Guest Favors

I have been looking at bridal website after website in a search of guest favors. Most of the options that I have seen are cute but nothing has made me say - "OH! I have to have!!!"

I sat at my parents house the other night complaining to my mom about why I don't seem to be that interested in anything I see. It was then that my mom made a very good point that completely redirected my search for the ultimate guest favors.

She asked me, "How many weddings have you been to that you either forget your guest favor at the venue or the guest favor ends up getting tossed in a pile of stuff in your house that just sits and collects dust?!?" It was then that I realized that she was right! I am not trying to knock guest favors because there is a lot of hard work put into making the favor look absolutely adorable! I have definitely seen my fair share of awesome looking (and tasting) guest favors!!! I do think that our guests deserve to be thanked for taking time out of their lives to help us celebrate such a monumental moment in our lives but I do not think candy or candles is the route that I would like to go down. Plus, we are having a candy bar at the wedding so that takes care of the sugar fix that people, like myself, crave!

With that being said, Rich and I are going to calculate how much we were planning on spending on guest favors. We are going to take that money and donate it to a charity (probably Riley Children's Hospital) in honor of our guests.

The I Do Foundation allows couples to select a charity of their choice to donate the money to. There are also several different choices of table cards your can order to place at each guests' seat. I like the concept but the cards seem pretty expensive especially when I can do a DIY project and create them myself! I emailed the organization to find out if 100% of the money donated goes to that charity because believe it or not there are a lot of organizations that do not send 100% of the donation to the charity or the money is spent differently than most would like it to be spent (aka - the chairman's ridiculous salary......sickening). I will let you know what I find out when I hear back from them!

The I Do Foundation is an awesome concept but I would rather create the table cards myself (save money and add my own personal touch) and donate the money directly to the charitable foundation.

Card options -

Thank you for being a part of our lives and our wedding day. In honor and appreciation of our guests, we have made a contribution to ........

or

In lieu of favors we have mad a donation to the ....... on your behalf. Thank you for being a part of our lives and our wedding day.

Guest favors are fun but this is a route that I would like to go down from a personal standpoint. I will still search websites and drool over cute, creative guest favors!!! Happy Friday!!!