A lot of crazy talk happens around weddings. One of the places where the talk gets craziest is about gifts. I’ll be the first to admit that gifts are tricky, sometimes. We’ve all given gifts that bombed, received gifts that made us cringe inside, and watched people open gifts that made us hold our collective breaths while we wait to see how the insult inside that pretty box is handled. But all in all, gift giving and gift receiving oughtn’t to be such a mine field. After all, most people genuinely hope the gifts they give will be enjoyable and useful to the recipient, and most gift receivers honestly want to be able to enjoy what’s under the wrapping. When it comes right down to it, we remember the horrible gift mistakes so much precisely because they’re fairly rare.

But because we’re human, we seem to have an innate need to complicate simple things. So let’s take a look at a couple myths about gifts that tend to complicate our lives and see what baggage we can unload right here and now to reduce bridal (and guestal!) stress.
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This week, I’ve been thinking about things I love – all the things I can’t get out of my mind, all the pretty pictures I’ve been saving in inspiration folders. That sort of stuff. And I thought it would be fun to share some of it with you in short bursts throughout the week so you can get similarly inspired! So I suppose you consider this NtB Loves week. Enjoy!

I grew up around nesting dolls, so how could I not love Matryoshka wedding favors? It’s a wedding favor that guests will be much more likely to keep, I think. More so than an armless bride with fire for a head or towel cake. What’s not to like? Matryoshka are cute and fun and decorative in a way that doesn’t require color matching, so make, I think, ideal wedding favors.

Matryoshka!

How could you not love these?

What do you think… cute or too kitschy?

Remember those beautiful button favor boxes and button place card holders I featured, oh, a long while back? If you don’t, maybe you remember Princess Lasertron’s amaaaaazing button bouquet. There’s a reason people say things like ‘cute as a button’ – buttons can be seriously cute, and are just one of those things that can be effortlessly incorporated into a DIY wedding theme. Observe:

Edible button wedding favors from Sugar and Meringue, YUM

Button wedding cake by The Caketress: http://thecaketressblog.com

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Spices! And/or herbs. Your options are wide open: mini jars, a custom spice blend, paper packets, a single herb, custom printed labels, a simple ribbon, etc. Spice wedding favors are probably a safer bet than other types of edible wedding favors – which are by far your favorite kind of favors if the polls I’ve posted are any indication – if only because more of your guests may find a use for an unfamiliar spice than would like something like truffles or maple syrup.

Totally DIYable, def

Just too cute - it's wedding thyme!

And if you love the idea but want to take it up a notch, you can always pair your spice wedding favors with a mini ceramic mortar and pestle, squee!

Yet another way to spice it up a little!

The beautiful people at Donsuemor sent me a sweet challenge: In exchange for a sample box of their madeleines, they wanted me to think of all the ways you could use them in a wedding. Now am I really going to think of ALL the ways? Er, I think that would get a little more offbeat than I want to get. But I can think of plenty of fun wedding-y things to do with Donsuemor madeleines! (Which, I should add, are excellent. Madeleines are actually my favorite cookies, so I have pretty high standards. And La Paloma? She is still sad that we ate through the samples.)

Omigosh. Madeleines on a wedding cake. It’s like two of my favorite things are rubbing up against each other in some sort of delicious dance. I can’t decide if I’d tried to get cake and cookie in a single bite, or if I’d eat the madeleines first. Donsuemor has five kinds of madeleine, so brides and grooms shouldn’t run into flavor fatigue.

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Wedding favors are one of those things that can become oddly controversial even though there’s really no reason at all that brides, grooms, and guests should care whether there are heart-shaped coffee scoops or tiny sodas or a charitable contribution notice or a tin can or nothing at all at each plate.

Whatever they are, wedding favors are usually not the sort of thing one keeps forever (especially in the case of anything edible, I hope, or bits of paper saying “Thanks from the SSPCA!”) and they are usually one of the least expensive items on the wedding budget, relative to everything else. Sometimes the best wedding favor might just be a chill pill.

Me? I like candy wedding favors. Give me jelly beans or a single truffle or some weird vintage candy or Japanese candy. Just give it to me on the reception table where I can access it easily while I’m waiting for my meal since I always seem to end up at the last table to be served or called up to the buffet. Yes, even when I’m in the wedding! I especially like candy wedding favors that come in little boxes that I can re-use for things like stray earrings or small screws, and right now I am loving these:

Birch bark wedding favor boxes from New Hampshire Woods Creations –
a bit pricey, but certainly unique

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A recent post on Bride.net got me to thinking about how wedding guests interact at receptions. I’m not talking about groups of friends or relatives who already know each other, but rather the table of singletons who only know the bride or the couples who have no one else in common and are all stashed at the same table. As many of you surely know, sitting at a wedding reception table with seven strangers can be a bit intimidating.

The icebreakers are meant to make the process of getting acquainted easier on the guests and give them something to do when they’re not watching the first dance or watching the cake cutting or listening to speeches, etc. Some suggestions included putting out Fortune Telling Fish or having wedding guests play guess the Jelly Belly flavor.

It is certainly an interesting notion. And I do like Fortune Telling Fish!

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