Sustainably Stylish: Your Wedding Favours

WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

Firstly, to understand how to best tackle your wedding favours, it is important to understand the tradition behind them and surprisingly they date back hundreds of years.

The idea of ‘gifting someone’ for attending your event dates back to the lavish French aristocracy and their advantageous parties. They used to gift guests a present called ‘bonbonniere’ which was made up a gemstone covered trinket box filled to the brim with sweets. At the time this was considered quite a luxury as sugar could only be afforded by the ultra-wealthy and royalty.

However, in today’s world, wedding favours are part of the wedding tradition, but 77 Diamonds have stated that 37% of guests do not eat edible wedding favours. Therefore, being a big contributing factor of food waste in the wedding industry.

Daytime music: Chiqas Music

SO, WHAT ELSE SHOULDN’T WE GIFT?

We hate to give you a list of things to avoid on your wedding day, but after spending years throwing away unused wedding favours, we hate to see your money and unrecyclable gifts filling up rubbish sacks.

Anything engraved: Sorry to say this but it won’t ever get used again if it has your names or wedding date on it.

Do not make your own edible favours: This isn’t down to how fabulous your cooking skills may or may not be but simply the amount of time it takes. Couples can underestimate that making 120 identical favours with a bespoke design takes a long time!

WE DO DECORATIONS

Anything with excessive plastic packaging: This is the kind of thing you definitely want to avoid due to the amount of waste one favour can make.

‘Gift bags for her/him’: Whilst this can seem like a good idea at the time of purchasing, a lot of the time they bulk gift bags can be filled with unnecessary items like packs of cards, key-rings or gum. If you want to do something like this, we suggest making it yourself and tailoring it to the person.

Packets of tissues: It might seem like a classic favour, but let’s face it, if they are a crier, they will bring tissues! Therefore, there is no point getting personalised ones made.

Thank you notes: There is no need to go printing crazy, similar to your invites, why not send something digital after your wedding? You can go super bespoke and send them out in half the time!

WHAT SHOULD WE GIFT:

• A charity donation – you can donate a lump sum to one or maybe different charities depending on what your guests support in their name. This always goes down a treat and is a brilliant use of money.
• Seeds – Anything easy to plant in a biodegradable bag will go down well as guests can grow something out of your big day and have a memory of it in their gardens.
• A potted plant – As little succulents are becoming increasing popular, they also make for gorgeous gifts and trust us when we say people get attached to plants, so they won’t get left behind!
• A personalised poem- Writers like Moments in Rhyme can create bespoke poems for all your guests, guaranteed to not get left on the table!

• Tote bags – Get tote bags made with your favourite quote on or song lyric from your first dance. These will always get reused as people are becoming more conscious of not using plastic!
• Chutney/Jams – You can make these in bulk and give them away in reusable glass jars, time saver and delicious.