Miss Green Tea, Sacramento
Age and Occupation: 30, Tea Analyst
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Coffee Critic
Engagement Date: November 17, 2006
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: June 10, 2008
Venue: Vineyard on the Delta
About Me: I'm just your average obsessive compulsive, arts & crafts loving, funky-on-the-inside/boring-on-the-outside girl, who dares to say 'Hey! I can make that!' Nerdy professional by day, goofy won-ton by night. The won-ton sometimes comes out during the day when I'm fed the dollar breakfast at Ikea. Since our engagement, wedding planning has put me on high alert for bargains and I've been pushing my nimble fingers through callous building experiments!
Since our hot August outdoor wedding makes a candy buffet difficult to execute, we decided to carry the tea theme over to the favor (read: ova 2 da fava). Here is a look at our Tea Boo-fay:
Aerial View:

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Mrs. Hummingbird, Toronto
Age and Occupation: 25, Publishing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Videogame Designer/Cartoonist
Engagement Date: May 4, 2007
Wedding Date: June 28, 2008
Blogging Since: September 18, 2007
Venue: A garden wedding followed by a tented reception on Mr. Hummingbird's father's property.
About Me: I’m a pop culture loving, vintage obsessed foodie living in Canada’s biggest city with my fantastic fiancé and our lovable fluffy cat Bettie. I’m stoked to marry my best friend and to throw what I hope will be
the most fun and colourful party of our lives.
Putting a geeky wedding together take a lot of hard work. If you want something unusual (and for that thing to look good), it needs to be custom made and custom making things, as many a DIY bride knows, can be incredibly time consuming.
When we first started thinking favours, we thought it would be cool to get customized chocolate coins and put them in little yellow custom made Mario Question Mark boxes, similar to this one below (minus the Mario figurine on the top):

Picture courtesy of www.consolereview.com
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Mrs. Bubblegum, Exeter, NH
Age and Occupation: 24, Actuarial Analyst
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Ressearch & Development
Engagement Date: February 9, 2007
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: November 2, 2007
Venue: Dunegrass Golf Club
About Me: I can be summed up by the four things I love most: kitties, cheese, math, and Mr. Bubblegum. I am knee-deep in DIY projects to keep wedding costs low but quality high for the special day when I get to marry my bestest friend.
Back in the day, I had my heart set on some true geek-wedding favors: rubik’s cubes. Well, when Mr. BG (and cost) dashed my hopes (that’s right, Mr. BG, DASHED), I was sure no favor would appease me.
I think the problem that we all face with favors is – we want people to like them, and things that people like tend to cost more than a few bucks.
So first I was thinking along the lines of something that guests could take home rather than something that they devoured on-site– silly me. I didn’t really GET the edible favors thing until I read a blog that said something along the lines of, “if I can’t eat it, I don’t want it.” Simple, yes – but it spawned my enlightenment.
In the end, I decided to compromise with myself (yes, you heard me, I have to compromise WITH MYSELF). I decided to make maple sugar cookies, in the shape of maple leaves, and include a maple leaf cookie cutter (which I ordered from David’s Bridal, which sounds odd, but it was awesome because I had a coupon for 25 free favors as a result of buying my dress there).
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Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician
Engagement Date: December 29, 2006
Wedding Date: May, 2008
Blogging Since: August, 2007
Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA
About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
…or rather, the wrapping! Helpful wedding tip: It’s all about presentation!!
It’s amazing the difference that great presentation can make.
So…our favors were a bit random. As you all know by now, part of wedding planning is all about compromise: focusing on the aspects you are willing to fight for and letting go on some of the other aspects. As hard as it was, I had to let go on the favors (more on favors that made it in the running some other day!). It was cute, somewhat practical, and guests were either delighted/amused/entertained or possibly all three.
Here is our favor:

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Miss Cupcake, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 27, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project Manager
Engagement Date: February 10, 2007
Wedding Date: September, 2008
Blogging Since: December 7, 2007
Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PA
About Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
….the photo booth bandwagon, that is!

