Today we feature my favorite kind of wedding favors.

I feel very strongly that wedding favors need to be useful – they should be more than a useless knickknack. I love wedding favors that are edible or wedding favors that can be planted in your garden.

But most of all, I love wedding favors that serve double duty – they are perfect for the budget conscious bride. What do I mean by double duty? I mean favors that also serve as a place card or, when displayed on the table, become the centerpiece. Here are some of my favorites:

Picture Frame Favor – Place Card

This pink rhinestone frame from hotref.comis used as a place card for guest seating and also functions as a cute wedding favor that guests can take home.

Bamboo Wedding Favor – Centerpiece

Group these individual pots from natureperfect.comtogether on each table to make a unique centerpiece. Guests get to pick one and take it home afterwards!

Shot Glass Wedding Favor and Special Toast

Serve filled shot glasses, like these ones from favorfavor.com to the guests and ask them to participate in a special toast. Perfect fun for a destination wedding where you can use the local specialty (tequila, grappa, jagermeister…). Then they get to take the glass home as a wedding favor.

Custom Dice Wedding Favor and Reception Ice Breaker

A cute favor for the Las Vegas wedding or geeky couple who love to play yahtzee. Create custom yahtzee score paper and include a cup at each table so that your guests can have some fun getting to know each other while the wedding party is off getting photos taken. Provide prizes to the winner at each table or reward them by forcing them to sing a song or share a story about the happy couple!

Don’t let winter confine your wedding ideas to the indoors – you still have plenty of opportunity to make big plans for the great outdoors. A blanket of snow or frost can provide the perfect backdrop for some stunning decorations outside the place where you get married or celebrate afterwards (or both). The white sheen of snow or ice bounces back light to draw attention to focal points you create.

In the last post (Winter Wedding Wonderland) I gave some examples of how you can use Winter to your advantage: twinkling lights, a dramatic fur cape, bright flowers for contrast – go back to the article to see all of the great ideas there.

Big Wedding Plans for the Great Outdoors

Bright Ideas for Winter White

Imagine these vibrant petals scattered on the snow along both sides of a path to your chapel – or in your outdoor wedding photos. If the canvas is white, you can literally paint with the petals.

Creative use of dance lights to paint a white landscape would also be effective for a nighttime event (or late afternoon – it can get dark quite early, another advantage to winter weddings!).

www.partylights.co.uk

Paper lanterns can also be beautiful (and budget-conscious) as long as they are needed for only a brief time (rain or even mist will damage them very quickly).

www.justartifacts.com

White on White

For an elegant look, you can avoid contrast and accentuate the whiteness by decorating with transparent or white objects – excellent for a clear, bright winter day. If your event is at night, you can use accent lighting to draw the eye.

tripadvisor.com

You can add your own icicles to nature to emphasize the season. For example, you could decorate with icicles made out of glass or handcrafted snowflakes.

www.glassicicles.com/

These snowflakes are larger than life at 4 feet tall.

www.shindigz.com

While you are bringing big ideas to your winter wedding – you can also incorporate it into the details at the same time. This really pulls the whole event together. Here is an example:

A beautiful snowflake headband

www.flutterbyweddings.co.uk

Recently we looked at the beautiful possibilities presented by a wedding with a white theme (White Weddings That Are Hot, November 10, 2009). This week we’re going to look at a different kind of white wedding: one that happens when it’s snowing outside.

Winter Wedding Wonderland

A snowy setting can be a winter wonderland but it also presents it’s own challenges. For example, it’s cold out and we want the beautiful b-r-r-r-r-r-r-bride to look gorgeous (and comfortable) in the photos.

What to Wear

Winter Wedding Photography Tips is an article that offers some expert advice (it looks like they are based out of Utah so they know what they are talking about). They advise you to bring a cape or jacket to keep warm between shots, bring hand warmers, wear warm leggings under your dress, and that you can wear boots in the snow because your dress will hide them!

Light Up The Night

An evening wedding in a snowy setting give you an opportunity to shine. Select a venue with floor to ceiling windows looking out on to a park. Decorate the outdoors with hundreds of tiny white lights and stage your entrance for maximum effect.

Arrive in a horse and carriage.

www.whisperingpinesranchandcarriage.com

An outdoor arrival also allows you and your wedding party the exciting opportunity to dress for the occasion! Check out this stunning floor length fur cape.

romanticgowns.com

silkandsable.com

Bring the Outdoors Inside

Run a luxurious white carpet down the church aisle and decorate the aisle seating with white feathers that will evoke fluffy snow. Make sure you have an ice sculpture at your reception, of course – or, go all out and get an ice bar!

