thing about having smaller weddings is that you probably know the guests a little better. If you’re tenth cousin twice removed and all her children are at the wedding, you may not realize that alcohol is strictly off their menu choice. That’s why it’s a good idea, if you’re going to have wine wedding favors, to offer other non-alcoholic choices that are as equally appealing. A personalized bottle of sparkling water is just as elegant as a fine bottle of wine, and it’s also thoughtful.
Instead of trying to specifically target the people who prefer not to drink alcoholic beverages, set bottles of wine at every table along with a few bottles of sparkling water. That way, your guests can choose the wedding favors they’d like to have and nobody feels singled out.
To keep with the wine wedding favor theme, fill large glass bowls with fresh grapes and use them as wedding reception decorations.
If wine isn’t your thing, there are all kinds of wedding favor ideas and nothing says you have to stick with one type of wedding favor for every guest. Fill a basket with a variety of wedding favors (wedding bubbles, for example, and other inexpensive wedding favors) and bring one to each guest. Have the guest pick his or her own wedding favor. It’s a great time to say a few words to the guests, share a laugh, and thank them personally for being at your wedding.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: Wedding Bubbles
You might skimp on flowers, food, an expensive DJ, or the price you pay for wedding favors, but there’s no excuse for skimping on wedding bubbles! It’s probably one of the easiest, least expensive, and most memorable themes to carry through your wedding day. Where’s your wedding ceremony going to take place? If there are no restrictions on wedding ceremony decorations fill the place with round, white, helium filled balloons. Scatter them everywhere in groups to get the feel or sense of being surrounded by bubbles. Don’t forget to set individual mini bubble wedding favors out for the guests to use at the reception. Nobody will be able to resist blowing a few bubbles your way.
If you want to push the boundaries of the wedding bubbles theme, put big bubblegum balls in wedding favor containers and challenge your guests to a bubble blowing contest! Fill vases with brightly colored marbles to add to the wedding bubbles theme and use them as wedding table decorations.
For wedding favors ideas, leave your guests bubble bath beads. Ready to take the whole wedding bubbles theme even further? Hand out sheets of bubble wrap to your guests and let them pop the bubbles. It’s crazy, but you were warned! Bubbles are hugely fun and make excellent wedding favors and wedding decorations. Don’t let anyone burst that bubble of an idea!
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Chic And Cheap Wedding Favors
Why spend all of your hard-earned money on really extravagant wedding favors when you can buy or make your own wedding favors that are equally nice, but a lot less money? If you’re pressed for time, or you’re really not into the arts & crafts scene, take a look at different bridal websites and go straight to the “clearance” or “sale” page. There’s no sense paying full price if you can get what you want at half the price.
Wedding favors go on sale for all kinds of reasons. Stock might be discontinued, out of season, or not in high demand. When you start searching bridal websites, keep in mind that “clearance” doesn’t necessarily mean cheap. To keep the price down (especially if you have to buy in large numbers) look for wedding favors that are in the ninety-nine cent or lower price range. For that price, you might get things like bookmarks, key chains, candles, or mint tins.
Another thing to take into consideration is that a small piece of carefully wrapped wedding cake is just as much a wedding favor as anything else. It’s thoughtful, serves as a memento of the day, and it’s cheaper than spending extra cash on trinkets.
If you’re looking for really unique, cheap wedding favors, try one of these ideas:
-The bride and groom dip their thumbs into ink and press them on a square of tissue paper with a handwritten “thank you” on them.
-Create and personalize letters for each of the guests thanking them for sharing the day with you.
-Take lots of pictures and notes of things that happened at the wedding and post them to your website. Simply leave the guests a link to the website for them to enjoy later.
You see? Cheap wedding favors can also be chic!
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: A World Of Wedding Favors
Choosing your wedding favors can be a ton of fun, especially if you’re not stuck on one particular theme or idea. There’s nothing wrong with mixing it up and giving your guests each something different, or having two or three different and unique wedding favors to choose from. If money is no object, you can hire someone else to be creative for you. Lucky you! You can buy anything you want for your wedding favors. On the other hand, if your budget is a little tighter, you may have to come up with some memorable but cheap wedding favors.
Did you know you can buy wedding favors for as low as 99 cents each? Just do a search for bridal wedding sites to see what’s in stock for clearance items, or see if they have DIY wedding favor kits. If you want to stay away from the more traditional wedding favor ideas, you could do something funny like personalize milk cartons with your new husband’s photo and a statement that reads, “America’s Most Wanted…Now Taken,” or something like that. It’s usually the funny or witty things that stick in people’s minds, so don’t be afraid to try something unique with your wedding favors.
