Weddingbee Blog

I’ve never been too keen on the idea of favors. I don’t know why, but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea, and definitely couldn’t justify a large price tag for them. Of course, what I thought before planning a wedding and what I think while planning a wedding are often two different things, it turns out.

No lace/beading/detailing on my wedding dress? –> Sure, I’ll buy that lace dress!

No need for flowers to decorate the ceremony space? –> Yes, why don’t we add some arrangements at the ’altar’!

Why waste money on fancy shmancy printing techniques? –> Swoon over, then “must have” letterpress invites!

{Sigh… don’t worry, I’ve reined it in elsewhere}

So, it’s really no surprise to me that after swearing off expensive (or any?) favors, I fell in love with an idea that’s sure to prove pricey. I’ve had this idea in the back of my mind since I first saw them, so I decided it was finally time to figure out how much they would actually cost, and whether it is reasonable. Curious what it is, yet? The title of this post really gives it away…

(Cowgirl cookies, from Bakerella)

I have long been obsessed with Bakerella’s blog, where she bakes amazingly creative, delicious treats! She’s the main creative force behind a super cute treat known as cake pops (and cupcake pops)! These are fun, adorable, tasty balls of cake mixed with frosting, shaped into balls, then coated in chocolate and decorated with sprinkles, more chocolate, etc - what’s not to like?! I made a bunch of egg shaped ones at Easter and brought them to Mr. Guinea Pig’s family party for the kids to decorate, which was a complete success! (Give kids chocolate, sprinkles, and cake, and they will love you forever).

(The two on the left could be Miss Chick and Mr. Chick!)

Here’s another application of cake pops she made recently that would be totally awesome for weddings that Miss Frozen Yogurt already mentioned!

(these were used by a guy to propose through her blog!)

I briefly considered making these as favors, but these kind of take forever to decorate if you’re being careful, and they’re small so you wouldn’t really be able to have one per couple. That would mean making ~175 of them in the week leading up to the wedding (so that they’re still fresh). Just baking/making 24 (and only decorating 8 - kids decorated the rest) of them for Easter was a serious time commitment!

The jars with a mix for cookies, however, could be made one per couple - I’m picturing them with blue and yellow M&Ms, our names and wedding date on the jar, and some cute floral fabric for the top! Everyone knows how much I love to bake (and Mr. Guinea Pig loves cookies!) so this would be great! Each jar makes about two dozen cookies and the guests would just have to add 1 egg, 1/2 cup butter and 1 tsp of vanilla when they are ready to bake them. The downsides are the cost, and the fact that there would only be one favor per couple. We’d have to get those glass jars, fabric for the top, string to tie them, specific M&M colors, and all the ingredients! It’s time to estimate the cost for 80 of these jars (this is assuming each couple/family takes one, which might not make people happy?)…

Breakdown of ingredients:

• The glass jars used are 1 quart smooth Ball jars (no logo) - I’ve found these at $13 for 12, so they’re a little over $1 per jar. So, that would be $91 for enough jars.
• The M&Ms are $6.99 for 7 oz of a particular color, or $57.99 for 5 lbs. The recipe calls for both M&Ms and chocolate chips and originally I thought I would sub the brown chocolate chips for colored M&Ms, but these suckers are expensive! So instead, I would mix both colors into the 3/4 cup of M&Ms called for. Except I can’t quite figure out how many ounces of M&Ms would be in 3/4 cup so… for now let’s assume I get a 5 lb bag of each color M&M (wow, that’s a lot of M&Ms). Total = $116.

(screenshot from www.mymms.com)

• I’d need about 30 lbs of flour (all my estimating below is done like this: for flour, 1 cup = (approx) 4.4 oz, I need 1.33 cups/recipe = 5.9 oz, 80 of those = 470 oz, and at 16 oz/pound that’s about 30 lbs!). I found a 40 lb bag on Amazon for $40, but the shipping is not free so I’d need to look at local places. I imagine Costco would have something for around this price that we could pick up with no shipping fee!
• Next up is white sugar, of which I’d need about 18 lbs. I think this would cost about $25, judging from a couple different 10 lb bag sources.
• We’d also need brown sugar, so that’s 20 lbs of brown sugar, which appears to be about $35
• Now for the oats - 9 lbs of Quaker oats would be $23 on Amazon, and I’d probably need 2 of those, so that total is $46.
• For the chocolate chips, I’d need about 20 lbs, which should be around $70
• I’ll just estimate another $50 for the baking soda/powder/salt contributions!

Grand total: ~ $473, or $5.91 per jar. If each jar is for two people, that’s almost $3 per person!

Personally, I’m having sticker shock. Oh! And I forgot the fabric + twine + stickers. Yikes! There is no way I’m willing to spend that much on favors! … Right?! And yet, I can’t seem to let go of this idea…

What do you think is the typical amount spent on favors? Would you like to get this favor, as a guest? What is the best favor you’ve received at a wedding?