Some Cool Examples

Most importantly, no matter what the season, your wedding should also be FUN for it to be a success. Here are some examples of beautiful weddings that don’t take themselves too seriously.

Crystal Mountain Resort & Spa Michigan – the bride wears a white coat over her dress and the children in the wedding party wear black bottoms with white winter coats. The snow (and the exercise!) accentuate her rosy cheeks, making her a true blushing bride. From the footage it seems like the wedding manages to be fun and beautiful at the same time.

Another fun example from Sun Peaks resort in British Columbia Canada. The wedding took place at a cute mountain chapel on clear, sunny winter day. The flower girl leaves petals along the snow path in vibrant colors. The bridesmaids wear dresses with cute winter boots. The father of the bride looks cool as can be in sunglasses to shield his eyes from the sun bouncing off the snow (or to hide his tears if he get misty!). Check out the end when the bride casually snowboards down the slopes in her dress!

Baby, it’s cold outside…

You can really heat things up when the temperature outside is cool – it’s all about contrasts. Imagine a white wedding…

White Church

This historic white church, built in 1822, is set high on a hill in Blandford, Massachusetts. It is available for weddings (thewhitechurch.org). Consider a white carpet down the aisle, white flowers, and white fabric (tulle?) draped every where…

Or, scatter white petals outside the church and along the aisle. Or, use red petals and then have the flower girl add white petals when she walks down the aisle.

White Linens

www.vitaintl.com

As an added bonus, white linens are readily available from party rental companies (and are often less expensive than specialty colours). Your venue may even include white table cloths and other linens in the rental cost. Also, white dishes are now intentional and not just the every day plates used at every other event…

White Wedding Cake

www.sweetart.co.uk/

If your wedding cake is going to be completely white, it can be ornately decorated without seeming over-the-top. Consider textures, flowers, designs…

White Flowers

You can make a white bouquet interesting by using several different flowers – you have a wide selection to choose from. Consider: roses, lilies, and gerber daisies together, for example.

White Carriage

www.whisperingpinesranchandcarriage.com

…drawn by white horses of course! Another option: use white cars and decorate them with white flowers.

RED DRESS

The Bride is supposed to be the centre of attention, right?

Now the wedding day is really all about you!

Note the white fingernails – a french manicure or something equally subtle is appropriate when you are wearing a red dress to your own wedding. Simple jewelry is also best – avoid white pearls or any other colour. Diamonds or red stones work well.

Make sure you have the personality to pull this off, not everyone should wear a red wedding dress! This is for confident, scene-stealers only!

For the very brave: Ask all of your guests to wear either black or white only so that you really light up your special day.

What’s Halloween without candy?

Some might argue that candy is the best part!

Last month we shared some sweet ideas for how candy can spice up your wedding in our article “Weddings Sweet as Candy”.

A Halloween themed wedding, or even just a wedding that takes place near October 31st, should definitely involve some sweet treats! Here are some ideas…

Treat Table

I know I already featured candy stations (a.k.a. candy buffets) in my candy feature last month, but since then I’ve discovered the candy station crackerjack of all time, Amy Atlas of Atlas Events. Here’s a sneak peek at a Halloween dessert table she created - visit the ‘eye candy’ section of her website for more tantalizing photos and be prepared to be blown away, they are the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Wedding Favors

Proof you can be eerie and elegant at the same time, Martha Stewart tells you how to make these Black and Orange Take-Away Truffles – they would make excellent wedding favors!

marthastewart.com

Another option: handcrafted personalized chocolates from Recchiuti – picture your names on one chocolate and a spooky image on the other…

recchiuti.com

Edible Seating Cards

Another sweet idea, use these cupcakes as placeholders for your seating cards! Place one cupcake at each table setting with a table card placed into the icing (or attached to a stick).

fancyflours.wordpress.com

You could print your guests’ names on card stock paper and then attach them to these bat picks with a dab from a glue gun.

shopbakersnook.com

Candy Cocktails

You might offer a sweet specialty drink at your reception to get the party going. Here is a photo of a chocolate martini, rimmed with a mixture of chocolate and sugar – the heart shaped strawberry garnish is a nice touch, but you could also use a candy of course!

chocolatezoom.com

Don’t forget to provide some delicious snacks to go with the drinks – perhaps some squishy spiders made from custard filled profiteroles and crunchy pretzel sticks…

ishouldbenapping.com