Wedding Favors: what were yours?

We are doing koozies and a magnetic photo frame so that they can put their pictures from the photo booth on their fridge at home.

You could do something like decks of cards, shot glasses, or bottle openers! Otherwise, is there something that the area you're getting married in is known for? For example, something orange themed for a Florida wedding, or picture frames with seashells on them for a California or beach town wedding, etc. Or is there something that you and your fiance are "known" for? Such as, do you both collect Christmas ornaments? You could get a love/relationship themed ornament to give out as a favor. Or do you and your fiance enjoy attending baseball games together? You could do something baseball themed. I would recommend only putting your names/wedding date on the packaging and not the actual item if possible. For example, most people probably won't use a picture frame to put their own photo in if the frame has someone else's names and wedding date on it, though you could put your names on a removable tag attached to the frame. Putting names/wedding date on things like decks of cards, shot glasses, etc should be fine though!

Honestly, you could just skip them. Aside from food items, most wedding favors just end up in a junk drawer for awhile or not even taken at all. Unless there is something you specifically have your heart set on doing, people won't miss the favors.

View Quoted Comment I like the photo frame idea since we are getting a photo booth too!

I would skip them. My fiancé and I don’t have any, as I’ve been to many wedding and I personally don’t like favors. But since you’re doing a photo booth, their photos could be the favor. My friend did it at hers and everyone loved it!

We did small votive candle holders with matches that say "perfect match". We met on Match so thought it was a cute little play on how we met.

I second that photo frame idea if you have a photobooth! it can be used as your escort cards or place cards too

View Quoted Comment We met on eHarmony, so maybe something music related?

View Quoted Comment That’s a great idea!

My favorite favor we've ever gotten at a wedding was a decorated sugar cookie in a cellophane bag. We were able to take them with use to eat when we were done being full, but we didn't end up with yet another koozie, or wine glass, or magnet, or coaster.

My husband and I did shot glasses. We had an adult only wedding so we placed one with each name card. We had a little note attached to the shot glass. And we went with shot glasses because we figured our guests could also use it for that night. Btw, the majority of our guests do drink. We would have gone with a different idea if they weren't. So, make sure you know your guests too

We gave out packets of wildflower seeds that said “let love grow” it fit our wedding theme well, was inexpensive, and I was happy to keep the ones that guests didn’t take. We also considered doing s’more kits, but decided against it since we couldn’t have a bonfire like we wanted

In my experience as a guest, favors are generally left behind. I have seen everything from personalized cocktail napkins to pouches of birdseed to toss at the couple and chocolates or cake to save for later. They have all been left behind. The couples with edible favors could not give them away. Weddings have gotten more elaborate over the years so guests really don’t miss favors when everything else is grandiose.


Either stick with a couple chocolates at each setting that guests can eat at their leisure or skip them entirely. If you are on a budget, that is the first thing to cut

View Quoted Comment

We are doing that as well ! Most of our guests will be flying in from other states, so I had to make sure anything we chose would be "packable". I know a lot of people say "no favors", but 90% of our guests are 'old school', and that is what was done for generations. And the flower seeds really aren't that expensive.

I was also not very much in favour of favors, lol. My fiance and I decided if we had them at all, they had to do double duty somehow or be edible, or useable (soap, tea, lipgloss, whatever - something you'd use and it would be gone).

We ended up choosing to combine our place cards with the favor and are having un-iced cookies with people's names stamped in them, in our wedding colours! I actually gave some as a gift to my fiance on our original wedding date that had to be postponed:

we figured we had to have the name cards anyway (as per our venue's requirements) so we might as well do something fun and kill 2 birds with 1 stone type thing!

View Quoted Comment Photo Booth Nook - 200 Pack - Flexible Magnetic Picture Strip Holder - Vinyl Photobooth Strip Frames - Crystal Clear Surface, Lightweight, Shatterproof Material - Ideas for Party Favors -2 x 6” Inch https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HRH2HCI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_X7EM2G65AZ3HRRKNE3S1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I was originally going to skip favors, but then a pandemic happened and we decided to do little hand sanitizers for each place setting. Very few bottles got left behind, and we see friends and family carrying them all the time now!

I like useable items as well, such as candles, lotions, sanitizers, etc. Anything that had the couple's names or date on it like a magnet, coozie, etc, I probably wouldn't take. No offense!!

We did bbq sauce as our favor, because we had a backyard bbq wedding

You don't need to have wedding favors, but we had lottery tickets sealed in customized envelopes from Etsy that said "For Richer or Poorer" along with our names and the wedding date.

I strongly recommend choosing a lottery with higher odds and lower winnings, so more guests get a little something.

In my case, two of the lottery tickets were bought with a lucky $2 bill, and one of the guests won the grand prize of $500!

I also like the hand sanitizer idea. 😊