Step 50 - Decide on Wedding Favors

(4 Months to 6 Months before the Wedding)
Wedding favors are small gifts given as a gesture of appreciation or gratitude to their guests from the bride and groom during a wedding ceremony or wedding reception. They should be well thought out using creativity and ingenuity as a memento from the grand occasion.Wedding favors, enhance the wedding reception look as they help decorate the reception tables matched to the color scheme and theme of the wedding.

The tradition of wedding favors dates back to the time of  European aristocrats and were known as bonbonnieres. A bonbonniere is a small trinket box made of crystal, porcelain, and/or precious stones. The contents of these precious boxes were sugar cubes or precious confections. As sugar gradually became more affordable and commonplace, bonbonneires were replaced with sugar coated almonds, and became known as confetti in the thirteenth century. Traditionally, five Jordan almonds are presented in a confection box or wrapped in elegant fabric representing fertility, longevity, wealth, health, and happiness.

Today's gifts to guests are commonly called wedding favors, as the tradition continues of sharing favors at weddings taking place in cultures worldwide. In the America wedding scene, presenting favors to the guests is part of the wedding planning process. Wedding favors are diverse and they are designed to help compliment the event and run the gamut of sweets and treats to little keepsakes as a reminder and memento of that special day.

There are hundreds of companies that offer wedding favors, many of these companies allow you to order wedding favors online over the internet and can assist you both in creating and decorating a beautiful favor that will enhance the beauty and look of your wedding reception. Gain ideas by looking at a number of wedding favor companies websites to see what wedding favors they have to offer. Brainstorm ideas with family and friends of what favors would work best with your budget, many items can even be engraved. To derive a per person favor amount just take the budgeted amount and divide that number by the guests you plan at having at the wedding.

When you are working up a figure, don't forget to take into consideration separate bridesmaid's and groomsmen gifts and you may need to consider wedding favor boxes, goody bags, decorative wrap, ribbons, yarn, string, or tags and deduct associated costs from your original budgeted figure. Wedding favors decorated using the wedding scheme of the wedding really leaves a lasting impression with each of your guests.

Here are a few tips if you decide to order wedding favors online. In recent years, hundreds of companies started offer wedding favors online, because of the amount of competition encountered you can very good bulk deals with a substantial savings for various favors. When you put "wedding favors" in a Google search, all the companies that you see are highly reputable companies else they would not be ranked so well. These companies have earned their ratings and are a very safe bet to order bulk favors from. Some wedding favor companies appear elsewhere in this blog.

Before you order online, check if there are any hidden costs, such as for packaging or delivery costs. You want to be sure there are no other hidden charges, before you order. It is recommended if a company shows no phone number on their website, avoid that company if possible, you want a customer service number in the event there are issues with an order such as, status on the shipment, you need more of the product, or if you have questions or problems with the order. Only use a company without a customer service phone number if that company has a very unique product and you are willing to take a risk. Check the Better Business Bureau or put the company name into Google to see if there are any scam complaints against them. Most online wedding companies though are pretty reputable, there are always a few bad apples that hurt any industry.

When you order online, make sure you order far in advance of the wedding. Identify what you are going to order fairly early in the wedding planning process, have the idea of what you are going to order early, but put the order in anytime after your guests have returned their RSVPs and up to two months (6 weeks at absolute minimum) before the wedding. This leaves enough time in advance should there be any shipping screw-ups, and time to prepare and wrap the favors.

Also with your online order, leave your proper email address. You want the company to be able to contact you if there are any issues, such as a shortage of product in inventory, or a delay in shipping, or slightly different color than the computer screen. If you are afraid to get on a spamming list, create a backup email address just for the wedding and give the company your backup email address. A big wedding is too important to worry about getting hit with spamming advertisement emails. Check the backup emails regularly during the wedding planning period, the backup email could be used for other wedding vendors too.

Although it's not possible in every case, you can sometimes negotiate further discounting favors even further than advertised when you buy in bulk. The company would rather sell you something with a low margin than lose you altogether to one of their competitors. Remember, you have the upper hand. Make sure you order favors that are good gifts, something the guest will keep as a keepsake, don't buy favors that easily break or can get lost as a knickknack. Bottom line, with wedding favors, don't order something because it's cheap, put a lot of thought and get a good wedding favor. Something, your guests will still have when you visit them five years down the road. Certain candies, treats, or mini wine bottles make great wedding favors too!

