8 ways to save money on wedding favors
Budgeting Advice
Guestpost by
on September 15, 2010
36
Thanks to penelope waits for submitting this to the OBB flickr pool.
Bridal magazines feature a heap of mass produced "personalized" wedding favors that cost a fortune once you multiply your gifts by fifty or heck, even 300! Here are some cunning ways I've found to source cheap gifts for your loved ones without resorting to taffeta bags of almonds...
How to find cheap wedding favors for your guests:
- Look into stores that are going out of business and ask for a discount price on the last of all of one stock. I recently found ninety mini plaques with inspiring quotes on them for $1.50 each - down from $10 a piece!
- Buy in bulk from a wholesaler. Look for retail wholesale suppliers for bulk candy or chocolate and hotel suppliers for mini soaps etc. You may be able to place a one-off order or find a friend who owns a cafe, restaurant or motel who can arrange the order for you.
- Look on eBay/TradeMe or Etsy for bulk deals and end-of-lines from wholesalers and retailers. Be wary of trying to match colours you see on a computer screen to your fabric samples though- it seldom works! (spray paint does though...)
- Head out after Christmas and look for sales. Look for discounted "gourmet" cookies. You can either use the cookies as-is on your table or pull them apart and repackage the presents. Last year I got twelve packs of Christmas crackers worth $35 for under $5 — that's less than fifty cents per favor. Or look for cheap chocolates (check they don't expire before the wedding date), candy and fudges.
- The super cunning can also buy cheap marked down christmas cake to have handy if you don't quite have enough slices of wedding cake to go around. A 1kg iced Christmas cake bought in Januray sets me back about $5, lasts for another six to eight months and can save paying an extra $100 for another tier on the wedding cake. I'm keeping an iced fruit cake handy for fussy purists who wont like my awesome chocolate cake.
- Gift baskets are often on sale after January too. Look at the contents and see if you can pull the basket apart and repackage the gifts — mismatched favors wrapped in complementary wrapping paper (or wallpaper) make for a unique centrepiece too.
- Cheap jewelry stores often have bargain bins full of out-of-season jewelry. Take to them with a set of pliers and you have some fabulous embellishments for centrepieces or favors.
- Consider buying a whole roll of cellophane from a florist to wrap up your favors. It's far cheaper than buying single sheets and you can use the cellophane for future Christmas and birthday presents too.
- Instead of fancy handmade boxes, pick up some white paper sweet bags from your local dairy or sweet shop and decorate them with stamps or preprinted stickers. You can seal them with a sticker, sealing wax or ribbon and they can double as name place tags too.
About Ange Marsden
Ange Marsden is a writer/blogger, belly dancer and online marketer based in Nelson, New Zealand.
Gayle said
Another place I often see bargains is from actual bridal forums. People who have bought too many and desperately want to get rid of the rest of them for a cheap price.
Alexis said
We are doing temporary tattoos and band style buttons. Cute, simple and $0.75 per guest. Plus no wrapping, just throw them on the tables!
http://www.purebuttons.com/
http://www.inkdtemporarytattoos.com/
Julie said
weddingchannel.com sells matchbooks for about 20 cents per guest (excluding shipping). They come in a lot of colors and designs, are pretty handy to have around the house, and easy to slip into a pocket or purse. Not such a good idea if you'll have a lot of kids at the wedding though. A word of caution: we ordered these and the box they came in was jacked up when it got to our house. The matches inside were completely fine, but just a word of warning.
Melissa Burbank said
My fiance and I went back and forth about what to give as wedding favors (or even if we wanted to give one at all). After deciding that we wanted to give something that was "New Englandly" and that we couldn't afford any prepaid favors (like those maple syrup glass leaves) we spent a weekend day canning a couple batches of pumpkin butter for our fall wedding. I got the jars on sale and just dressed them up with some fun tags made from scrapbooking paper in fun patterns of fall colors. The whole thing cost around 45 bucks for 60 wedding favors and they are pretty tasty too
Bridget Ku said
We got married on June 19, 2010 – it was cherry season so we used mini-Chinese take out boxes (from Toronto's Chinatown) and filled them with cherries. Our venue had an orchard so we bought 10kgs of cherries for $40 – so the cherries were $40 and the boxes were $50 ($.25 each) – and our guests loved the fresh picked fruit!
Jill said
My fiancé and I are hand-making origami accordion-style photo albums for everyone. They are black and white with a red rubber stamp print on each outside end one is 2 hearts and the other says "All You Need is Love". Of course it has a red ribbon around it to tie it shut.