<p>Wow, love that papermates site! </p>
<p>I had chocolates as favors, with the almonds in little dishes at the cake table.</p>
<p>I am happy with a favor or not. The only one I really didn’t get was the small bottles of olive oil at a recent wedding. Very hard to transport to the site, and hard for the guests to take home (not factory sealed, the family made rosemary olive oil and filled the bottles). A lot were left behind.</p>
<p>Bookworm, an excellent question! And one which my H has often posed… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I have a too-small chocolate business. Too small because I hate marketing myself and so avoid it.</p>
<p>Since this is CC, I feel compelled to point out that Miss Manners is a Wellesley woman. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, both have Morex sheer organza. The colors are the same in reality.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Merckens is definitely the best of the molding stuff, but even that tastes pretty pathetic compared to the real thing (couverture). It can be purchased online if it is not available at a cooking supply store in your area. This is an excellent site for buying all kinds of baking and candymaking supplies (With the caveat that what I mean by “candy making” is not high end confectionery or chocolate like mine, but more novelties.):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sugarcraft.com/[/url]”>http://www.sugarcraft.com/</a></p>
<p>If you DO decide to try your hand at tempering chocolate, DO NOT use a “candy” thermometer. Use a digital instant read thermometer, like a meat thermometer. And ask me for advice. 
The good news is that chocolate should never get hot enough to burn you. The bad news is that it can be exceedingly tempermental.</p>
<p>Another shot out for Wellesley.</p>
<p>So, Consolation, you could start another thread looking for marketing suggestions. I’m sure you have a web site and contacted all local event planners. And now us CC’ers will know who to contact.</p>
<p>Oh, I know what I OUGHT to do…I just don’t DO it. Story of my life. :)</p>
<p>Re Consolation #191: In our area, ministers will perform a wedding without cost for anyone who wishes to be married in the church. Nonetheless, it is customary here for the groom to give a gift to to minister, not as payment for services, but just as a small token of gratitude. I think this happens regardless of the scale of the celebration.</p>
<p>Consolation, I do Judaic fabric art (as well as secular stuff). Same story on this end, and not just about the fabric stuff… ;)</p>
<p>Another East coaster who doesn’t subscribe to the “cover your plate” rule. When we got married, we had absolutely no expectations regarding gifts. We also did not have wedding favors. I pretty much hate most wedding favors - what am I really supposed to do with those things?? I DO like edible wedding favors though, and if I were to do our wedding over, I might have little chocolates that were in some way related to the wedding. (Ours was an outside garden wedding, so maybe flower-shaped chocolates.)</p>
<p>I’m with Pizzagirl. While almonds or chocolates are fine, especially since many forgo cake, I have no interest in some cheap mug or handkerchief featuring the happy couple’s names and date. Just more stuff I have to lug home and guiltily take to the dump.</p>
<p>I don’t go to many weddings, since I have a small family and my good friends’ kids haven’t started getting married, but happily the only favors I have encountered have been edible. Not that I would be able to eat them anymore. 