If you want to get crafty, you can create homemade wedding favors. You can create some type of scented candle holder or you make make a small birdhouse for each of your guests. Potted plants, greenery, or flowers can make a beautiful wedding reception table centerpiece and some lucky guests can take them home as a wedding favor. You can have a candy buffet at your wedding too, and with white sandwich bags guests can load up the goodies and help themselves from your candy buffet.

You can even engrave many of the wedding favor goodies too. Some messages can be engraved directly into the product or with favors in boxes or decorated bags you can print a text message on a strip of paper, along with a ribbon or you can put a message on a decorated tag or put a message on a card that goes with the favor.

Some customized text message ideas:

Your wedding date and new married name, along with a "Thank You".

"Your attendance means the world to us on our special day. Thank you for coming!".

"Thank you for sharing our special day!".

"Meant to be," with your wedding date and names.

"Thanks for being one of the folks!".

"There is no measure for the value of a true friend!".

"Live, laugh, love".

"A toast, here's wishing you a long and happy marriage!".

"Wedding day wishes, Fertility, Longevity, Wealth, Health, and Happiness!".

or Include lyrics of your favorite love song or inspirational quote.


Another idea, along with your wedding favors you could include Trivia Questions on some mini tags. Answers may be on back of the tag or in small print upside down or have the emcee rattle off the answers.

Trivia Questions examples:

          Where do we first meet?
          Where are we going on our honeymoon?
          How many children do we plan to have?
          What's our favorite movie?
          What date did we get engaged?
          How and where did he propose?
          What is our favorite restaurant?
          Where is her favorite place to shop?

The winner of the trivia contest can win a bottle of wine.


Or you can have a "Chinese Wedding Favor Auction". All the wedding favors need to be all different favors at each of the reception tables and all wrapped and are placed near the table reception centerpiece. All the guests at the table pick numbers from 1 to 8 if there are 8 seats. The numbers could be picked out of a hat or flower girl basket by each guest. An emcee runs the auction which could be the disc jockey or the best man. The emcee starts the auction off, tells all the tables at the reception tables, whoever has number 1 to pick any unwrapped favor and open it and shows it to the table.

It's now number 2's turn to go. Number 2 can either go and pick an unwrapped favor or steal number 1s favor if number 2 likes that favor. If number 1's favor is stolen he must choose and open another unwrapped favor. You are not allowed to take back a favor stolen from the last person who stole it.

It's now number 3's turn. Number 3 can either go and picked an unwrapped favor or can steal number 1s favor or steal number 2's favor. If Number 3 steals a favor from Number 1 or Number 2 that person's turn ensues and can steal a favor as long as it's not the favor just stolen or open an unwrapped favor. If the favor is stolen 3 times by a guest it's finally their favor to keep for good and announce it to the world and that favor is out of play.

The game gets interesting as Number 4 starts his play. They can go for an unwrapped favor or steal a favor form Number 1 or Number 2 or Number 3. Whose ever favor is stolen that player can steal another players favor or choose to open an unwrapped favor.

Play continues until all favors are picked by somebody. If a player is missing when it's their turn, another player can play for the missing players favor, for example a wife can play for the husband, if he is ordering a drink from the bar. This game is a great game at Christmas parties too and works well for up to around 50 people. This auction could be held at a house party after the wedding or held at a rehearsal dinner before the wedding too. This Chinese Wedding Favor Auction always is a hit and leads to a lot of fun and laughs. It's best when there are a couple of better gifts and a gag gift in each auction.