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Wedding Favor Ideas for Your Wedding
Wedding favor ideas are a part of the décor, a part of the theme and they are entities unto themselves. So if you are looking for some wedding favor ideas, let’s talk about the options that are out there such as:
Bookmarks
Silver Pieces
Crystal Pieces
Picture Frames
Jordan Almonds
Boxes of Mints
Boxes of Chocolates
Hershey’s Chocolates
Champagne Flutes
Favor Boxes
Gourmet Coffee
Specialty Teas
Organza Bags
Tulle Bags
Lace Bags
You can create your own wedding favors. You can look for wedding favor ideas on the Internet. You can get suggestions for wedding favors from your family, your husband to be’s family and even your wedding planner. You can design your wedding favor ideas from the time of the year, the holidays closest to the wedding and even where you are getting married.
Destination weddings offer some of the more interesting wedding favor ideas. A wedding in wine country for example might suggest a small wine bottle as a wedding favor. A wedding at Disney World might suggest a Disney themed wedding favor like a glass slipper. A wedding at Christmas time might inspire small Christmas presents containing candies or nuts.
You can discover wedding favor ideas everywhere and in every part of the wedding itself. Discover your wedding favor ideas in the design of your wedding, the time of the year or the season.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: Unique Wedding Favors
Unique wedding favors work really well when you have an unusual or off-beat wedding theme to work with. For example, fall wedding favors are easy to come up with when you’re using an autumn theme. Unique wedding favors for that kind of wedding could be anything from pressed leaves wrapped in ribbon to a few tulip bulbs placed in a sheer organza bag for your guests to plant.
Unique wedding favors should trump traditional wedding favors. You want to come up with ideas that haven’t been done a million times before. If time isn’t on your side, you can do an Internet search for ideas at onsite stores like American Bridal, for example, where you’ll find tons of ideas and unique wedding favors to choose from. If you’re looking for unique, non-traditional wedding favor ideas, consider these unique wedding favors:
1) Astrology charts. This can take any form whether complete horoscopes written out for each astrological sign, or just one astrological sign and its significance based on your wedding date.
2) Take thumb prints of you and your spouse and stick them side-by-side on a beautiful sheet of parchment (on an angle to look like a heart). Turn that into your “signature” and write a thank-you note to your guests for being there.
3) Pretzels. That’s right…pretzels. Who doesn’t love them? Get some that are dipped in white chocolate and string a few onto some ribbons.
Have fun coming up with your own unique wedding favors and don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. It’s your wedding, your theme, and your unique wedding favors.
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Make Your Own Wedding Favors
Weddings can be very expensive. Whether you do all the planning yourself, including making the food for the reception, hosting the wedding in your home or yard and setting up the floral arrangements yourself, you are going to be spending money. The more guests you have, the more expensive the wedding will be. One of the ways you can save money at your wedding is to make your own wedding favors.
Homemade wedding favors can include such charming ideas as the votive candle holder. These are very simple and yet look classical in their setting on the guest tables. If you like chocolate, you can wander through the craft stores and find a series of different things that you can place your chocolates in such as glass slippers.
Another popular idea for homemade wedding favors is bottles of decorative sand. While this may not sound like much of a favor, consider the fact that the wedding favor should reflect some aspect of the wedding. If the wedding is as beach ceremony and the reception is hosted with decorations of seashells and ocean themes, a bottle of decorative sand is the ideal. That's the beauty of making your own wedding favors, they can tell the story you want them to tell and accent the theme you want it to accent.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: Beach Wedding Favors
If you’re having a beach wedding, chances are your wedding is going to be fairly informal. You’ll want your beach wedding favors to reflect the day, but before you start digging up seashells and collecting sand samples to give to your guests, do a little research first. It may actually be illegal to take sand, rocks, shells, etc. from the beach. If you’re getting married on a beach outside of the U.S. or Canada, it may be illegal to try and bring back some of the goodies you’ve found on the beach.
Not to worry though, there are many beach wedding favor ideas that won’t land you in jail or paying a hefty fine. If you’re looking for something a little off-beat, wild, or wacky, consider some of these beach wedding favors:
1) Give your guests a relaxation CD of the sound of crashing waves, the cries of gulls, rain, etc.
