Who Needs a Wedding Planner?...Wedding Favors on a Budget Take 3

The next wedding favor was something that my mom put together for us.  She had mugs made for all of our guests, plus some extras for my husband and I to take home ( you can never have too many mugs). 

The mugs were made by an online company that makes mugs for businesses, look at these web-sites instead of wedding mug sites.  I find that they are much cheaper and you won't pay the increased price because they are for a wedding.

We used extra ribbon from our wedding invitations and a homemade label to top off the mugs.

  Now the fun part, whats inside of the mugs.  We used packing filler, a packet of mocha coffee mix, and a homemade dog cookie.

My husband and I are in love with our two cocker spaniels Maggie and Stewie, but unfortunately they couldn't come to our wedding.  Knowing that the dogs couldn't come my family wanted to incorporate the dogs into our wedding celebration some how.  My mom made homemade cookies and had cards attached.  Our family friend is an artist and made the tags for us along with a life size wood cut out of the dogs which we put on top of the table displaying the mugs.

Who Needs a Wedding Planner?...Wedding Favors on a Budget Take 2

In addition to our name cards/wedding favors I wanted to give our guests another gift.  I love the new trend of little boxes filled with candy at every one's place setting.  We searched the Internet and craft stores for these great little brown boxes (our wedding was chocolate brown, white, silver, and blue hydrangeas).  The boxes needed a little something extra to make them special, they came with free brown ribbon but I wanted to add my own touch.  I bought a few stems of fake hydrangeas and pulled off the petals and glued them to the ribbon to add a little person touch.

To fill the boxes I went to the Ghirardelli Chocolate outlet store and purchased 4 squares of chocolate for each box.  The boxes were the same size as the chocolate squares and fit perfectly.  Total cost of each box was $2.50, not bad.  Plus it gave our guests another appetizer to eat while we were taking photos before dinner.

Who Needs a Wedding Planner?...Wedding Favors on a Budget

I know this posting won't really fall in the home decor category but that it might be of help to any Brides on a budget.

We had a small budget for wedding favors, I knew that I could only spend about $3-5 a person, which isn't a lot.  I came up with a great idea, since I wanted assigned seating I thought how about combining the name tag and the wedding favor?  With the help of the internet I found this great business card size picture frames for less than a $1 each.  The picture frames would serve as a name card and behind each guest name was our engagement photo.  I purchased business card paper pre-punched from the office supply store and printed everyone's name on the business card, then inserted it into the frame with the photo behind it. 

 Final product. Doesn't look like a $1 wedding favor.

For the cost of a $1 (for the frame, business card, and photo) we had a one of a kind wedding favor.