Wedding Idea Favors for the Wedding Ceremony or Reception

Personalized Playing Cards, Salt and Pepper Shakers, Personalized Mini Glass Jar, Lip Balm, Scented Candle and Candle Holder, Box of Chocolates, Unique Homemade Cookies, Engrave Bottle Opener, Designer Soap,  Asian Silk Hand Fans, Theme Name Tags, Luggage Tags, Champagne Flute Glasses, Photo Coasters, Personalized Picture Frames, Personalized Shot Glasses, Wedding Day Throwaway Cameras, Wedding Tin Mints, Decorated Measuring Spoons, Personalized Fortune Cookies, Heart Key Chain, Personalized Napkin Holders, Ceramic Coffee Mug, Engraved Candy Dish with Candies, and thousands of others.


Wedding Idea Favors for the Bridesmaids

Bridesmaid Tote Bag, Bridesmaid Duffel Bag, Bridesmaid Lunch Tote, Wedding Necklace and Earring Set, Personalized Bath Towel, Personalized Bath Robe, Personalized Beach Towel, Personalized Cosmetic bag loaded with Cosmetics, Toiletry Bag with Creams, Bath Oils, and Shower Gels, Engraved Wallet or Coin Purse, Pajamas or Nightgowns, Box of Rare Chocolates, Perfumes, Designer Boxes, Garden Kits, Figurines, IPhones, IPads, Blackberries, Kindle, Digital Camera, Digital Recorder, CDs with Original Music and gifts similar.


Wedding Idea Favors for the Groomsmen

Designer Cuff Links, Tux Tie, Designer Tie and Tie Clip, Men's Wallet or Money Clip, Pocket Watch, Engraved Flask, Engraved Lighters, Shaving Kits, Cologne and After Shave, Pocket Squares or Engraved Handkerchiefs, Manicure Sets, Pocket Knife, Pen Desk Set, Barbecue Tools, Bartender Supplies, Weekender Bag, Personalized Duffel Bag, Sports Stein or Mug, Wine or Liquor Gifts, Sporting Goods, Sports Shirt, Golf Supplies, Tennis Balls, Sports Shirt, IPhone, IPad, Blackberry, Kindle, CDs with Original Music and gifts similar.


Wedding Ideas for the Children at the Wedding

Coloring Books and Crayons, Storybooks, Blow Bubbles (Crayola has Colored Now), Non-messy Candies, Activity Books, Highlights Magazine, Jigsaw Puzzles, Playing Cards, Mini Stuffed Animals, Dolls, Paper Dolls, Card Games, Electronic Games, Stickers, Finger Puppets, Colored Pencil Set, Magic Tricks, Collector's Kit, Sporting Goods Ball, Jump Rope, Matchbox Cars, Kooz Ball, Art Supplies, Tube of Animals, Children's Music CD, and many others.

Presenting and decorating tour wedding reception with wedding favors just adds to a very special day and whenever guests see their wedding memento they will always think of you!

See you on the other side!    








      

Step 39 - Reserve a Bridal Suite for your Wedding Night

(6 Months to 9 Months before the Wedding)
It's of utmost importance to have your first private moments together as husband and wife in a romantic situation. Finding a romantic honeymoon suite to celebrate your first night together will get the marriage off to a rousing start. Whether you'll be staying in a special honeymoon suite for a single night or a week or more, it will be at a place and time loaded with idyllic bliss making you feel like you're in heaven and bring a special memory that will always have with you honey in your lifetime.

As you begin your search for a special honeymoon suite, your decisions will be based on your honeymoon plans. If you find yourself in the area of the wedding the day after your wedding you want to start your search by searching for hotels that are within 15-20 minutes of the wedding reception or near one of your parent's homes. If you are leaving for you honeymoon on the day after your wedding, then you might look for a suite in a hotel near the airport or if it's a cruise at a hotel near the cruise line point of departure. The hotel suite may even be located in a destination city, where you can find a honeymoon suite in a four or five star resort, and see the city sights some.

First you want to identify a number of hotels in the area you want to be, first check out different hotels online. You can find hotels from wedding related websites, some are elsewhere in this blog, or you could put the city you are in into a search engine with the word "hotel". You may get a general idea of the bridal suite online but what you see is not always what you get.

Most hotels have more than one honeymoon suite. It's important to find a bridal suite that's just right so it's really important to see for yourself what the bridal suites are truly like. Make sure the hotel arranges for you to see the bridal suite is really like, don't go by pictures and their word. It's important that you love the place and compare bridal suites from a number of different places and pick the best place that fits your budget. Make sure also, the place is in a good convenient location and there are no noisy projects happening during the day or week of your honeymoon.

