5 Useful Ideas for Outdoor Wedding Favors

With all you have to think about for your upcoming wedding, favors for your guests might not be at the top of your to-do list right now. And, truth be told, many of your guests wouldn’t bat an eye if you didn’t have wedding favors. After all, you’ll likely be hooking your guests up with plenty of delicious food and drinks and you’re definitely providing them up with an excellent celebration. But wedding favors are a kind gesture to your guests and they can be of particular use if you’re having an outdoor wedding. An outdoor wedding, especially if it’s a camping wedding like the one I had, is a beast all by itself. You have to work alongside the elements and certain types of wedding favors can help you to do that. Here are some creative and resourceful suggestions:

1. Parasols. It didn’t take me long to decide to have parasols available as wedding favors for our wedding. I’m a light-skinned person with high UV sensitivity and since I knew I would want some protection from the Texas sun, I figured some of my guests would, too. I found beautiful parasols at Oriental Trading. I didn’t order enough for all of my guests by any means, just a dozen or so, but they were there for the taking for those who needed them. I made sure to save one for myself and I’m glad I did! There were no others in sight by the end of the wedding.
2. Fans. If you’re having a wedding during a warm month, you might want to consider buying fans as wedding presents. I found gorgeous sandalwood-scented, laser-cut, wooden, old-fashioned fans online and ordered a few dozen of them to set out for my guests to take if they wanted one. Considering that I saw lots of people using them throughout the wedding weekend, I think they were a welcomed wedding favor!
3. Drink Koozies. Drink koozies are another type of wedding favor you might want to consider if you’re having an outdoor wedding during a warmer month. If you’re planning on serving cold drinks outside, why not help your guests to keep them cold? You can get koozies that are personalized with artwork or words memorializing your wedding or follow in my footsteps and leave a basket of blank koozies next to a basket of markers.
4. Sunscreen. Like so many other things these days, you can find companies that will personalize bottles for you for sunscreen if you’d like to have small bottles available for your outdoor wedding. But whether you personalize or not, having some sunscreen around for a warm outdoor wedding is a thoughtful wedding favor.
5. Bug Spray. Much like small bottles of sunscreen, having small bottles of bug spray around for your guests will be appreciated during your outdoor wedding if you live in a buggy place. The last thing you want is for your guests to be miserable during your big day because their skin is getting annihilated by mosquitoes!

About Elizabeth: My writing has been published by National Geographic, Discovery, AOL, and many other online and print publications. I started out writing DIY posts for Discovery’s Planet Green, How Stuff Works, TLC Green, and Planet Green. I’ve been inspired to write DIY wedding posts ever since throwing my own DIY camping wedding. Follow me on Google.