Wedding favors mandatory ? Budget

View quoted message Thanks, Hank!!

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We considered the coffee bean idea too! Coffee is very much ingrained in my fiancee and I's relationship lol

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That's an awesome idea!

It definitely comes down to your preference... and what fits you, and your budget!

We decided to give small, rustic picture frames as a favour ( which I found on sale for a great price!). We have a family friend who is also a photographer that has agreed to take pictures of all the families, couples, individuals at our wedding. We will send their picture with a thank you card after the wedding. They can put it in the frame or not, but I think it will be great just to have a nice photo of them looking great and having fun on our wedding day as a keepsake.

In my past experience of attending weddings, people have just done small things just to say thanks for coming, and you could always be budget-friendly by making something! At my brother's wedding, he had homemade jam in small mason jars as a favour, and my cousin made her own salsa for hers! I've also seen things like small s'mores kits to give away too. Myself, I am planning on giving away coffee beans in small burlap bags that I've found very inexpensive. You don't have to go big if you plan on doing something

My fiancé and I are having an intimate wedding and we thought long and hard about what we want for favours. We’re making custom hoodies (that don’t say our name/date) for our guests to wear since we’re doing a campfire after our ceremony/dinner!

They aren’t mandatory at all. Our place seating is actually the favour, with a small bag of coffee offered by the best man.

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Exactly what we think and are doing.

I'd rather put the money elsewhere. We're going to print a bunch of extra photos and let people choose their own. Which also will be forgotten all over the place. But hey, that's what happens when people have a few boozy pops.

Definitively not mandatory. Do as you prefer, it's your day !

For us, we're planning a brunch daytime wedding, so we'll be giving vintage teacups we found here and there, so they can drink their coffee in it at the reception, and keep it after. Everyone will have a different cup.

We expect about 50-60 people, so it's not like we had to find 200 teacups...

Definitely optional!! Especially if you don’t care about them

I definitely agree with the general comments you’ve gotten so far. Favors are indeed optional and not mandatory, besides you don’t need any added pressure since you should ultimately be focused on the magic of what your wedding day means to you. For our wedding because it was covid style we did small boxes I’d found on etsy & just filled them with chocolate kisses. Who doesn’t love chocolate??

We did favors- 2 actually! Our wedding had no seated meal or reception since it was covid style and booked when patios were still off limits. We ended up sending home a boxed picnic lunch with everyone. I love entertaining and giving people lots of food so a picnic box just seemed to miss some flare. We gave out decorative cookies as a sub in for what would have been wedding cake if we had have gotten to have a reception and we sent maple syrup as our favor. It felt like we got to spoil our guests a little since we could not offer them dinner or a dance. Personal preference, but we liked having them and treating our guests.

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Not mandatory at all! think practical. what are your guests going to use and not leave for you to clean up at the end of the night. food is usually popular and taken home. i also know of people who have done a donation in lieu of favours (ie donate to a charity the same money you would have used on favours).

I love the idea of favours at the wedding. Call me old school or traditional. Hahaha! I was thinking a lot about it and what we can do.


I know a family friend that bakes and design cookies. So we’ll be making cookies for ours. Taking ideas for both photos and adding our special touch with our colours.

I am not doing favors for my reception in August. Like others have stated, they are usually forgotten by guests. I will however, have a polaroid camera at the receiving table that guests can take photos with and keep as a little souvenir from our day

View quoted message I totally agree!

Personally, I value tradition and I like the idea of them, but like most people are saying- they get forgotten, thrown away or never used. We felt it was wasteful, truly…but since I was very hung up on the idea of it, we compromised and made a donation to our local animal shelter. They printed off cards to place on tables and plates of our guests to let them know that in lieu of favours we made a donation as a thank you for attending. This also allowed us to control the budget for this department- we definitely saved hundreds by doing this. It also was a nice compromise for my randomly traditional mother… 😂
This could always be an option if you really feel you need to do “something”. While I agree it is your wedding and you should do whatever you feel comfortable with!!

You are right. I keep going back and forth on the decision. My MOH tells me i should. but i dont see the point in it. We are not making anyone pay for the wedding and we know most ppl wont give us the value of their meal. i feel kind of pressured by my family to give out something.

My fiance and I have opted out for favors. A lot of people forget to take them home at the end of the night. If you don't want to have them, you don't need to! It's your wedding!

Yes, screw the favours!!! I couldn't care less about favours at a wedding as a guest - if it's edible, great, otherwise it's just more stuff to give away later to be honest. Covering food and drinks should be more than enough for a guest in my opinion!!! We did so welcome bags in the hotel though (which was for most of our guests).

We decided to not get them. The only people that would keep them would be our parents and grandparents. Everyone else would just throw it out. We're buying a really nice dinner and dessert for them, as my fiancé said "That's gift enough".

Most of the time, wedding favours are left behind by most of the guests. My Best Man complained to me how he has dozens of champagne flutes with his name on it that he won't use lol.

Funny thing is, wedding favours originally started by European aristocracy using sugar cubes or almonds as they represented wealth. Then the modern wedding industry warped people into making/buying all kinds of weird stuff for that Instagrammable moment (you have no idea how many decorative pine cones I've been given). If you must give a favour, stick with a simple food stuff like cookies or chocolate and keep it cheap but enjoyable at the same time.

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I 100% agree. Don't worry about them. Like others have mentioned, those who have gotten wedding favors rarely remember them and the ones they do usually end up with something to eat in it. I don't know about Quebec but in Alberta here all caterers have a late-night option that are pretty cheap if you were looking to add something special at the end to replace the favors itself. This is what my fiancé and I were going to do. But were going to Mexico now so not too worried about it!

Hey there! If it helps I scrapped wedding favours recently for our wedding. I hardly remember the wedding favours I received at weddings I’ve been too and they can get expensive. Plus if you were to diy them that could put unnecessary pressure on you when you will already be feeling some stress with the day as it is. I’ve seen couples make a donation to a charity of their choosing in lieu of favours and I think that’s a wonderful idea. Good luck!!

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Thank you for your reply i have the same feeling. Its an outdated gesture. In my opinion, the expanse we pay (food, hall, music etc) is part of their gift. I rather give out a thank you card with a picture to everyone that attended.

Definitely not mandatory. I think its an outdated tradition. Out of the last 3 weddings I've went to I only used 1 of the favours and only cause they were cookies!

Having wedding favors is so outdated. As someone who was originally thinking of having a bigger wedding around where I live, I was not going to them because they either end up forgotten at the wedding which you throw in the garbage, or they end up taking it home and it still ends up in the garbage.

So when I was planning - we decided to instead provide a late-night snack. This would of been our favorite foods, my fiancé's was chicken wings and mine was poutine.