When you are interviewing the hotel, you want to inquire about the check in and check out policy. Some bridal suites require checkout by 11:00 in the morning and you were out late the night before. The hotel might look great but it just might not work for your plans. Make sure you know and understand hotel policies before you book a room. Is the hotel accommodating and can check out be rearranged without incurring a penalty?

Check out the amenities the bridal suite itself has to offer and check out what the hotel has in the way of services in addition. What amenities are important to you and your love? Honeymoon and bridal suites are all over the board in how nice they are and what services they provide. A "suite" may consist of pure elegance in one hotel and may consist of an extra bedroom and bath and nothing really special at another. That's why you need to check them out in person to really know what you are really getting.

Check out the room itself and see what the suite has to offer. Inquire with the hotel, to schedule a time you can stop by to check out the room in person. Does it offer impressive niceties, really nice furniture, a private hot tub, fresh robes, spacious rooms, a king sized bed, a home theatre room with comfortable lounge chairs, a library, an eloquent dining area with butler service, and a built in bar. A place of romance where you have to battle your family and friends, who want to stop by and say I just got to see it!

You want to check the hotel out too, does it offer amenities that you want? Do the restaurants offer the type of meals that you like and can meet your budget? Does it offer shows? Do they provide tours? Does the hotel have a health spa to get a wonderful massage? Does it have a scenic pool, sauna, and gym? Remember your wedding night and honeymoon period is a once in a lifetime experience, you can never get that experience back if you don't do it and it sets the marriage on the right foot!

If the hotel bridal suite is out of the realm of possibilities and you just can't afford it you might want to check out get away cabins or bed and breakfasts or locking yourself in your bedroom home for a couple of days. The important thing is to spend quality time together to really get to know each other and if it's important to the guy, brides don't forget the romantic moment with the lingerie and the negligee. Also be sure to shut the world out with no phone, IPhone, IPad, Blackberry, computer, or internet, and concentrate on each other especially during your honeymoon.

When people care about you enough to take time off from their work, travel, and spend money just to be part of your special day, be sure to show them how grateful you are. Let guests arriving from out-of-town know you appreciate them coming and do something for them to show your appreciation.

If you have a group of guests travelling to your wedding, you should reserve a block of rooms for them so they can enjoy a discounted group rate. The block of rooms should be reserved at least 6 months in advance of the wedding date at a hotel in proximity to the wedding site.

Many hotels require you to reserve a minimum number block of rooms could be 6, 10, or 15 or other to reserve the space. If you have more than 30 rooms, you might need book some additional block of rooms in a  hotel nearby. You may need to consider finding a hotel that is a lot less expensive for guests that have a tight budget too. Some guests may come into town without a car, you should check if the hotels have shuttle service to and from the airport and find where the shuttle can go, between other hotels and to and from some of the city landmarks. Relay what you find to out-of-town guests and again when wedding invitations go out.

As an extra treat for your guests, prepare welcoming bags for each of them. You can have them waiting in their rooms or have attendants hand them out at the front desk. If your guests are from other areas you may consider a gift basket  filled with a lot of locally produced goodies including sweet and salty snacks and may include beverages such as bottle water. You might include a welcome note with a map and another paper filled with the wedding weekend's itinerary. You might invite them to the rehearsal dinner, or have a cocktail in their honor, and leave a coupon for a spa treatment and another for a dinner for two in the hotel. Maybe leave a list of phone numbers and room numbers, and leave suggestions of sights to check out and things to do in the area. Lastly provide a contact person their name and phone number, in the event a person needs something or a ride somewhere.

Remember it's your honeymoon, a period of your life where life doesn't get any better than this. You do have to live within your means, but for your honeymoon if you can, you need to splurge a little. Enjoy the special time, reserve a bridal suite for your wedding night. See you on the other side!

