An easy way to make your wedding memorable for your guests is to break from tradition and offer wedding favors that they’ll actually want. Traditional favors – candles, mint tins, and candied almonds – have worn out their welcome at weddings.
If you really want to thank your guests for coming, give them something unique, fun, and personalized. To help save you time and money, we found 10 wedding favors that are sure to impress your guests and keep them talking long after reception.
1. Customized Sunglasses
Customized sunglasses are becoming very popular at weddings as a fun favor to give to guests. They initially were just worn by the wedding party, mainly when the group was “introduced” at the reception hall. More recently, sunglasses are being set out for guests to wear for fun, use as accessories in photo booths, and take home.
Brides and grooms can easily customize the sunglasses by placing their names and/or wedding date on the temple of each pair. For something special, check out the glow in the dark and throwback styles.
— Shelley Grieshop, Totally Promotional
2. Drink Tops
If you’re having an outdoor wedding, Drink Tops™ make the perfect gift for your guests. These silicone drink covers suction to glass and protect your beverages from bugs, outdoor elements, and spilling out. Drink Tops™ are the first to innovate glass covers to mark special occasions with beautiful colors, metallic finishes, laser etched designs, and printed monograms. They also double as coasters!
— Linda Wachter, Manager, Coverware Essentials
3. Personalized Mini Whiskey Bottles
Consumable gifts are the way to go these days, and few things are as easily consumed as alcohol. Give your honored guests an extension to the festivities by sending them home with a mini whisky bottle with a personalized label. This Jack Daniels style bottle is a lovely reminder of the happiness you shared, and how for a short while they forgot how to sing the blues! Want to add some more personal flavor? Include a tag with a recipe for your favorite whiskey-based drink!
— Courtney Geigle, My Wed Style
4. Spoonable Spirits
Spoonable Spirits makes fresh and delicious boozy puddings and jellies served in festive reusable shot glass jars (matching spoons included!). The jars come in fun flavors like Spiked Cake Shake, Naught-y Nutella Latte, and Red Hot Velvet Shot. Need something special for your wedding? Customize flavors, colors, and labels to meet your wedding day needs. Move over cupcakes, Spoonable Spirits is the new it treat for all bride-to-be occasions.
— Kelli Lipson, Founder & CEO, Spoonable Spirits
5. Foutas
Fouta Lifestyle foutas are a fun and versatile wedding favor, especially for destination weddings at the beach. A fouta is a 100% cotton cloth that is colorful and stylish, and can be used as towel, throw, or blanket. Add it into your welcome bag at the hotel, and your guests will be using them throughout the wedding weekend!
— Pauline Eveillard, Foutaslifestyle.com
6. Custom Candles For a Cause
The best wedding favor is one that is customizable to warm the heart both at the wedding and at home. Elderflower Farmacy has been creating custom natural (non-gmo soy + organic beeswax) candles for weddings; everything from the design to the scent. Their signature (most used for weddings) “Love Candle” not only smells incredible, but every candle helps an abused woman at Austin’s Safe Place by funding wellness programs.
— Michael, Elderflower Farmacy
7. Gourmet Sauces
When most people think about wedding favors, the last thing on their mind is barbecue sauce. Or is it?
The owner of 8 Myles, a gourmet BBQ sauce company, was surprised when he received an order for customized BBQ sauce bottles to be given out as wedding favors. The engaged couple wanted to give out bottles of Myles’ Raspberry “Sweet Heat” BBQ sauce. The bottles’ labels were personalized with a message thanking the guests, the name of the bride and groom, and the date of the wedding. The guests were thrilled to receive these uniques favors and were excited to take them home and try them out.
— Myles, 8 Myles
8. Caricatures
Instead of renting a photobooth, why not hire an artist to draw caricatures of your guests? What’s great about caricatures is that they are different from the usual ‘wedding selfie’ and really speak to the personalities of your guests. Every caricature is unique so most people keep them, share them online, and even frame them and hang them in their home. During the wedding itself people treat their drawings like baseball cards and get a kick out of showing them to other guests. If you are thinking about hiring an artist, make sure you consider the number of guests and for how many caricatures the artists can complete in an hour.
— Adam Street, Sketchmywedding.com
9. Boozy Ice Pops
These boozy ice pops, also known as poptails are the perfect ingredient to any wedding – full of retro fun and fancy, infused with boozy flavor! If you’re planning a wedding, you want to give your guests an experience their tastebuds won’t forget! Boozy ice pops are the perfect whimsical ingredient.
FrutaPOP offers seasonal flavors, so you can really get creative when planning the menu: if you’re planning a winter wedding, think: Apple Cider Sangria, Apple Cider Bourbon or Cranberry Mojitos. If you’re planning a summer menu: think, Strawberry Mint Julep, Pina Colada or Coconut Rose Sangria.
— Tracy Memoli, Co-Founder, FrutaPOP
10. Family Cookbook
The family that eats together, stays together. The most heart-warming wedding favor idea we received was to give your guests a family cookbook. Before the wedding, ask your mothers, aunts, uncles, and friends to send you their famous recipes or specialities. Then, FamilyCookbookProject.com will compile all the recipes and create a professionally designed cookbook quickly and affordably. Not only will the guests have both family’s recipes in one place, but this wedding favor will also symbolize the joining of the two families.
— Bill Rice, FamilyCookBookProject.com
Looking for more ways to thank your guests? Check out all of our wedding favor ideas articles.
