Wedding Favors Everyone Can Enjoy

It's standard practice at weddings for the Bride and Groom to send each guest home with a little something to remember the day by.

These wedding favors can range from the expensive mini-bottle of champagne to less expensive items like water bottles (great for an outdoor wedding). There are a number of great choices to pick from, however, I've found that what a lot of couples are searching for is something unique.

Instead of just weddings themed gifts (think covered in doves, linked rings, or pictures of bells), couples are taking the personalization one step further. Their gifts are reflecting the wedding's theme colors, the couple's personalities or even the location of the wedding itself (ex. flip flops for a beach wedding).

If you're into going green, then there are a variety of options. I suggest you start here. My favorite eco-friendly favor idea is the plantable seed flower card. These come in a variety of colors, shapes and can be personalized with the couple's name and wedding date/location.

Of course there's always the growing in popularity idea of making your wedding favor a donation to your favorite charity. Nothing shows off a caring personality more than helping your guests to give a gift to others.

After pondering a variety of excellent idea, my fiance and I came up with something that would mean a lot to his family. There's nothing wrong with that.

We opted to spend a day or two hard at work in his grandmother's kitchen baking up her famous "galaxy" cookies. These cookies have come to be a much anticipated staple at every big family gathering on his side.

For both of us the best part of this gift idea, isn't just being able to please his family and provide something tasty to each guest, it's also the opportunity to spend some quality time with his grandmother doing something she truly enjoys... baking.

If I'm lucky, maybe we can even include a few of those homemade chocolates that I so adore of hers ;).

Tote Bag Pictures!

As a follow-up post to the "Green and Glamorous" post below, I have pictures!

Liv generously went home and sent me a few pictures of the mentioned bags below so that you can get an idea of what they looked like. I always find huge inspiration from the visual, so I hope this helps you get the ideas flowing.

Enjoy!

"Green" and Glamorous Tote Bags

I’d love to share with you a gift-giving idea that I received from my dear friend Liv. A year or so ago Liv decided that for Christmas she was going to make everyone’s gift. While I’m sure it helped her save money in the long run, I think for her it was more about giving her friends something that she put a lot of time into that was unique and showed both her and their personality.

In any case, she decided to create these fabulous tote bags!

She went to her local craft store (think A.C. Moore or Michaels) and grabbed up a bunch of basic canvas tote bags, as well as a variety of fabric paints, glitters and other applicable details.

According to Liv she spent about 3 days straight during a weekend break painting these bags, turning them into what I consider awesome works of art. Not only were they really cool looking and got tons of compliments on campus, but they were also very fashionable in that they were reusable “green” totes that could be used in various ways.

If you’re interested in making your own tote bags as future gifts but don’t have 3 days to spend on the project, rest easy. In the case of projects like this, the amount of work you want to put into each bag is truly up to you and the design you have in mind. Liv’s bags were incredibly detailed and required many coats of paint. This will not always be the case.

Also, as a bonus idea, consider filling the bags with a few goodies. They could be a new attempt at the old gift baskets. Think DVDs, CDs, candy, or even a few more crafty trinkets (like painted picture frames).

It doesn’t really matter what colors you use or whether or not you decide to fill the bag. What will matter most to the lucky receiver is that the gift was truly a gift from the heart.