Step 4 - Decide on Communications Mediums

(9 Months to 24 Months Before the Wedding)

Ringgg...Ringgg, "How do I get to the receptions?" Ringgg...Ringgg, "Did you get our RSVP?"  Ringgg...Ringgg, "Can our children come to the wedding with us?"  Ringgg...Ringgg, "When and where is the bridal shower?"  It use to be you had three ways to communicate wedding planning activities to your bridal party and guests, either by telephone, by sending a letter through the mail or meeting them in person.

In order to not being overwhelmed, you need an organized way to communicate about what's going on with the wedding with some type of wedding guide or assistant.  Today you have about a dozen options to choose from to stay in touch with your wedding guests and your bridal party.  Some options you have are IPhone, IPad, a Wedding Website, Facebook, Text Messaging, Blogging, Twitter, Email, and you still have the old fashioned telephone.

With IPhone and IPad you have the capability to load wedding apps onto the phone that enables you to do wedding planning directly on your phone.  One company that offers a wedding app can be found off of the www.iweddingdeluxe.com website. Most Apple Stores can help you out with any assistance you need on setting up apps on your phone.  There are other companies out there that also have wedding apps that you can do wedding planning and load onto your IPhone and you can find these businesses using the internet.

A Wedding Website is another option and is a valuable asset in planning, coordinating, and sharing your wedding planning with family and friends.  You can either create a website yourself, look up how to build websites using youtube or download an ebook on how to build websites or pick up a book on how to build websites from your local library or pick one up at a bookstore.  

There are some wedding websites that have templates that couples can use to build wedding websites, the more recommended companies that offer these include "www.weddingwindow.com", "www.wedshare.com", "www.wedsimple.com". "www.nearlyweds.com", "www.weddingtracker.com", "www.myevent.com", "www.ewedding.com", "www.wedorama.com", "www.theknot.com", "www.mywedding.com".  Take a look at a few and decide on one where you like the design and offers the tools that you want to use in your wedding planning.  If you know a couple has a wedding website and you want to find it you can find them by going to www.weddingpages.com.

You also may consider using Facebook.  Facebook is a social networking website and in the last couple of years has become an outlet where brides and grooms can plan their wedding, communicate with family and friends, get in touch vendors and can even document the wedding wedding process with posts, pictures, and videos.  The couple can often view and share photos online to get opinions and discuss planning and decorating ideas.  You can also add onto facebook, the countdown to your wedding day, show guest lists with RSVP, show floor arrangements, who and how your bridal registry works and post the vendors you have contracted with.

You can keep everybody informed by using text messaging, or by emailing.  In the world of text messaging you may consider learning text messaging and chart abbreviations.  One place you can find text message lingo is from a website called www.webopedia.com or you can attend class at a local community college for text messaging. The idea of learning text message lingo is to learn how to send messages with much shorter text streams saving you dollars for using less bandwidth on your phone.  Cannot believe, some schools are abandoning cursive handwriting, what's the world coming to.

Twitter is another medium to consider.  Twitter is kind of like a daily diary.  You can keep all family and friends up to date by using www.twitter.com/planurwedding.  Twitter enables it's users to send and read message called tweets.  Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on a user's profile page.  It can be set up so senders can restrict messages delivered to just followers.  Some engaged brides and bridesmaids become enthralled, sharing their daily planning activities.

And then there is blogging which I am doing right here.  Blogging is very similiar to facebook, you can add pictures, video, charts, and put in posts of your daily wedding planning activities.  You can blog for free and can learn it from www.youtube.com and put in blogger in the search engine.  Blogger will show you how to import pictures, videos, and website links.  For brides, if you have a hobby and you like to write you can add some affiliate marketing links and learn how to make some extra money from your blog.  There are some other blogging websites out there too, but I highly recommend at least starting out on www.blogger.com.

Google has some wedding planning templates too at www.google.com/weddings, check them out. After you decide on what communications medium you are going to use, to get the word out on your wedding inform all your family and friends on how you want to communicate.  Try to not use too many different mediums to communicate as it then becomes a little cumbersome activity to maintain.  The communication mediums today make wedding planning fun, consider the medium that most presents to get the wedding planning details and activities out to your family, guests, bridal party, and wedding vendors.

So that is the story on Deciding on Communication Mediums.  See you on the other side!

  

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