We all know that wedding planning can be quite a stressful thing. It’s not just the organising, decision making or trying to keep everyone reasonably happy, but with the cost of weddings rising each year, one of the biggest headaches is deciding how much to spend. Or rather which area of your wedding to save money on which one to splash on so that your wedding can be the meaningful day you always hoped for!
Wedding favours are possibly not on the top of the list of priorities for weddings, but they are a nice little touch and a way of making the whole wedding experience a little more personalised.
If you are on a tight budget or thinking of not having a wedding favours at all, let me inspire you by few budget-friendly suggestions for cheap wedding favours that you can either buy easily or make yourself. I think that wedding favours can be more about showing your personality and the idea of what to give is more important than the actual cost of the wedding favours. You can be really creative here!
Just think, what interests or common hobbies you have with your future husband that could be turned into a fun wedding favours. Do you like gardening? Give everyone your favourite flower seeds in a packet. Mad about lego or games? Why not make your own chocolate lego piece and package it nicely with your favourite colour ribbon and pretty label.
Or are you known for your jelly beans cravings? Swap the traditional sugared almonds for a colourful selection of your favourite sweets. Your guests will appreciate something different and it can be a great icebreaker for wedding guests as they are being seated at their tables.
There are lot of ideas for wedding favours under £1 if you want to keep your wedding cost down, but here are my 10 top tips for budget-friendly wedding favours.
1. Homemade mini soap
Make your own soaps using a scent that you (and your partner) are most fond of.
2. Chocolate Truffles
Choose your favourite chocolate and flavour and create a chocolate treat that your guests will truly remember. You can always add a hit of alcohol to your chocolate truffles to make them extra special.
3. Mini Jars filled with sweets
These are great fun to make and you can choose a flavour or colour of sweets that compliments the overall wedding theme.
4. Flavoured Salt Jar
Not all wedding favours need to be sweets! How about making few batches of flavoured sea salt flakes displayed in tiny jam jars and pretty labels with perhaps a recipe suggestion.
All you need is your flavours (dried herbs, spices etc.) and good quality sea salt flakes gently combined together. Just try the mixture before you pot up your jam jars to make sure that the salt is not too spicy or strong.
5. Iced biscuit
This project needs a little more time, but handmade iced biscuits will look beautiful on each table, so it will be worth the effort. An extra tip is to pick a shape that’s easy to decorate, especially if you have lots of guests.
6. Marmalade Jars
Make your own marmalade or jam and use mini jam jars to fill them. You can make your marmalade extra special by lacing it with alcohol.
7. Lottery Ticket
I love this idea! The spend is low, but the fun factor is high! Buy each guest a lottery ticket for a £1 (or more if your budget allows) and place it in an envelope with their name (which can double up as a place setting). It will be a great talking point and what if somebody wins? How great would that be?
8. Bath Mini Bombs
I’m sure that your wedding day will go until the small hours and everyone will want to be on their feet and dancing until the morning. So, wedding favours in the form of mini bath bombs will be a welcome gift!
9. Handmade Candle
You can make your own candles inexpensively and use pretty labels to decorate your packaging.
10. Lip Balm Scrub
Lip balms are always practical and very easy to make. You can use fresh ingredients, such as strawberries and tailor-made the flavour to your wedding theme.
Once you decide what wedding favours to go with, the chances are that there will be quite a lot of work involved to put them together. One way of getting everything done and have fun at the same time is to invite your friends and family for a pre-bridal hen party and make the favours as a part of your get together.
To make sure that the day won’t feel like work, include some other hen party games, prepare a simple buffet lunch and bribe your friends with a promise of a glass of something bubbly, when the work is done.
Few simple hen party games very budget-friendly ideas can include:
Tell a story about the bride
This game is very simple. Each party guest is asked to write down their favourite memory of the bride. This is done anonymously, and at the end, the bride needs to read out each memory and guess who wrote it. This is a great way for everyone to get to know a little bit better, not just the bride itself.
True or False Quiz
Ask somebody who knows the bride well (if you are the maid of honour and the best friend, that’s probably you!) to write short sentences about the bride, some that are true and some that are not. Then read them out and let everyone guess which statement is true or false.
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