Wedding Favours On A Budget:
16 Low-Cost Ideas To Keep Your Guests Pleased

Wedding favours can be very expensive, and it is smart to try to budget the best you can.  For example, let's sat that you have 100 guests coming to your wedding and are thinking about getting wedding favours that may cost £15.00 each. Well If you were to choose to buy one for each of your guests, your total budget for favours would be £1,500! If you use a common budget-saving tip and buy only one favour per couple, you're still looking at a price tag in the neighbourhood of £750 to £900 (including single guests who aren't part of a couple).

Below is a list of the best favour choices for couples on a budget. These items can be found for just a few pounds apiece and at even greater savings when bought in bulk. A big key to finding great favours is exercising your own handicraft talents or asking creative relatives to make favours using items you've found at wholesale or sale prices. A fifty-pence basket with a handle can be filled with small packets of bath salts, votive candles, and a few wrapped chocolates for a decadent bath experience. The options are endless, and your modest budget will be wonderfully served by your own imagination.

1. Candles and candle holders (as low as £1.50 each at some craft stores).

2. Glass hurricane lamps with colour-coordinated pillar candles.

3. Glass potpourri bowls with a signature scent of potpourri, such as rose or gardenia. (Buy potpourri in bulk bags at a warehouse store or craft store for even greater savings.)

4. Silver frames, found in craft stores or in bulk from great low-priced sources.

5. Engraved silver bells where you can get them for under £10.

6. Glass bowls filled with sand, seashells, and a silver starfish necklace on a string.

7. Wrapped chocolates or truffles.

8. Homemade candies. Use chocolate candy-making or lollipop kits found at your local craft store to melt your own chocolate and custom-design your own creations. This particular creative endeavour is so easy even children can do it. The chocolate moulds and lollipop sticks cost little more than a pound apiece. Pretty patterned candy bags to hold your creations cost just £3 for a bag of twenty or so.

9. Homemade cookies. Break out your holiday sugar-cookie recipe, buy a few inexpensive gown, shoe, dove, or bell-shaped cookie cutters, and bake adorable wedding-themed cookies to frost and decorate as you wish. Wrap each picture perfect cookie in cellophane, tie with a ribbon, and attach a note. If you're holding an informal or outdoor wedding, choose cookie cutters in other appropriate theme designs, such as starfish, flowers, beach balls, or the sun and moon.

10. Books. Buy books of romantic poetry, a favourite inspirational author's newest work, or the best quotes about love and marriage, and share the wealth with your guests. To get greater savings: Call the publisher of the book directly and ask to speak to the special sales department. You might be able to negotiate a large discount or perhaps free shipping on your order of fifty books. You may also include a homemade bookmark imprinted with your names and wedding date.

11. Videotapes or DVDs. Choose a variety of romantic movies your guests might not already own, providing a mix of VHS tapes and DVDs, and let your guests choose their own favourites.

12. Bottles of wine. You can find great suggestions for vintages that cost less than £10 or £15. Cut costs even more by giving each couple one bottle of wine to share.

13. Ornaments. Buy beautiful, colour-coordinated or white ornaments from a local craft store and either wrap them in tulle or set them in pretty see-through plastic boxes with a personalised note. With thousands of different styles to choose from, you're certain to find a great selection of colour, design, and special effects in boxed collections. For even greater savings, if your wedding is a year in the future, shop the after-Christmas sales to get those £10 boxes of white and silver star ornaments for half off. That's twelve to sixteen individual favours for just a little over £5. Perfect for holiday weddings, this gift is something your guests will definitely use again.

14. CD mixes. Use your own home computer to burn romantic or memory-laden music-mix CDs for your guests, and then use CD jackets and labels from your local office supply store to personalise the packaging. Again, this is one option your guests will love, and use again and again.

15. Potted plants and seedlings. For just a few pounds each, you can find great collections of potted flowering plants or seedlings that can be wrapped at the base with coloured foil and then labelled with directions for growing and a personal note of thanks. Beyond the sometimes laughingly low expense (£3 for a six-pack of seedlings!) this option allows your guests to take a living piece of your day home and watch it grow in the future. Another option is a pretty collection of flower seed packets, preferably the kind that don't take a lot of work. Some wildflower seeds will work well for guests who don't have a natural green thumb.

16. Pampering products. Check your local bath and body store for great collections of men's and women's products and then assemble your own gift baskets.

Take a look at other wedding favour retailers.

Article by Roger Mayne of Surrey Weddings wedding directory