Wedding Favors Gone Wrong and How to Do Them Right

Recently I had a friend go to a wedding where they had a lower budget than other weddings she had been to. However, in my opinion that did not give the bride the right to give her guest the goodie “box” she gave out at the end of the wedding.

The Wedding Favors

The first thing I need to mention is that this wedding was made on a budget so they had made all their goodies boxes to give out to their guest by themselves however there is a way to make things on a budget and still have them look very high quality.

The first thing I see that went horribly wrong with these wedding favors is that they gave them to their guests in a hand painted cardboard box. If you are going to give wedding favors a much cheaper alternative to cardboard boxes are, umm I don’t know, BAGS!!!

Next were the contents of the box. The box included the following:

• A CD – The official soundtrack of the wedding
• A bag of Irish dirt and clovers, along with certificate of authenticity
• Irish spring water to water the dirt and clovers
• Irish prayer with rubber charm
• Handmade candle holder
• Hand decorated bubbles
• Customized matches
• Pen made out of a clover straw
• Plastic gold coins
• Plastic champagne glass

With being on a budget I believe that there were a lot of things included in this box. If they couple would have just given one or two items that cost a little bit more and it would have been a much better option.

The CD is something I find very confusing. They called it the official soundtrack of the wedding so I assumed that it was going to have Irish songs on it, this was not the case, some of the songs included:

• I Got You Babe – Sonny and Cher
• Gin & Juice – Dave Matthews and John Popper
• Cotton Eyed Joe – Rednex
• I Get Around – The Beach Boys

 

None of these are involved with the theme, also they didn’t make sure the printable inserts were facing the right direction when they put them together.

The one thing that was a cute idea was the Irish dirt with the clovers and Irish water. However, I believe that they order a bigger bad of dirt then made smaller bags for their guests because the certificate of authenticity looks like it was copied and scaled down and reprinted numerous times.

The Alternative to These Wedding Favors

First I don’t believe that it is necessary to give out wedding favors, but if you are giving out favors they need to make sense and not look cheap.

First are these almond boxes. They are small simple and you can choose to put almonds or even M&M’s in the little box. But what ties in the Irish theme is how the box is tired with an Irish knot.

Next is this recipe in a bag. This is a great and simple to make idea. All you need to do is put dry ingredients into a plastic bag with a tag that explains how to make the recipe.

The last idea I have for an Irish theme wedding for favors is instead of just having traditional seating cards to attach the seating arrangement cards to a miniature bottle of Jameson Whiskey. This still revolves around the theme and gives your guests a nice little treat. Or as in the picture below just attach a cute saying to each bottle and set them at each person’s seat at the table.

There are many other ideas that someone could use for an Irish themed wedding and I found all these ideas on Pinterest. Also for other Irish themed ideas check out my blog post Let’s Add Some Irish Charm. If you have any other ideas for wedding favors for an Irish themed wedding or would like me to write about another theme please let me know in the comments.