Party Favor Head Start

So, I've been procrastinating a paper I'm working on (again). But, it was pretty productive. We decided to do candy favors in cute little silver tins. The tins came with the huge, stickers for the clear top, but I had something a bit better in mind. We picked up absolutely adorable little cowboy boot and hat stickers at Hobby Lobby a few months ago (they went on our Save the Date cards and will go on our invitation). Essentially, they are the first preview the guests have of the wedding before they even open the envelope. Well, I overestimated and bought way too many. But I decided to add some of the left over stickers as the decor on our cute favor tins. So, I spent the night putting tiny stickers on 90 tin lids. Alone, they look like this
Unfortunately, the stickers don't photograph all that easily. So, I dug up some candy we have around the house and tried desperately to get a similar picture of the tins with candy in them. For some reason, all of my pictures came out blurry. But, I did manage to get this decent picture of the tin standing up with candy in it. You'll have to use your imagination and pretend it's sitting flat on a table.
We're putting Chilli Milli's in the tins. They're chili flavored soft candies. Think gummi bears. Only, in the shape of little chili peppers. This is what the individual candies look like (out of the package)
Mike wants to put the chili milis (in the package) into the tin with a mint. I may have to talk him into individual candies. We'll see once we get the candy in--a bit closer to the wedding.

I do have to admit that it makes me laugh to see how personalized this wedding is actually getting. I never would have thought that I had a bride inside my head just waiting to be released!

Why I Love my Girls--A Few Belated Thanks

Once again, I must thank the fabulous people helping me out with the wedding. I'm still focusing on the BIG picture (photography, food, attire, etc.) and I can't seem to get my head out of my books long enough to focus on that from time to time.

But then, I have the girls who keep me thinking about things I should be on top of for the wedding planning. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes (and I never really realized this much planning went into it, really). But I have "people" for that.

I've already mentioned the moms, but they need a bit more in the kudos department for a few things. First, they get along which makes this whole process easier. Then, they help out anywhere they're needed and offer support any time I need it.

Then I have my dear sister and Matron of Honor. She is the "ears" of this relationship. She's fabulous with just listening to me ramble on about favors or shoes as long as I need and then replying with either really good advice or the more common "you'll make the right decision."

My fabulous Maid of Honor is not taking her job lightly. I'm thinking she believes Maid of Honor and Wedding Planner are synonyms. She found the boots (that are featured on the blog post below), she's reminded me of deadlines, and she's doing her best to keep me on my toes.

I also have a "details girl." My hat is off to her because she's good with remembering the little things that need to get done and she's good with finding bargains. Just recently, she found wedding bubbles on sale and snatched them up for us.

Then I have the girls who keep me from doing too much wedding planning and not enough school work. Occasionally, I need a reality check and they are always there to remind me that I'm still a student with a life. (You can probably blame them for the lack of posting lately. I know I will)

So to all of my girls, I just want to say thanks. I couldn't do this without you. Well, I could, but I would probably be a week late to my own wedding while waiting on the detail to be added to some little project.

A Favor Idea

I'm quasi procrastinating paper ideas, but in my defense, I found this in my paper research.

The National Arbor Day foundation has a "gift tree" designed specifically to give as a wedding favor. They come in these nice biodegradable containers (and can be planted, refrigerated until planting time, or grown indoors until planting time). This is the picture they have on the website. As you can see, you can have these customized for your wedding and the labels (since you can't see all of them) look like this:


The saying on the label, from what I can tell, is customizable. I know that they have up to three lines of customization, so I'm assuming the verses in these are the customized labels.

So, I'm already loving the idea, but I love it for several reasons

1. I can order Longleaf Pines. Not only do longleaf pines grow well in most Southern states, they were extremely durable in Katrina. In fact, most of the pines still standing after Katrina were longleaf. Not wanting to dredge up the past, but for those of us who survived Katrina and faced the massive cleanup afterwards, these trees are a sign of durability and survival. Mississippi is still recovering from Katrina, and I think these would be a good way to help out.


2. I hate wedding favors that are totally useless. But, at the same time, I don't like edible favors all that much or favors that you don't want to use. So, I think a tree would be great. You can plant it in your yard and watch it grow while also remembering our wedding. (Yeah, I just don't want anybody to forget our wedding.)


3. They're not extremely expensive. At first I was a bit concerned about this. The trees are $3 each. I was worried that at $3 each for a minimum of 50 people, I was looking at shelling out $150 just for favors. And the purpose of planning your own wedding is to save money. But then I had another thought. I don't have to buy an individual tree for each person, but for each couple, family, etc. This would significantly cut down on the price and still be a great gift.

Besides, even if we decide not to do these as favors for the reception, I think I would at least like to do them as gifts to those extremely close to us (those that warrant a cabin). It would be a great addition to the room gift baskets.

I ran the idea by my darling fiance and got a "We'll see" out of him. That's a lot better than a complete "no." He pointed out that we have one small problem with this idea. Most of our guests don't own their own land, which means that they have nowhere to plant them.

I still think the trees are a great idea. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to overcome the land problem. Perhaps we could donate the trees to the park in honor of our guests. We still have to find out if the park will accept them and have a place to put the trees, but it's the best idea thus far. That way, we could send trees home with the parents and those who have land and donate for those who do not. Perhaps we should require guests buy land to plant these trees on before the wedding (okay, so that's a joke).

By the way, we're trying to find out anonymously what people think of this idea. Please take a second and answer the poll to the right. PLEASE!

I have to get back to work now, but if anybody has ideas for this, please let us know!