Oh well!</p>
<p>I would say that as a rule of thumb, the only people who are going to want something commemorative of your wedding are you mother and your grandmother. :D</p>
<p>
I agree. Although I’m sure your family members and friends will be so happy for you, if we all kept “something” that we’d gotten at a wedding or other event, we’d have houses like you see on ‘Hoarders’. I like getting rid of stuff, not bringing in more. Being invited to share your joyous event is gift or “favor” enough. Most of your guests would probably rather see you save your money and use it for something for you and your new spouse.</p>
<p>I dislike most favors, but I admit I succumbed to pressure and had some personalized playing cards at my daughter’s recent quinceanera. Although not everyone plays card games, I know I can always use another deck.</p>
<p>Just wanted to comment that I really like Consolation’s ideas for appetizers, and decor as well–also nottelling’s comments on organization. Will keep those in mind. I don’t think we will be trying to prepare the appetizers for QMP’s wedding (if and when), but the appetizer suggestions are great for “normal” dinners, too.</p>
<p>Years ago, we had a wedding of the “cake and punch (non-alcoholic) plus small open-faced sandwiches in the church fellowship hall” type. We (as bride and groom) left at the end of the reception amidst a shower of rice. There was a family dinner after we left, since the only out-of-town guests were family. Relatively simple–although there was still a lot of planning that went into it–and right for us.</p>
<p>For the next generation, we will probably be expected to do something more complex.</p>
<p>In general, I agree that I’m also not a fan of little knick knack type of favors. And some of them are truly horrific. Somebody on a wedding forum I frequent posted an add selling extra favors from her wedding - they were big fake diamond solitaire ring keychains. I remember when I was 12 though coveting the scented candle favor from my aunt’s wedding. My parents never really burned candles so having a scented candle in the house seemed so fancy at the time. I think the three or so we had ended up being used in a power outage. Nowadays I’d probably give it to my grandma, who is a candle fanatic. </p>
<p>QuantMech - It seems like wedding planning is going in a few different directions. One is for them to get bigger and bigger, to the point that they strongly resemble carnivals (performances, food stations, constant activities, photobooths, etc.). Another is that I see a lot of brides doing smaller weddings, doing a lot of DIY, and being inspired a lot by ideas from places like Pinterest. The third is the destination wedding. That’s kind of like saying to your relatives that they’re only important enough to you to share your day if they have the money to spend on a lavish vacation, which not everyone does.</p>
<p>Gouf78 in 398 - uh, coworkers?
My H owns a small business with 20 employees. They are all close to one another and we get invited to their weddings, even though I don’t know these people from Adam. He has attended weddings of my coworkers as well where I know them quite well but he knows them only through my stories / anecdotes or maybe a quick intro at my company’s holiday party. That doesn’t strike me as unusual at all.</p>
<p>I’d happily take a deck of cards. I’ve always enjoyed getting thank-you notes with photos of the happy couple. I’d take the olive oil too! We took two litres home from Jordan with us and then pour one bottle into smaller ones which we gave to family for the holidays. It was really good olive oil which we watched being pressed.</p>
<p>The olive oil sounds like a great Shower favor idea.</p>
<p>And I agree with Pizzagirl again. A LOT of the weddings that we attend are for distant relatives, neighbors kids, coworkers, etc. A small percentage are for close family or friends. We celebrate all of them! I love weddings! But I don’t want or need a commemorative item from them. I do love the idea of the specialized chocolates, though. They aren’t necessary but they sound yummy.</p>
<p>costblog, quinceanaras and bar/bat mitzvahs are birthday parties, and so favors are entirely appropriate. (I think the playing cards sound fabulous, by the way.) Weddings, however, do not require favors.</p>
<p>Two of my Ds chose not to have favors and instead, made a contribution to a charity they were involved with respectively. They printed out a photo, note about the charity, and framed it, placing it on the table with the guestbook so that people could see it and not expect some favor they didn’t really want!</p>
<p>I agree that bar mitzvahs, quinceanaras, etc are different. Key word is that a lot of the attendees are children/teenagers. My kids’ bnai mitzvah had about 100 guests - roughly 50 adults and 50 children. We had favors for the kids (personalized silicone Livestrong-type bracelets that were hugely popular at the time) set out at their places, but no favors for the adults.</p>
<p>costblog: I like the card idea. An extra deck is always handy!</p>
<p>I would also have liked the olive oil, which never goes to waste in our house. I can appreciate that it would be tough for people travelling by air to take it, though. If I were at that wedding, I might have been sneaking around picking up a few extras! :)</p>
<p>Re birthday party favors, goody bags were de rigeur when S was little, but I never wanted to do them. I used to get each kid one more substantial thing instead, like a Playmobile figure. And they would usually be the prize for each kid in a treasure hunt. For S’s two pirate birthday parties, I did give each kid a golden “treasure” box which they could decorate and then use to take home some of the heaps of “pirate loot” on the table: chocolate gold coins and fake gems, mostly.</p>
<p>Hmmm…how about a pirate wedding? :D</p>