Wedding Favor Suggestions

One small way to make sure that guests remember your special wedding day, is to make sure that you give your guests special gifts to take home with them.   I encourage my clients to give meaningful favors that will last beyond the week of your wedding. There are so many favors that are discarded when guests arrive home. In some cases they are eaten at the reception and the receptacles left right there. With today’s interest in personalized weddings, make sure that whatever mementos you select carry your names and wedding date. These are just a few suggestions for consideration.

You can personalize packets of flower seeds in glassine envelopes with a message from you both that talks about growth and love.

Ordinary mints, sugared almonds or chocolates can be transformed when placed in small personalized collectable boxes or bags. They can also be placed in wine glasses. If you place them in wine glasses, wrap them first in tulle and tie with ribbons matching your color scheme. You should attach a message of thanks to each one.  They can be bunched together in baskets for the guests to take home with them as they leave the reception or they can be placed on the dinner table as part of the reception décor.

More and more couples are creating CDs of their favorite music and providing them for guests to take as they leave the reception.

If you are planning a photo booth at the reception, provide a small frame for each guest to use to take their photo home.

If you are hosting an outdoor wedding, a handheld personalized fan is a fitting option for the heat. A novel idea might be a small potted plant and if it is a beach wedding an opener in the shape of a sea shell works well. If yours is a destination wedding, an appropriate favor might be a luggage tag. 

Some couples prefer a dessert station to a formal wedding cake and instead provide each guest with a tiny individual cake in a personalized box  for each of them to take home.

Whatever you choose, make sure that you take this opportunity to share your joy and thanks with those friends and relatives who have come together to help you celebrate your new life together.

Visit www.triniweddings.com and click on the Beaucoup  link for lovely wedding favors.

Wedding Etiquette 101- Should guests pay to attend Bridal showers?

It seems that there is a growing trend these days for brides and others involved in the wedding planning process to be adopting some very rude and tacky practices. One such practice that comes to mind is that guests are being charged to attend Bridal showers.

 I set about researching etiquette gurus like the Posts – Emily, Peggy and Elizabeth and could find nothing that dealt with this issue. Then I happened upon a comment which stated that the idea was so repulsive and wrong that the etiquette gurus had not even considered writing about it. They likened it to walking into a job interview and not saying good morning.

 Emily Post in her Complete Book of Wedding Etiquette states that “Bridal showers traditionally are friendly gatherings of intimate friends, held to honor the bride and shower   her with gifts.”  It cannot then be reasonable for guests to shower the bride with a gift and also pay to attend the shower. In our quest to host grand affairs which cannot be afforded by those responsible for hosting, we are losing sight of the raison d’etre and essence of the event. As an aside, let me also mention that the Bride and her immediate family are never to host a shower. It is accepted only if the immediate family member is part of the bridal party. Showers can be hosted by aunts, cousins, members of the bridal party, co-workers or just friends.

I am sharing an excerpt from The Knot’s question and answer forum which I found very insightful, along with a picture of me with Peggy Post whom I met and questioned extensively at a Wedding Planning Conference I attended a few years ago.

 

Bridal Shower: Who Pays for Bridal Shower Food?

Q.

My maid of honor (and my only attendant) wants to throw me a wedding shower at a restaurant, and she expects the bridal shower guests to pay for their meals. I told her I would rather have the shower at someone's house with cake and snacks. She said she wants to have it where we can be waited on, which is fine, but my friends would have to pay to attend my bridal shower! How can I handle this without hurting her feelings? She is very sensitive.

A.

It's nice of you to respect her feelings, but she's a little out of control, and she's risking offending people close to you! Guests should never pay for their meals at any party they are invited to, and you need to make that clear to her -- if she insists on having the shower at a restaurant, she'll have to pay for the food! Don't let your MOH hold you hostage; tell her you know she's got great intentions, but she just can't do things this way! One more suggestion: If you're freaked about talking to her directly (though you should try to), ask your mother if she can reason with your MOH.