Photo found here, via the ever-awesome Oh Happy Day
I stray away from a lot of wedding trends simply because they’re trends and I want to be a little bit different, but the photo booth bandwagon is one that I am quite happy to have jumped on. Not only does a photo booth go along with the vintage vibe that we hope to infuse throughout our wedding day, but, quite simply, it’s an awesome treat for our guests.
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Miss Pineapple, Pittsburgh
Age and Occupation: 24, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Student Affairs Administration
Engagement Date: August 4, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: April 14, 2008
Venue: The Rivers Club
About Me: Being a transplant from sunny south Florida I am learning to live with all four seasons while playing with our cat collective, line dancing, and doing a ton of DIY projects for our wedding (seriously, like a thousand)!
When I was a teenager I had some weird passions. I never spent a day of my life on a sports team. I wasn’t particularly interested in school politics. And I quit my first job at Target so I could spend more time (not getting paid, but working longer hours) as a Girl Scout leader.
My biggest passion as a teenager was blood donation. For my 17th birthday I organized a blood drive birthday party. I made invitations and used my door-to-door cookie salesperson skills to invite the whole neighborhood. It turned into a huge bash with two blood mobiles and dozens of donors I had never met. After that I was inspired to keep trying to recruit donors and in college created a group called Carnegie Mellon Life Savers.
My sister called me last fall because she wanted to pick my brain about a new design project. The brief for this project was to design something to touch the hearts of people in a community of her choosing. Of course, I suggested she try to do something for blood donors. She made sixty fleece scarves embroidered with abstract blood related designs and a “Blood Donors Warm Hearts” tag.
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Miss Margarita, Boston/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Healthcare Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Doctor
Engagement Date: March 21, 2007
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: June 18, 2008
Venue: Saddlerock Ranch
About Me: I grew up in Southern California, moved to Boston for college, New York for grad school, back to Boston and now I travel the northeast every week for work. When I'm not on the go, I love to read, draw, shop, sleep and spend quality time with my fiancé, family and friends. We're long-distance planning for our "big fat brown wedding" in California and are excited to unite our Sri Lankan and Indian cultures and Buddhist and Hindu religions in a unique and modern way.
I’ve been thinking about wedding favors for some reason from the moment we got engaged. I think it’s because my sister in law gave me the idea to give away pashmina shawls. We were going to order a bunch of them and then tie them on the back of chairs to look like ribbon/chair decorations. Then at some point in the night, we’d tell our guests what they were and to take them home as gifts. I was even going to get little labels made with our names and wedding date sewn on them. I eventually abandoned this plan as the numbers grew to 450-500. Also, I was feeling bad for not even attempting to include the men in the favor.
So, one day my mom and I were talking and we came up with the idea of doing something with tea. Sri Lankans and Indians alike are obsessed with tea so this seemed like a pretty perfect idea. Then Mrs. Onion posted about using adagio tea samples for wedding favors. I went on their site and ordered some samples, and they were adorable. I came up with this idea to do a Ceylon tea (Sri Lankan tea) and a Darjeeling (Indian tea) so it brings the two cultures together. I think I’m going to stick little Sri Lankan and Indian flags on them or something like that to make the idea clear.
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Miss Gingerbread, Vancouver
Age and Occupation: 32, Psychologist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Software Engineer
Engagement Date: Sometime in the fall of 2004
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 24, 2008
Venue: Rainforest wedding, beachfront restaurant reception
About Me: I recently moved to Canada from Southern California. Trying to plan a wedding in a new city, not to mention a new country, is tough, but the fact that we can get legally married here more than makes up for it! The wedding will be an opportunity for most of our family and friends to see our new city for the first time so it will be both a wedding and a reunion. Besides my future wife, I am also madly in love with a good bargain, Swedish pastries, Tivo, and my two dogs and calico cat (in no particular order).
Remember back in April when I was contemplating luggage tags as favours? Well, we decided to buy a laminator and make them ourselves. Our first idea was to use an image of a map of Vancouver. Then someone mentioned the save-the-date postcard image that our photographer, Aki, took. So now I’m torn. You know what that means! Time for a poll.
Exhibit A

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Miss Cherry Pie, Seattle/Polebridge, Montana
Age and Occupation: 25, Marketing Communications Specialist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Nurse Practitioner
Engagement Date: August 26, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: April 1, 2008
Venue: A tiny town just outside of Glacier National Park
About Me: I think of life as a journey and I love the places it's taking me! I went to school to study Magazine Journalism, ended up with a second major in Japanese language, and now work at a company that makes software for libraries. I love writing, computers, photography, and the great outdoors. I spend most of my time playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band or geeking out online with Mr. Cherry Pie. I'm happiest when I'm on the road, especially traveling abroad, or just nesting quietly at home with my sweetie, who is a fabulous cook and bakes a delicious rendition of a certain cherry-filled dessert!
Now that you have an idea of what it’s like in Polebridge, maybe you can help me figure out which of the following favors from the funky Polebridge Mercantile would best serve as a memento for our guests.
Our maximum budget is $500, which equates to $5 per person (for 100 guests max), though it would be nice to spend less and still give a nice gift. We’ve got several options in or around that price range…
1. Homemade cookies!
The merc makes a LARGE variety of deeelicious cookies (not pictured). And at 3 for a dollar, they are a steal. We could easily package these up in some cellophane with a ribbon or a custom sticker and give them to guests. Everyone loves cookies… but they wouldn’t last long!
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Mrs. Tulip, DC
Age and Occupation: 36, Retired
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Counsel/DOO for Small Gov't Contractor
Engagement Date: August 8, 2007
Wedding Date: March, 2008
Venue: Still Looking!
About Me: In all my dreams of the man I'd someday marry, I never pictured anyone as perfect for me as Mr. Tulip. So now we just have to make it through the craziness of the wedding and the moving in together! I love crafts, sewing, jewelry making, and photography, so am looking forward to this chance for DIY fun. When not wedding planning, I'm playing with our dog and 4 cats, Ebay shopping, or watching too much TV (often simultaneously!).
Wedding favors can be a touchy issue. Brides love them, but realistically non-edibles often get tossed out after the wedding. (Whether right away or, if you’re like me, after you’ve kept them for a few months because you feel guilty throwing out a friend’s favor!)

So I was determined that any favors we gave away should be useful. I also wanted to make them, for a personal touch. After discovering dried lavender for sale at Save-on-Crafts, I decided the answer was lavender sachets. They not only leave your clothes smelling lovely, but keep away bugs to boot!
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