Wedding Wednesday: Personalized Favors

I remember when I was alittle kid I remember my favorite thing about going to a Wedding was collecting all the napkins, and matchbooks with the couple's name embossed in silver on them.  They were so fancy to me.  I couldn't wait to get married and order them for my own Wedding, funny thing is that I didn't order a single thing like that.

When it comes to Weddings, you can order just about anything personalized with your initials, name and date.  As a planner I have come to realize what a complete waste of money these items are.  Sure you need to have some favors, and it is nice if they have your name and wedding date on them, but you don't need napkins, matchbooks/notebooks, and favors.  It's a bit much.

Let's think about this 2 ways, one in terms of budget and one in terms of style.  Let's take napkins. Personalized napkins range anywhere from $26.00 - 50.00/per 100 napkins.  If you have 200 people attending your wedding, assume 2 per person.  That is $104 to $200 for throw away napkins.  That is money better spent towards flowers, or food.  In terms of style, everyone has a vision for their wedding, do 1980's style napkins fit with your vision or would plain (in the color of your wedding) work?

Personalized Keepsakes

There are also so many keepsake items meant for the bride and groom.  Everything from champagne flutes to cake cutting sets.  Do not waste your money.  Think about when or where you would ever use these items again?  When you are registering, register for a very nice plain set of champagne flutes and a cake cutting set.  Decorate (or ask your florist too) with simple ribbon and ask your wedding planner (or the venue wedding planner) to make sure that these are put back with the items you will take home with you at the end of the day (don't worry, they will be happy to do it).  The bottom line is that each time you use those flutes or the cake set you will remember that they were from your wedding, and the best part, you have added another $100 bucks back into your budget.

Your wedding budget is just like your household budget, every little place that you can save a couple of hundred bucks is huge.  It is always amazing at how quickly costs add up for wedding, and that money will be better spent somewhere else.

Happy Planning!
~Cyn