Question about favor etiquette

its your wedding so you guys do what you want. my sister didnt go nuts with favors for her wedding (her FH is from upstate and is not used to your typical LI wedding) so they just did chocolates in very cute boxes and put them on everyones plate settings already.

however, my DH's family is very picky! they have all been known to come to a wedding with an envelope UNSEALED because if they dont find the food appetizing or the music not to their liking, they will take money OUT of your gift!!!! AND they wont give you your envelope until the end of the evening when they are saying goodbye. so theyre expecting their exchange of gifts...an envelope for a favor, kwim. its nuts, i know, but this is how they ALL do it and i'm not even about to try to understand it!!!

We decided to do favors because FH wanted to. We ended up getting photo coasters for our guests and then were not even a dollar each. They are cute and something people could actually use.

On a side note we went to a wedding two months ago and for their favors they just got the little favor bags and filled them with Hershey kisses and attached a tag to it saying thank you for helping much this such a special day. It was cute, thoughtful, and not that expensive. Just an idea.

OK, THAT's tacky! Taking back money from the gift if you don't like the food or music! OMG, that's awful. Especially since it's not necessarily the couple's fault--I've certainly heard about weddings where the tasting was wonderful but the actual reception food was nothing like it, and I've heard of DJs not playing the lists they were given. Wow. Good luck with them as your in-laws.

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Posted by alnem
however, my DH's family is very picky! they have all been known to come to a wedding with an envelope UNSEALED because if they dont find the food appetizing or the music not to their liking, they will take money OUT of your gift!!!! AND they wont give you your envelope until the end of the evening when they are saying goodbye. so theyre expecting their exchange of gifts...an envelope for a favor, kwim. its nuts, i know, but this is how they ALL do it and i'm not even about to try to understand it!!!

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I feel like when it doubt go for food. If you feel like you must give something or you must do something because people will look for it, then you could always do chocolate bars, hershey kisses, the lil wedding almonds, all fairly cheap.


If you want to do the donation favor you can. The nice thing about it, it's your discretion how much you donate. With paper you can print up little notes very cheaply, and if you want you could always do one per table on a stand.

I haven't been to a wedding where I didn't receive a favor so I'm not sure how I would feel if it wasn't there, but on the flip side I do have a lot of favors that are sitting collecting dust. So do what you want and don't worry about it!!!

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Posted by FuTuRe MrS MaZz

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Posted by Pencils

I can see how people would like that, but as an alcoholic, it seems like a problem just waiting to happen to me. Pretty much everyone has a couple of non-sober alcoholics in the family (or friends) and it could be a bad thing to give those people a bottle of wine. I can think of one person at my wedding for whom it would have been a very bad thing to do. Or even to give one to a sober person like me. What am I supposed to do with that? I'd just leave it behind or give it to someone else. There's always a certain amount of people who don't drink, especially if you have kids and teens at the wedding, so then you'd have to get two favors, and...seems like a lot of trouble to me.

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Posted by FuTuRe MrS MaZz
The best useable favor I have yet to receive was a mini bottle of wine... I dunno how if its expensive or not, but I def used it! You can also do something edible as a favor (cheap, but its something that most likely people with 'use' and not just throw away!)

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My take on this is that it is a tiny bottle... If they dont want it, they can leave it on the table... It wont go to waste, I'll take all the leftovers back home with me (I am in no way an alcoholic, but it would get used) Wouldnt the 'alcoholics' be tempted at your wedding when they can just go to the bar and get a free drink ? I see it as the same thing... You cant count something out just because it wouldnt be a good idea for the 5% of your guests.... That would be like me saying... 'well, let me check with all my guests first on what day would be better for them to attend my wedding' You cannot make every single person happy... If you get chocolates, there will be people that will get upset because they are on a diet and cant eat it and you are tempting them that way.... Bottom line, you can;t please everyone & if you try to, you will drive yourself nuts!

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Agreed!

Hmm ok we will probably do either candy or the donation. I mentioned the donation to my mom and she was not thrilled about it-guess diff generation. LOL she said people prefer 'tangible' favors so to try and make light of it and dow what I want to anyway, I gave her my best look of horror and said, 'MOM! You really think Aunt Rita would prefer an ice cream scoop over Little Jimmy getting a new heart?'

Needless to say, my mother is not talking to me this week.

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Posted by alnem

however, my DH's family is very picky! they have all been known to come to a wedding with an envelope UNSEALED because if they dont find the food appetizing or the music not to their liking, they will take money OUT of your gift!!!! AND they wont give you your envelope until the end of the evening when they are saying goodbye. so theyre expecting their exchange of gifts...an envelope for a favor, kwim. its nuts, i know, but this is how they ALL do it and i'm not even about to try to understand it!!!

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Wow!!!