Weddingbee Blog

After my post about our favors, I researched where and how to buy honey in bulk. Turns out, producing honey is a pretty lucrative business! I got some really good leads and reached out to various local producers. While I waited to hear back from them, I checked the cost of ordering the honey from a mainstream wedding website like beau-coup and little things favors to compare.

I was really shocked at how expensive they were! Ordering through beau-coup, although convenient (no labeling or divvying up the honey ourselves) would cost more than $300! Little things favors was a little less expensive, but still somewhere in that same ballpark for a wedding of about 100 guests.

My planner recommended this website, which sells honey by the gallon, but for 6 gallons, which is what we’d need for 100 half pint mason jars was, once again, about $240! It’s actually cheaper to buy the honey pre-packaged from this particular website. For 100 jars of 6 ounces of honey, we’d pay something like $190, which includes shipping. Yes, that is better than $300, but still not in the budget.

I held out hope throughout the day that one of the local beekeepers I contacted would cut us an awesome deal, but it turns out honey is money! I would have really loved to work with Dan at the Sweet Virginia Foundation, but just 3 ounce honey jars (plus a little beeswax lip balm they said they’d throw in) would cost $25 each! Yikes! The proceeds would be strictly for charity, which is a lovely thought, but there’s absolutely no way we can afford that!

Another company, Banner Bees said they’d sell us one gallon (12.5 lbs) for $60 or 5 gallons for $240! As much as I love the idea of giving our guests honey, any one of them would not approve of us spending that much on wedding favors!

The cost of buying chalkboard stickers (12 heart-shaped stickers for $8) was much more reasonable. We’ve already ordered pretty green straws, too, but the problem is that our guests wouldn’t have much of a chance to use their mason jar glasses. We’re not having an outdoor-only reception, and after the ceremony the guests would probably bring the jars inside and clutter up the tables, which will be set with other glasses we’ve already paid for!

Sigh.

What’s a girl to do y’all? This whole thing is turning into quite the fiasco, right? I think these are the little details those married brides try to warn us about…the little details that drive you nuts!

We’re not going to let it, though. This is our “thank you” to our guests for making it to Maryland, and we won’t be hasty about choosing their gifts. I’ll update you as soon as I know our next move. I think the Brooches might actually try making Apple Butter together… whether it will work or not, I don’t know, but it will make for a pretty funny post!