All About Wedding Favors

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Edible Treats
Everyone loves something to eat, so delight your guests with something sweet or savory. Chocolates, almonds and candies are always popular. Or give a regional favorite from your wedding location - peanuts in Georgia, Vermont maple syrup, or hot salsa in Texas.

Something Homemade
Along those lines - test your culinary skills and make a homemade jam or spread for your guests. (package them in festive customized jars!)

Quench Their Thirst
If your budget allows it, wow your guests with a nice bottle of wine, whether a selection served at the wedding or from a local winery. If you're really ambitious, consider making your own - and stamp it with a personalized label. This is one of our favorite wedding favor ideas! (plan ahead, this must be done at least 3 months in advance)

Entertain Them
Give your guests something that will forever remind them of your wedding day. Nothing brings someone back to a special moment quite like a song. So make wedding playlist, and feature songs from the ceremony and reception. Getting married in a place known for a great music scene? Feature selections from local artists. Or if the two of you just love music and want to share your tastes with your guests, make a cd of your favorites. Every time they pop it into the player, they'll think of you and what a great time they had at your celebration.

Personalize It
These days, almost any item or trinket can be personalized, so think of something creative that goes along with your wedding theme, and stamp it with your initials or wedding date. You name it; someone can customize it - golf balls, koozies, ornaments, seashells, matchbooks, candles or soaps. You're only limited by your imagination. We've even seen fortune cookies filled with personalized fortunes!

Give Something Back
Another one of our favorite wedding favor ideas: Some brides are foregoing the traditional favor altogether, instead making a donation to their favorite charity. You can print nice cards that read "in lieu of a favor, a donation has been made to xyz charity." Just be sure your chosen charity is legitimate, and get a receipt for tax purposes.

For more tips and unique favor ideas, visit my complete Wedding Favors guide at Elegala.com

When it comes to your wedding budget, wedding favors are often the first item to suffer deletion from your list. They're not mandatory, so why waste precious wedding dollars on these seemingly frivolous items? Buyt, just like everything else in the wedding planning process, if you would really like to give favors at your wedding, you can always find a way to find cheap wedding favors that look anything but.

This post from the Wedding Planning Advice from Industry Insiders Blog offers tons of ideas for inexpensive wedding favors.

This convenient, interactive Wedding Favors search allows you to sort by theme, style, or price to view hundreds that meet your criteria. Here, you will find everything from cheap wedding favors, to fall wedding favors, to beach wedding favors, to unique wedding favors.

Best of all - each favor is linked to the online retailer where you can order them in time for your wedding.

Another way to find your favors? You can also search this directory of local wedding services for favor vendors near you

Alas, the favor gods have smiled%u2026 Behold the long-awaited food and fashion fusion. Treat your guests to Stoli ganache-filled "Pravda" handbags. This twist on the traditional wedding favor is a tiny chocolate handbag in baby pink croc and adorned with an edible candy pearl clash. Who doesn't love edible couture?

Read more about these unique chocolate wedding favors

As someone who has had extensive contact with wedding vendors - both personally and professionally - I can tell you that most of them are genuine, talented professionals who strive to perform a service to the best of their ability. For most vendors, the joy gained from performing an artistic craft that they love is the primary incentive. The money earned, well, that's extra. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day, we all need to make a living and we all work for money. But some vendors seem to be less motivated by the craft and more motivated to squeeze every last dollar from the happy (or unhappy, depending how you look at it) couple. It's these vendors who propagate the myth it's impossible to exchange vows without simultaneously shelling out tens of thousands of dollars and going into debt.

Case in point:
Elegala.com has a number of articles offering money saving tips for every wedding detail - from flowers, to music, to photography. Believe it or not, we've had some pompous vendors complain that we offer these money saving tips, insisting, for instance, that we remove a tip about how you can save on photography by being wary of upsells like custom albums or save on your floral budget by sticking to in-season flowers. Apparently, we're releasing to the public blasphemous ideas that vendors have been dubiously safeguarding for decades. Oh no - don't enlighten the brides-to-be!

Sure - there are many lucky brides who have unlimited funds to plan their weddings, but for many - especially with the economy in the state that it's in - these budgeting tips are essential in making a wedding a reality. Let's face it - even some couples who have the money spend would prefer to spend it somewhere else. And that's OK. Really, it is. But some wedding vendors would prefer that everyone continue to keep up with the Joneses so long as it keeps their wallets fat. I say shame on you.

See original post on my wedding advice blog.