Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A Word About Favors

I know that there are many of you getting married within the coming months. You're probably {finally} starting to think about what you will give your guests as favors.

Advice to heed from Meg of A Practical Wedding.
"Perhaps one of my favorite posts I've written is one I wrote ages ago, on favors. In that spirit, I thought I'd share this thought from the imitable Miss Manners: "Who told you that you had to give out wedding favors? Etiquette has never thought of weddings as comparable to children's birthday parties, where the guests might need consolation for not being the center of attention. You owe them only the hospitality of the occasion." There. Now don't you feel better?"

If you remember from this post, we did a candy bar and, in retrospect, I would totally skip it. It wasn't worth the cost, I would have had to have 5 additional kinds of candy to make it eye-catching and diverse and for the amount of money that it cost me in the end I could have put it towards other details or kept the money in my pocket. So, if you're debating....skip the favors. No one will be offended.

As you know, each of my posts must be accompanied with {at least} one pretty picture. I've been saving these pictures for a while because I really had no good reason to post them. But I love them so I couldn't just let them go. So here they are, in all of their glory.
photos by the talented jonathan canlas while second shooting for leo patrone at the {breathtaking} wedding of heather and jonathan.

9 comments:

holly-lynn said...

agreed. i did the candy bar too, it was nice, but no one would have missesd it. i don't even look for favors at weddings anymore & would only recommend if it was family tradition (i went to a french wedding & they always give candy similar to jordan almonds.. yuumm)

Unknown said...

I agree as well. I paid a fairly reasonable amount, everything considered and loved the way it looked but hardly ANYONE took any candy home. It was kind of disappointing. We came home with the majority of the candy and have been giving it away (or eating it ourselves) since the wedding. :-P I'm becoming a fatty. haha

Bethany said...

agreed. favors are a total hassle to assemble, and if they're not a candy item, then they're usually a cheaply made item that merely sets off security alarms when travelling home only to malfunction on first use!

what i have appreciated at some weddings i have attended recently is the charitable donation in lieu of favors. on my day in september, my fiance and i are making a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in honor of my father, who is currently living with leukemia, and our day and our guests.

Kristal said...

I saw her post early on in my planning and loved it. We're not doing favors.

Linda said...

Agreed, no one will be upset if they don't get a favor!

Nicole-Lynn said...

Interesting! it is nice to know it's not expected :)

Sev said...

Thank you! We talked about it a lot in the past few days. I think we are going to skip favors, instead we donate the amount we reserved for favors...

The Southbay Newlyweds said...

we did the donation thing!

Katy said...

We are doing favors, but nothing like you're used to seeing (and promptly throwing away as soon as you get home). Our favors are magnets that were designed in part by my late father (who was a professional photographer) and personalized even further by me. If it weren't for that bit of uniqueness and a way to honor my father, we probably would have skipped the favors also. http://bride-to-bekatyd.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-take-on-favors.html