


Nowadays, favors seem to be more or less an unnecessary item, and I think those who choose to pass them out do so because of a personal preference to have them, rather than in response to a rule of etiquette. Most people are realizing that the inherent worth of the typical favor usually isn’t much, due to the high volume that needs to be purchased, and guests are generally quite happy with or without them.
Nevertheless, Mr. Plumeria and I wanted to give everyone something to thank them for being a part of our day — a little piece of the wedding to keep as a memory, if you will. We settled on magnets with our pictures on them, which worked out nicely since we had planned to take our wedding portraits early anyway. We know that many of our guests would like to have an actual wedding portrait of ours, so having them as a favor was ideal.
I looked at several different custom magnet vendors, but the best I found was www.magnetqueen.com. While their site is a little hard to navigate, their customer service over the phone is great and their product quality unsurpassed. To top it off, they apply hefty discounts depending on the lead time an order has when it is placed, as well as occasional seasonal discounts. These magnets are sturdy, with a thick clear sheet on top of the printed piece, so on the whole, they come off as a solid, hard plastic piece instead of flimsier papers.
We used two different portraits, so guests can have a choice of either, or couples can have one of each:

I used the floral motif from the invitations as a sheer watermark over the photos to tie in the favors to the everything else (sorry, pic has blurred names, so the watermark also got a little blurred). MagnetQueen does have some design services, but I’m not sure how limited they are. For myself, I worked in Photoshop and submitted my own designs to be printed as magnets.

The thickness of the magnet from the side — much sturdier than any others I’ve seen.