The Great ‘Wedding Favour Debate’, Continued…

Hehe! It sounds a little dramatic that post title doesn't it? But I needed to draw your attention to this brilliant little blog post by my friend Anna.

Last week I wrote a piece about 'wedding favours' and posed the questions, 'yes', or 'no'?.  The post received a great response, and also inspired this guest post from Blogger Anna, of 'Anna And The Ring' fame.  For those of you unfamiliar with this eloquent writer, her wedding featured here on Love My Dress and continues to be a popular page hit on the blog today. It is a pleasure this morning therefore to be able to hand over the blogging reigns to Anna, who shares some personal views on the  wedding favour debate…

Please get involved, leave a comment at the end and let's enjoy some Thursday  morning chit-chat 🙂

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – All Photography on this page Copyright (c) 2010, Emma Case

Can I ask you a favour?

Ahh, the eternal quandary – wedding favours. Should I? Will they? Won't they?

Since this post by Annabel, I have been a thinking about the concept of favours. I shan't reiterate the history as Annabel has already eloquently described how the idea of the wedding favour emerged.

Oh how these are one of the many minefields when thinking about one's wedding. So please, these are just my thoughts upon the subject.

My wedding was a little troubled (perhaps more on that in the future if you'd like?) by snow and distance and I was incredibly grateful by the effort my friends and family made in trying to get to us. Some made it as far as York and had to turn back. My Auntie was snowed in (for two weeks!) 30 miles away. People really did try. I was going to thank anyway but this made my favours even more important to me. However I am abundantly aware that they are not for everyone.

I'm sure not everyone loved our favours. I know I loved curating them. The original idea was to send everyone a hidden compartment invitation. That is to carve out the inside of the book and glue the pages in such a way as to conceal an object. However, after it took almost a day to make one I realised this was not a viable option even for 40 invitations. We had a small wedding. I also realised that the books I had been collecting were beautiful. Some had the most exquisite words and drawings and it would have been a travesty to destroy such treasures. Thus our favours were conceived. I searched high and low for books which reflected the personality or name of my guests. From eBay to Albris from Newport, Pembrokeshire to the Midsomer villages. Oh yes, I left no stone unturned. I searched high and low for the perfect book.

One of my very Conservative friends received "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism" and loved it! Another who was about to travel around the world was given a gorgeous illustrated "Around the World in 80 Days." I spent many an hour writing sweet words of thanks in each these little books. I truly hope my loved ones will treasure their favours for years to come. I think they made perfect little placecards with the rather ubiquitous baker's twine in grey and purple. It made my heart rather happy to see them all on the tables together. (Finally!) 

Oh and the heart glasses – when you look at lights they turn it into hearts – did go down rather well too. Sadly you may still need to ship them from the US. Totally worth it though!

It may sound incredibly ungrateful but I can't remember favours from any of the weddings I attended this year. I know some did not give them. I can remember one where only the woman received a handcrafted monstrosity which I would never use (a monster I be) and another who gave odd tiny soaps which everyone thought were sugared almonds and paid the price for after the champagne. 'Twas rather amusing. I honestly do think favours are a waste of time unless you have the money and/or time. I'm not going to say that mine were either cheap or speedy. Yet, I did rather enjoy the journey and at the time I had a few spare pennies and the time to make it happen for my guests. However, if you can't afford anything that you would actually want to receive yourself I think your guests would prefer a little more money behind the bar or a donation to a small needy local charity.

If I am perfectly honest I care more about the thank you card (another post be brewing). It very much irks me to not be sent a personalised thank you note. I appreciate you may need to send 200 but I'm afraid that you should have realised that when you invited 400 people. Yes thank you notes are compulsory. People spend so much time to-ing and fro-ing from weddings, one line on a prewritten card is just not enough.

So how does one negotiate the minefield?

I think there are some rules. Although I understand rules are meant to be broken and I am certainly not Emily Post.

1. No lottery tickets. Just no. 

2. Everyone deserves a favour. It should be everyone or no-one. Men like presents too.

3. If you can't afford favours – don't have favours. I promise no-one will mind.

4. Skip – the personalised momentos – I love my friends and I love their weddings but I just don't need a piece of tat with their face on to remind me of their vows. I'm a hoarder and can't bear to throw them away.

5. None of this men get alcohol whilst women get something heart shaped – it's sexist and wrong.

6. Everybody (nearly) will eat a biscuit – but some people cannot abide honey or chocolate (or is that just me!?) 

7. If you are going to hand-make things, remember it nearly always takes longer than you think.

8. Not everyone shares your aesthetic or musical tastes – aka, Anna should stop giving people presents that she wants herself.

So what is your take? Do you agree or disagree with the above? 

Should favours be left to die? Are they an intrinsic part of the world that is wedding? Does anybody really want that piece of junk you have spent hours searching for and creating?

I am happy to be proved wrong 🙂

Anna
http://annaandtheringlondon.blogspot.com