Rod and Jess’ Blog

…and not a drop to drink! Rod is in California this week on business so I’m trying to get ahead on a few wedding related projects. The first one was a top secret thank you for my bridesmaids. No pictures of that until after the wedding! Tonight I also started assembling the out-of-town boxes for our guests who take advantage of our room blocks. Most of our guests are out of town so that means I’m working on 80 boxes! I’m looking to put two bottles of water, some snacks and a few other goodies in the boxes. Since Rod snagged the camera to take pictures of beautiful San Jose I’m limited to my cell phone camera. Here’s a shot of our personalized water bottles. I designed the labels myself!

Aren’t they great? There’s even nutrition facts and a barcode!

Rod is a great guy though, I came home tonight and he had left me two pears, two types of cheese and a bottle of wine before leaving for CA. I had a great dinner tonight of a pear, some cappocolla (spicy italian ham), two ounces of cheese, a slice of bread and a spinach salad. I capped it off with a glass of Hey Mambo! which is a great italian-style table wine from California.

Tomorrow night is the neighborhood association board meeting and then Wednesday I’ll be working on more wedding DIY. I’m really kinda excited for the opportunity to work on these projects, although I’d trade working on them for Rod to be here!

Favors are an interesting thing when it comes to weddings. Some people use favors that are representative of the region they live in using maple syrup or key lime juice.  For Indianapolis you could give out tenderloins? Somehow it doesn’t have the appeal of small bottles of maple syrup. 

Some people do edible favors to ensure that there’s another dessert on the table other than just the wedding cake. Others do favors of tea or coffee because that’s something they are really into. I debated on coffee, but we drink whole bean and most people don’t have grinders so it wouldn’t really work for the majority of our guests. Some couples use items that are close to their hearts for favors and others just go with traditional favors.

We decided to do a little of each for our favors. One thing that we collect after several years of Great American Beer Festival (go on a beer vacation - I promise there’s something for even the Arbor Mist drinker at the festival - you won’t regret it), is cardboard coasters with brewery logos on them. Much like this:

Bells Brewery, a very adventurous brewery and highly recommended.

When attending Alison & Gary’s wedding last summer they had coasters at the bar imprinted with their names and it was like a light bulb went off. Why not incorporate those little cardboard coasters at the bar? It’s something that’s personal and also is representative of our love of beer.

Our version of the coasters for the Bar

Now that we had a favor idea set I began to think about how nice it would be to have something on the tables for our guests who wouldn’t necessarily go up to the bar. I wanted something that wouldn’t clutter up the table and would be very simple. I found matchboxes on the site where I ordered the coasters (For Your Party) and thought they would be the perfect “traditional” favor. Also if we end up with 100 of them left over then we wouldn’t be too upset because we could use them when we grill out!

Matchboxes for each of the adults attending. We’ll do alternating colors on the table.

Now matchboxes aren’t a safe favor for children to have, so we had to take that into account. What could we have on the table to keep them entertained and they could take with them at the end of the evening? I know Rod’s Aunt Pat is a balloon artist so she can twist the night away for the kids, but we wanted something else for our smaller guests. While searching for goodies for our ring bearer and flower girl I came across Coloring Books and Crayon packs.

Coloring books and crayons for the kids (from Oriental Trading Company).

I think favors are something that can be trimmed from the budget if you’re trying to cut costs, but can be a fun extra for your guests to enjoy.

What are some of the favors you have seen at weddings before?