Wedding Blog

Today in our Real Bee Budgets series, check out the bees’ favors!

~~~

Mrs. Flamingo’s Favors

Favors: Imported Italian Sparkling Water + Donation to Quebec Breast Cancer Association
# of Favors: 96
Total Price: $192
Price per favor: $2

“When it came time to choose our favors, we decided to make a donation to the Quebec Breast Cancer Association. We felt as though our guests might like to leave the wedding with something in their hands, so we purchased Italian imported water. We created little cards and DIY pink ribbons with the mention of the donation in memory of my grandmother and in honor of my mother, who is a survivor.

The guests loved our favors and still talk about them today… some even shed some tears!”

———————-

Mrs. Penguin’s Favors

Favors: Gocco printed coasters with jelly beans
# of Favors: 120
Total Price: $120 total
Price per favor: $1

“I wanted our favors to double as table decor, to give our plain white linens some pop, so I glued a tissue pom on the top of each favor to spice up the decor a bit! I printed 700 or so of these coasters myself, which was a huge pain, but for under $1 a favor, it was worth it. I smile when I see them around peoples’ houses!”

———————-

Miss French Bulldog’s Favors

Favors: Birdie Place Card Holders
# of Favors: 140
Total price for favors: $483
Price per favor: $3.45

“Mama Frenchie found these adorable bird place card holders on a wedding favor website. Although they were a bit more than we originally wanted to spend, we justified the expense because they could be three different things - place card holders, favors, and table decor. I can’t wait to see these little guys in action on our wedding day.”

———————-

Mrs. Cookie’s Favors

Favors: Cookies
# of Favors: 60
Total price for favors: $25
Price per favor: $.41 ($.02 per cello bag, $.05 per favor for kraft paper, $.04 per ribbon, pennies for Gocco ink and screen doubled up on multiple projects, $.30 for cookie ingredients)

“At first we were going to make truffles for favors, but we left the favors to the last minute and ran out of time. My mother graciously offered to step-in and bake 120 cookies the morning of our wedding — she said it calmed her nerves. I Goccoed the ‘Merci Beaucoup’ the day before on kraft paper, and then my dad and brothers packaged the cookies.”

———————-

Mrs. Tulip’s Favors

Favors: Lavender Satchel, Handkerchiefs, Cookies
Price per Favor: $0.80 per Lavender Satchel

———————-

Mrs. Butterfly’s Favors

Favors: Candle and matches
Price per Favor: Less than $3.00

———————-

Miss Cherry Pie’s Favors

Favors: Cookies
# of Favors: 100
Total Cost: $150
Cost per Favor: $1.50

“We gave each guest a 3-piece sampler of homemade Polebridge Mercantile cookies, including snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, macadamia nut, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. The cookies were set upon recycled paper crinkles in favor bags and tied with hand-stamped manila shipping tags for that rustic look.“

———————-

Mrs. Pineapple’s Favors

Favors: Scarves
# of Favors: 100
Total Cost: $150

———————-

Miss Joey’s Favors

Favors: Personalized Luggage Tags in Wedding Colors
# of Favors: 180
Total Cost: $85.74
Cost per Favor: $0.70

———————-

Mrs. Quiche’s Favors

Favors:

Total Cost: $350
Cost per Favor: $23

“Our favors were the OOT bags for our guests. For couples, we did one per room. If two singles were sharing, they each received their own. Since most were couples or families, we were able to save quite a bit of money!

We knew we wanted practical & fun things - the best of both worlds. Along with your typical sunblock and bug spray, we included underwater cameras and local Jamaican flavors with Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee and Appleton Rum. The bags were a huge hit!”

———————-

Mrs. Plumeria’s Favors

Favors: Cookies and Magnets
# of Favors: 400
Total Cost: $350
Cost per Favor: ~$1.00

———————-

Mrs. Corn’s Favors

Favors: Sand, Sea and Glass ornament
# of Favors: 120
Total Cost: $165.60
Cost per Favor: $1.38

The ornaments were such a labor of love and very appropriate for us since we collect ornaments whenever we travel. However, I didn’t want them to go to waste and I wanted everyone to receive a favor… so midway through the process, I decided to also make rosemary salt favors using the same vessel as the ornaments.”

———————-

Mrs. Hot Cocoa’s Favors

Favors: Keychain
# of Favors: 275
Total Cost: $341
Cost per Favor: $1.24

“Kissing couple keychains from Fantastic Weddings in Hong Kong (includes the purple organza bags)!”

