Wedding Tips - Making Your Own Wedding Favors

Tip: CDs and DVDs as Wedding Favors

Making audio or video presentations for your guests as a wedding favor is an idea that they can use for many years to come. Here are some ideas for the multimedia-minded:

Give each guest a copy of a romantic movie – perhaps the first movie the two of you saw as a couple -- and personalize it with the wrapping.
Choose a variety of romantic movies for guests to choose from so everyone goes home happy.
For CD mixes, you can use your home computer to burn romantic or memorable music, perhaps music that the happy couple enjoys or just the playlist for the wedding and reception.
Personalize the packaging by adding your names and the wedding date along with the list of songs on the CD.

Tip: Do It Yourself Wedding Favors

Today, many brides and grooms are personalizing their gifts and making them together at home. Making wedding favors can be a fun part of the process for the whole wedding party. Depending on the theme and your personality, you might try some of these ideas:

Buy wooden cherubs, boxes or holiday ornaments and paint them yourself – perhaps in gold or the colors of your wedding. Stencil your names and the date of your wedding and you have a gift that won’t be forgotten.
If you or your beloved is a green thumb, then plants are a wonderful idea as a favor that will last for years to come. Tiny seedlings from local nurseries can be inexpensive and placed in a nice box.
Wrap homemade candles with herbs and place them in mini-plant pots.
For a Christmas wedding, make stockings filled with candy and tied with a ribbon that has your names and the date of your wedding on it.

Tip: Homemade Candles and Flowers for Wedding Favors

Sometimes, the nicest wedding favor gifts are the simplest. Candles are an easy memento to make. You can buy unscented ones at any craft store and personalize them yourself. You will want to buy ribbons to go around the candles, and these ribbons can include your names and the wedding date.

If candles aren’t up your alley, what about packets of flower seeds? These are pretty, inexpensive and can be packaged to look charming even if several flower packets are tied together with a satin ribbon that matches your wedding colors. If the simple ribbon is not enough then consider putting the seeds in a small pot that has your names and wedding date stenciled on the side. Flowers will be beautiful for years to come and can also symbolize your growing love.

Tip: Homemade Wedding Favors From The Kitchen

To ensure your wedding favors don't end up in the junk drawer, pass out homemade favors from your kitchen. Cookies, cakes and mini-muffins wrapped in colored foil make great dessert gifts, or if you're really adventurous, break out the glassware and make your own jam.

Make your own jar labels using a computer and a scanner. Scan a photo of the bride and groom and write the date of the wedding on the label. Place the label neatly on the jam jar and tie it with a bow that coordinates with your wedding colors. Recipes can be found online, but the most important thing to take into consideration is time.

Homemade favors require time and patience, especially if you're giving perishable food as a favor. Jam keeps well, especially in the refrigerator, but if you're giving something less lasting, you'll need to spend a good amount of time right before the wedding preparing the wedding favors.

Cooking up homemade wedding favors is also a great job to hand off to that busybody relative who's just dying to help with everything. Just be sure your relative knows how to cook!

Tip: Luxury DIY Wedding Favors

Weddings exude excitement -- and, many times, expense. DIY wedding favors can allow you to hand out little touches of luxury without a hefty price.

Items that ooze romance and indulgence include bath salts, candles and oils. You can make you own bathtime favors by purchasing an economy-size bottle of scented bath salts and linen paper to wrap the salts in. Cut the paper in square shapes and add one or two scoops of bath salts in the middle. Fold the edges of the paper up so it comes to a point at the top, and tie the package with a piece of twine or elegant ribbon.

Use your computer to create favor cards with the name of the bride and groom, the date of the wedding, and a small message on the card telling your guests what's inside. If there are small children among your guests, be sure they know the bath salts aren't for eating!

Tip: Magnets as Wedding Favors

Looking for a fun and easy do it yourself wedding favors? Make wedding magnets with your pictures, names and the date of your ceremony. Start with a scanned or electronic image of yourselves, and crop it to the right size for the magnet (a business card size is easy, since you probably already have a template for it in your word-processing or publishing program). Use the program to add whatever text you'd like with the photo.

If you don't have a high-quality color printer, take your file to your local copy center and have them print out the images on glossy paper. Once you have them printed out, use a paper cutter to cut them out (or have the copy center do it), then get them laminated.