2) Shark fin novelty gifts. With a little sleuthing, you might be able to find something like shark fin book ends, shark fin paperweights, etc.
3) Dulce. What’s that, you ask? Dulce is actually edible seaweed. It has a high nutritional value and can be bought at the local grocer. It’s got a dry, leaf-like texture, making it easy to put into little containers for your guests. This “vegetable of the sea” is said to be a powerhouse for nutrition and longevity, so include a note explaining what dulce is, what it’s used for, and how the promise of longevity ties into your promise of sharing a life together.
For more ideas on beach wedding favors, just sit back and think about the beach. Plastic pails & shovels, beach blankets, suntan lotion, and jellyfish are all part of the beach experience that can be incorporated into neat beach wedding favors.
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Wedding Centerpiece Give Away
There are many fun things you can do to give away the wedding centerpiece. For instance, many couples like to play a game of hot potato using a spoon from the table. The person left holding the spoon when the music stops, gets to take home the centerpiece.
Other couples like to put numbers in the corner of each place card. At the end of the evening, the disc jockey will pick several numbers at random. Those whose numbers are called get to take home centerpieces.
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AmericanBridal.com Tip: One of A Kind Wedding Favor Bags
Anyone who has been to a traditional wedding has seen the tiny little boxes containing a candy or two, or those soft white lace sachet bags filled with mints. But you’re looking for something different, aren’t you? Tiny boxes are elegant, cute, and fun, but they’re not very practical, are likely to get lost in your purse, and usually end up getting ripped, wet, or stomped on during the dance or wedding reception. So why not come up with your own, unique wedding favor ideas? It’s not that hard to do, especially if you’re willing to push the boundaries (just a little!) beyond traditional wedding favor bags. For example, you could:
-Wrap a single long, tapered candle inside corn husks. Tie it with raffia (you can buy it wherever retailers sell art & craft supplies) to complete the natural look.
-Head out to a used clothing store and buy clothes (jackets, shirts, etc.) with sturdy pockets in them. It doesn’t matter what the clothing looks like, because you’re just going to cut the pockets out of them. Fill the pockets with wedding favors for really unique wedding favor bags!
-Paper lunch bags. You can go over-the-top by creating bride & groom hand puppets with them, or just keep them simple with a strategically placed bow and a personalized stamp with your wedding date on it. Put a small bottle of liqueur or wine into each bag to finish off the gift.
-Makeup bags come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. It shouldn’t be too hard to find makeup bags that match your wedding theme (at least in terms of color). Place a few individually wrapped bath salt cubes, novelty soaps, or personalized bottles of hand cream into each bag.
-Handkerchiefs. Buy boxes of cotton handkerchiefs and make sachets scrunching all four ends together with ribbon. Consider making small slits in the fabric and weaving the ribbon through so that it won’t slip off. A tea candle or votive would fit perfectly under the folds of the handkerchief and the guest goes home with two gifts in one.
As you can see, one of a kind wedding favor bags are only as limited as your imagination, the amount of time you have, and the amount of expense you’re willing to take on.
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Wedding Table Decorations
Wedding table decorations don’t have to be traditional bouquets of flowers, especially if you want something different from the rest. Sure you've got some nifty wedding favors, but do you really want your wedding table decorations to remind people of a funeral home? Of course not! Put some punch into your wedding table decorations by trying out one of these ideas:
1) Completely fill huge glass bowls with every imaginable kind of candy. Keep it colorful! With something to snack on between meal courses and long speeches, your guests will love you forever. If big glass bowls are too much to fill, you can fill long stemmed glassware for the same effect. Bunch them in the middle of the table with streamers curled around them.
2) They sound unattractive, but LED white withered trees look really great as decorations. Unfortunately, they’re usually too big (four feet) to be used as wedding table decorations, but you can scatter them around the room and then extend the look to the tabletop by coiling white LED lights around the center of each table.
3) Colored sand is interesting and can be layered into vases, glasses, fish bowls, or any kind of clear container for an intriguing effect.
4) Take large soup-bowl-type mugs and fill them with coffee beans. Put a stick of cinnamon into each and arrange the mugs in a circle at the center of the table.
Wedding table decorations can be used to make a social statement (like stacking non-perishable food goods and asking your guests to bring something to the food bank), the decorations can be subtle, or as wild and wacky as setting up a Lite Bright at every table with your names pegged in white onto the panels. </
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