11 Unique and Unusual Wedding Favours

Wed­ding favours from Style Me Pretty blog — click the images for full cred­its

11 unique and unusual wed­ding favour ideas

by Carol

Are you think­ing of get­ting wed­ding favours for your guests? Have you started research­ing ideas and been unin­spired by the typ­i­cal “over-used” selec­tion avail­able? Fed up of key­chains and look­ing for more cre­ative ideas? Is your bud­get pretty tight? Think­ing of DIY favours but don’t have time? I’ve done some of the leg­work for you here and found sim­ple ideas to eas­ily make your own and get your guests talking!

Lots of peo­ple don’t like wed­ding favours as hav­ing spent so much on the guests already, they can feel like a waste of money — espe­cially if you are wor­ried about guests leav­ing them behind scat­tered across tables after the recep­tion. That’s one rea­son why edi­ble favours are so pop­u­lar, they dis­ap­pear so fast because guests will always have a use for them. Some of these favours are edi­ble but they can all be done cheaply.

Favours can be given as thanks for com­ing, a memento of the day or as an aid to con­ver­sa­tion at the event. What­ever you want to give favours for, keep read­ing for some inspiration.

No 1. Lego Men

Image credit: cbcd04 flickr

This is a cre­ative idea for the more geeky brides and grooms. Buy enough lego peo­ple for each of your guests, and give to them bro­ken up in parts in a lit­tle box for them to con­struct. Guests can trade body parts and take pho­tos of the lego peo­ple together for some fun. Both adults and kids will love this.

No 2. Per­son­alised Love Hearts

Image credit: Love­hearts

If you have a sweet tooth, these are the per­fect favours. Mini pack­ages of love hearts say­ing “just mar­ried” sold cheaply in bulk. The pack­ets can be per­son­alised with names of the cou­ple and the date. Cute!

No 3. Per­son­alised Name Buttons

Image credit: Project Pretty

Make each of your guests a but­ton badge with their name (or nick­name) on. It is a great way for guests to get to know each other and dou­bles as a place set­ting. There are plenty of places to buy per­son­alised badges, to save some money it is also pos­si­ble to hire a badge maker from a local craft shop and make them yourself!

No 4. “IOU a favour” Favours

Image credit: Kit­tling books/creative commons

These are easy to do with­out spend­ing any money, and can be very mem­o­rable to the guests. As a cou­ple write a lit­tle per­son­alised note to every guest, hand­writ­ten or typed in a beau­ti­ful font, telling them about all the favours they have done for you for the wed­ding or just in life. On the back of these notes just write “IOU a favour”. And if that’s too much free­dom for your scarier rel­a­tives try list­ing some choices like a free drink at the bar or help babysit­ting in the future!

No 5. Per­son­alised Thank-Yous

Image credit: John Kroll Pho­tog­ra­phy Flickr

A sim­i­lar idea, write a per­sonal hand­writ­ten thank you for any­thing spe­cific your guest has done for the spe­cial day. For a great idea to make the note or IOU more durable, try per­son­al­is­ing your own post­cards with a photo at Bags of Love, as it is a favour guests will like to keep to read and maybe even put on their fridge! Try per­son­al­is­ing it with a love quote from a song, film, book or poem that you know well.

No 6. Mini Sticker Stories

Image credit: lets-explore.net

This is a com­mon thing for kids to do, like the lovely story above make a lit­tle story using a sheet of tiny stick­ers. Pro­vide sheets of tiny wed­ding or love theme stick­ers, a post­card or piece of per­son­alised paper, instruc­tions on the back and a pen. Encour­age guests to make up a story, tell their own wed­ding story or to give advice to the bride and groom. These could also be great alter­na­tive to the guest book, and make great keep­sakes to col­lect in after every­one has left and look through or keep in a scrap­book. Your local arts and crafts or sta­tion­ers shop is a good place to start look­ing for stick­ers, or try stick­ers galore.

No 7. Mad Libs

Image credit: AKturns30 Tum­blr

These also work out as a great idea for the guest book or invi­ta­tion like above. If you haven’t heard of mad libs before here are the basics: you fill out a list of verbs, nouns, adjec­tives and names and then trans­fer those to fill in gaps in a story on the other side of the page you haven’t seen yet. It leads to some very funny sto­ries and great keep­sakes! You can eas­ily find these online or make up your own.

No 8. Origami For­tune Teller/Cootie Catcher

Image credit: Green Lily Designs

Did you ever make these in school? An origami for­tune teller is a great idea to get guests inter­act­ing! Use a love or wed­ding theme for yours. They are eas­ily avail­able to order on craft sites but mak­ing your own on some fancy paper coor­di­nated to your theme is a great way to save some money.

No 9. Home­made Soaps

Image credit: Whole­Port

Mak­ing your own soaps is a really unique favour. You can add any fra­grance you want, colour, size, shape and even add glit­ter. Soap bases and recipes are eas­ily avail­able and sil­i­con moulds come in all shapes and sizes, or even make your own moulds!

No 10. Forget-me-nots

Image credit: Ryen Nicole

It’s in the name! Beau­ti­ful, sweet smelling flow­ers guests won’t for­get, or you could pro­vide pack­ets of seeds (a cheaper and much more pop­u­lar option!). Pick them up from your local gar­den center.

No 11. Home­made Choco­late Lollipops

Image credit : The idea room

Much like soap, moulds are eas­ily avail­able (try Ama­zon) and you can even make mous­tache and lips to get some funny wed­ding pho­tos out of it. Melt­ing choco­late is the eas­i­est way to fill the moulds, but to make the pink coloured lips you need to use candy melts. Cakes cook­ies and crafts shop is a good place to look for that.

Hope­fully you’ve been inspired to put some orig­i­nal­ity into your favours!

Carol Mor­ris writes on behalf of Bags of Love bagsoflove.co.uk

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So what do you think? Do these favours appeal to you or are they already a lit­tle out of date? I think some of the ideas are great, but as a wed­ding guest how many of these would you be delighted to slip into your hand­bag or pocket to take home? I’d have the lego peo­ple and the per­son­alised notes… but I’m still not con­vinced about the rest. Claire x