Finally, attach the cards to a magnet the same size as the card and you‘re done. Make a few extras in case you make a mistake or if you want to keep some magnets for your anniversary.

Tip: Making Your Own Edible Wedding Favors

Want to make your own wedding favors for your guests? How about something fun to eat?

Purchase a candy-making or lollipop kit and melt your own chocolate to make homemade candy. Create specific shapes, like a bride and a groom, using candy molds.

To celebrate the happy couple's day, consider tuxedo and wedding gown Oreos as a fun favor. Dip the cookies in a chocolate coating that melts – with half the cookie being dipped in white chocolate for the wedding gown and the other half in dark chocolate. After you dip the cookies, let them dry and make a semicircle of silver sprinkles to look like a necklace for the bride. For the groom, make a bow tie by using a stencil in the shape of a piece of pie. Use an icing applicator to make dots that look like a collar and buttons on the tuxedo.

Petits Fours can also be homemade and cut into any shape. Use a white cake recipe and cut the cake into shapes after it has cooled. For icing, using fondant and decorate with flowers or anything wedding-related. Place the cakes in boxes and tie a bow with a thank-you card.

Tip: Packaging Your Wedding Favors

If you're making your wedding favors, you'll also want to think about how you present them, for an attractive package is half the fun. Here are some of the many clever wedding favor packaging options available:

clear gift boxes
Chinese takeout boxes
embossed heart-shaped boxes
jars with flower lids
bags made of organza with tassels in the wedding colors
bottles with cork stoppers
watering cans
purse boxes with satin bows
tiny tote bags
silver heart tins

If your wedding is taking place outside in a garden, mini watering cans that hold tea-light candles are a nice idea for your favors. Holding your wedding indoors with a Renaissance theme? Tuck your favors (mints, almonds, etc) in a ruby red box and tie it shut with a dark-colored velvet bow.

Tip: Quick Wedding Favor: Charitable Donations

For some couples, making wedding favors is a tedious task. One easy way to cross the favors off your list, and still make a lasting impact on your wedding guests, is to make a donation to a charity of your choice in honor of your guests.

Consider the amount of money you budgeted for wedding favors, or come to an agreement on a price per person, and donate that amount of money to charity. Ideas include:

If the two of you love animals, choose your local animal rescue.
If a beloved family member is struggling with illness or has recently died, consider choosing a charity that is researching treatments for that person's illness.
If you are "foodies," choose a hunger charity.
Stay away from partisan political groups or sectarian religious charities unless everyone invited to the wedding is known to be part of that church or party -- otherwise, you could end up offending guests instead of delighting them.
If you are blending a family or planning to start one, choose a children's charity such as a Boys' and Girls' Club, sports league or scholarship fund.

Place a note at the table setting of each guest letting them know a contribution was made in honor of the guests at your wedding. A charitable wedding donation is a long-lasting gift that keeps on giving!

Tip: Unique Ideas for Wedding Favors

The first wedding favors, presented by European aristocrats, consisted of attractive boxes of sugar. Today's most popular wedding favor is the Jordan almond, which represents fertility, longevity, wealth, health and happiness. Some up-to-date wedding favor ideas include personalized wedding pens, candles, vases and bubbles. Consider updating the ancient tradition by packaging homemade candies in colorful boxes tied with ribbon.

Tip: Wedding Favor Ideas With a Personal Touch

If you don’t want to promote drinking at your wedding, give your guests bottles of cider. Make your own labels and create your own words of love or find some memorable quotes to add to the label. Wrap the bottle in a wrapper and tie with a bow and you have a delightful gift.
Flowers are always popular at weddings and if you like to garden you can offer your own flowers that are decorated in a nice box with paper or you can just add a thank-you card.
Rubber stamp tiles are an interesting make-it-yourself gift and you can make these tiles with hearts or even the date of the wedding and your names. Used as place settings for the guest to take home these gifts can also be turned into magnets that are a keepsake of your big day.
For a beach wedding, make handmade soaps in seashell shapes. The colors can match your wedding or just make the soap the color of the ocean. If you have enough original seashells, you can also incorporate this into the wedding favor packaging.

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