———————-

Mrs. Tiramisu’s Favors

Favors: Flip Flops and CDs that doubled as escort cards

Favor: Flip Flops from Old Navy
Total Cost: $185
Price per Favor: $2 - 15% coupon = $1.85

“We purchased 100 pairs of flip flops (for our 187 guests), 75 in a range of women’s sizes, and 25 in a range of men’s sizes. This may have not been the case if we hadn’t had a severe storm during our wedding, but we had almost no leftovers!”

Favor: CD
Price per Favor: $3.55
Price Breakdown:

• Blank CD: $0.25
• Paperboard Case: $0.30
• Songs downloaded from iTunes (and used only the iTunes legal limit of 7 times each): $3
• Total for 125 (we made one per couple for married guests) = $443.75

“We chose to have flip flops available at the wedding originally so that guests could change out of their shoes in order to check out the rocky beach and cliffs at our venue. We had no idea that they would become an essential part of our day once the crazy thunder/lightning/hail storm hit! They were all gone quickly, and I wish I would have ordered a few more. It’s fun to see them still in use by some of our guests almost a year later!

As for the CDs, we fell in love with the idea of including a favorite love song from each of our parents, and member of our bridal party (half of whom were siblings). It was an interesting collection, and also almost guaranteed that our guests would enjoy at least a few of the songs! Just like the flip flops, we still run into these in our friends cars, or stereos from time to time which is a lot of fun. ”

———————-

Mrs. Canary’s Favors

Favors: Tea cookies (2) with a sachet of tea in a Japanese folded paper box (from Amai Tea and Cookies)
# of Favors: 275
Total Cost: $1,375
Price per Favor: $5

“Everything was baked and assembled by Amai Tea and Cookies (which sadly is no longer in business). Kelli, the owner and head baker, created several concepts for us involving tea and cookies and we chose this one because of the beautiful ornamental box.

Mr. Canary and I love sweets and particularly cookies. We wanted something edible for the end of the evening. We chose Amai’s cookies because they had an Asian fusion flavor. Each box had two cookies (either Green Tea or Red Vanilla) and a sachet of corresponding tea. Everyone loved having something to munch on and many of our guests went on to order boxes of the cookies themselves after sampling them at our wedding!”

———————-

Miss Stiletto’s Favors

Favors: Samples of maple cashew granola from a local non-profit bakery that provides job training for at-risk and homeless youth.
# of Favors: 125
Total Cost: $236.75
Cost per Favor: $1.89

“We really liked the idea of making a charitable donation AND giving our guests something sweet from that charity! Blue Sky Bakery is located just blocks from our condo and has a wonderful mission that we’re proud to support! And, we love devouring their yummy granola. ”

———————-

Mrs. Margarita’s Favors

Favor: Tea - One Sri Lankan tea tin and one Indian tea tin from Adagio Teas.
# of Favors: 250
Total Cost: $1250
Cost per Favor: $5.00

We came up with the idea of doing something with tea since Sri Lankans and Indians alike are obsessed with tea. Mrs. Onion posted about using adagio tea samples for wedding favors and that’s how we ended up using that company. We loved the personalized tags that were on each tin and the fact that they gave us 400 little gold organza bags for free saved us from trying to find a way to package them. We just added a few crystal ornaments to each bag to jazz them up.

———————-

Mrs. Ballet Flat’s Favors

Favor: Candy
# of Favors: 150
Total Cost: $105
Cost per Favor: $0.70

“We had boxes of our favorite candies. I put some after-dinner mints (Mr. BF’s favorite) in cellophane bags and Hershey Kisses (My favorite) in a favor box that I purchased at Michael’s from the Brides magazine collection. The teal ribbon and cellophane bags were purchased separately at Hobby Lobby. Cellophane bags prevented the mint from seeping into the chocolate..I’ve had these mints made chocolate taste minty when unwrapped, so I wanted to avoid that. Edible favors, as always, are a hit and we brought one for each guest. I only brought 7 home with us. ”

———————-

Mrs. Pomegranate’s Favors

Favor: CD
# of Favors: 150
Total Cost: $443.28
Cost per Favor: $2.96

Cost Breakdown:

• $123.28 Bulk CD Burning
• $224.00 Jewelboxing Kit for 150
• $50.00 Ink for my printer
• $21 IKEA CD Boxes
• $25 A-Z CD Dividers

“They doubled as our seating cards so I was able to combine two budgets into one. They ended up costing us much less than the favor budget alone ($3 each).“