What are Wedding Favors?

If you are getting married, more than likely you know that one part of your wedding planning is going to be coming up with wedding favors. However, you may be wondering why you need to give out wedding favors and what the history is behind them. Do you really need to spend your money on sending your guests away with a gift? Believe it or not, there is a long history behind this tradition; and yes, it is generally a great idea to give your guests a nice memento to remember your day by.

History of Wedding Favors

Wedding favors have been around for hundreds of years; in fact, centuries ago, aristocrats in Europe, especially those in Italy and France, would provide their wedding guests home with a small gift, which was called a bonbonniere. Basically this was a small box that was made out of metal, porcelain, precious stones, of even crystal. There were various confections made of sugar inside of the boxes that the guests could enjoy after they had gone home.

Since weddings used to be seen as a lucky time, couples felt that they were passing on good luck to the guests at their wedding when they presented them with a bonbonniere. Most of the time the small boxes actually would contain five candies or almonds, which were to stand for wealth, longevity, fertility, happiness, and fertility.

What Wedding Favors Mean Today

Today it is still considered appropriate to send your guests home with a gift in the form of wedding favors. It is actually considered to be bad manners if you do not give your guests some kind of wedding favor. Wedding favors for guests are made to be small tokens of appreciation for attending the wedding and they also serve as souvenirs from the wedding as well. Most couples want to be sure that people remember their special day, so they give out favors that are meaningful as their expression of appreciation.

Choosing Your Wedding Favors

When it comes to choosing wedding favors for your wedding, there are a variety of ways you can go. You may want to go with traditional favors, ethnic favors, homemade favors, or even themed favors. Here are a few tips that can help you make the right choice for your wedding.

– Traditional Favors – You can present pieces of the bridegroom’s cake in beautiful boxes, picture frames with pictures of the couple, or even baked goods in lovely ribbon tied boxes

– Ethnic Favors – Some great ethnic favors include small bottles of Japanese saki, fortune cookies, marzipan candies from Scandinavia, or even Swiss chocolates.

– Homemade Favors – Some brides choose to make their own favors including beautiful tulle sachets filled with potpourri, wreaths made of herbs, homemade candles tied with ribbon, and bird houses that you can decorate yourself.

– Themed Favors – If you are having a wedding with a theme, you may want to carry over the theme when choosing favors. Toy boats with candy are great for beach weddings, for southwestern weddings small cacti are in order and there are lots of ideas for winter time themes.