Saving Money On Your Wedding Favors

Spring is around the corner which inevitably leads to spring and summer weddings. Guest Writer Lina Zussino presents her personal experience saving money in three areas of the wedding process.

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Creating a budget for wedding takes planning and knowing your priorities.

Being recently married (July 2009) I have had the opportunity to perfect the budget for wedding favours three (3) times. I am Portuguese and my husband is Italian. Both our families live in two different parts of Canada and we live in Victoria, BC. We chose to have the wedding in Victoria where we fell in love. We had a wedding reception in Thunder Bay, Ontario where my husband is from. We also had a wedding shower in Cambridge, Ontario where my family is from. Each celebration had approximately 70 guests.

Wedding favours were important to us. Our wedding theme was simple at a winery so the favours needed to reflect that. We wanted them to be memorable and classic. My husband and I both love chocolate and wanted to include chocolate in the favour.

Wedding

We purchased 70 boxes from a local chocolatier, Rogers Chocolates, that were beautiful and cost approx. $4.00 / box and it contained 2 types of wrapped chocolates. They were attractive and the chocolates were delicious. There was not much stress involved other then the pickup for our order. The flowergirls ate all their chocolates before the dinner was served!

Approx cost: over $300 with all the taxes.

Wedding Shower and Wedding Reception

After receiving the feedback from guests on how lovely the packages were and based on how much we paid per wedding favour we decided to see if we could make similar packages on our own.
It was a great DIY project for my husband and I. There were several steps involved:

1. First, we needed to find nice chocolate that would fit perfectly in the small favour boxes. On a trip to San Francisco after our wedding, we found a great deal at the Ghiradelli chocolate factory in San Francisco. The chocolates were individually wrapped and had assorted flavours. We purchased over 150 chocolates at a price of almost $40 Canadian.
2. The next important step were the boxes. We purchased these at the Michaels arts and crafts store. Using a printable coupon for Michaels found on our website, www.groceryalerts.ca, we saved 40% off the regular price for their small favour boxes. This cost approx. $15 dollars.
3. We used the professional Avery labels in our laser printer to rival the purchased boxes. We were pleased on how professional they looked. Below is a closeup of the type of boxes we used.

Approx cost: $55 and approx 3 hours assembling the boxes.

Final thoughts:

Prioritize what is more important in your wedding. My husband and I would rather spend money on the food and venue versus spending it on items like chair covers or fancy limousines.
We were glad we went down the do-it-yourself route when it came to the reception and shower for the wedding favours. We would recommend to anyone getting married to consider making their own wedding favours.

What is the most interesting wedding favour you have received at a wedding?

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  The author is Lina Zussino, Co-founder of Grocery Alerts Canada, home of grocery deals and money saving coupons. She enjoys teaching group fitness and saving money in beautiful Victoria, BC with her husband Steven.