Mrs. Plumeria, San Francisco
Age and Occupation in 06: 22, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, High School Teacher
Engagement Date: December 30, 2005
Wedding Date: May 12, 2007
Venue: Hotel Ballroom
About Me: I love all things artsy and unique, and it has become a passion of mine to incorporate these attributes into my wedding (and become DIY royalty in the process). Other than dreaming up projects for the wedding, my latest hobbies include working on my computer, playing with my cute pet bunny, or shopping at Target/Barnes and Noble with my fiance.
This Just In: Favors!
May 9th, 2007 @ 4:49 pm by Mrs. Plumeria
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.
Favors…done, and we’re to the next item! Wish us luck. 
9 Responses to “This Just In: Favors!”
they look awesome miss plumeria! how did you design the motif - did you draw it and use illustrator? or any other tools you can recommend in photoshop?
Magnests are indeed more useful than your average wedding favor tchotchke.
Right on, Iris. I’m all for something useful/edible/expendable. We’re doing custom playing cards–he’s from a bridge family, and I’m from a pinochle/oh shaw family, so I’m hoping that will keep our favor out of the “one more thing to dust” pile.
We printed up 10 different engagement pictures and will have one at each place setting. We printed our logo on the front of each one. It will add some color to the table and people can take them if they want.
Those are great Miss Plumeria and thanks for all the information on magnetqueen.
so cute!! this is kind of random but today alby asked me “do we need to wear the tux for the rehearsal??” 
haha that’d be great if he showed up in it. good thing he has me to tell him how things are done.
nice
Wow I can’t believe I didn’t catch this one… this is reallly reallllly late. Anyway, if you ever check back, Janie — I drew it in Illustrator using the pen tool, as well as some ready-made flourishes from a script font. I arranged them and added some more swirls and grass-like designs and that was it! For this type of art I’d definitely recommend using Illustrator over Photoshop.
thanks MRS!!! plumeria. good thing i checked the awesome feature for new comments to be emailed to me, so i was pleasantly surprised to get the response from you. thank you! and happy congratulations to you again!
