Wedding Favor Ideas Worth Ordering (And When to Skip Them)

Wedding favor ideas are easy to find and hard to choose between, because every catalog assumes you are buying something and only asks which thing. Two numbers settle most of it before taste comes into it: how much of the budget favors really get, and what guests will carry home. This guide works out the first, gives three questions for the second, and ends with a list of favors that pass, including the option of skipping them.

How much of the budget goes to favors

In the twelve category wedding budget we use across our wedding guides, favors sit inside guest entertainment, which is 3 percent of the total. About half of guest entertainment goes to favors, so favors come to roughly 1.5 percent of the whole budget. The other half pays for things like a photo booth or a performer, which cost the same whether 90 people come or 117. Our guide to who gets a wedding plus one shows how the rest of the budget moves with the guest count.

Take a wedding that costs $34,000 with 117 guests, and put your own total and guest count wherever those numbers appear.

1.5 percent of $34,000 is $510, which is the whole favor budget for everyone.

$510 divided by 117 guests is about $4.36 per guest.

A personalized jar quoted at $6 each is already over that before shipping, ribbon, and the evening it takes to fill and tie 117 of them.

Three questions for any favor

Write one number at the top of a notepad: your total budget times 0.015. On the $34,000 example that is $510. If you would rather start from a per guest amount, pick one and multiply it by your guest count. Then ask these three questions about every favor you are considering.

Can a guest carry it out in a pocket or a small bag? At the end of the night most people are holding a drink, a coat or a phone, and anything that needs its own box or a free hand tends to stay on the table.

If a stranger handed you one at someone else's wedding, would you take it home, use it or eat it? If you would leave it behind or throw it out at the hotel, it is table decoration, and your flowers and decor budget already covers the tables.

Does your guest count times the full cost of one favor stay under the number you wrote down? Full cost means the item, the shipping, and any tags or ribbon, and the hours of assembly are worth counting separately. At a full cost of $3.50, 117 favors come to $409.50, which fits a $510 budget, and at $7 they come to $819, which does not.

Type of favor	Result under the three questions
Single serving treat eaten that night	Passes all three if the full cost fits your budget
Small object used that night or soon after	Passes if you would use one yourself and the cost fits
Personalized jar or bottle that needs a box	Usually fails the carrying question, and often goes over once shipping is added
No favor at all	Passes, and the money goes back into the rest of the budget

Wedding favor ideas that pass

Something to eat. A wrapped cookie, two or three chocolates in a small bag, a bag of candy from your hometown, or a honey stick all fit in a pocket and get eaten that night or the next morning, so the guest has nothing to find space for at home. Edible wedding favors are the easiest kind to get past all three questions, as long as the full cost per guest fits your number.

Something used during the wedding. A sparkler for the send off, a small pack of tissues on each ceremony chair, or a fan for an outdoor summer ceremony does its job before the night is over, which means nobody has to decide whether to keep it.

Something small and useful. A matchbook, a lip balm, or a packet of seeds does well when it suits the crowd. Judge it by whether a guest who barely knows you would use it, like your partner's coworker, rather than by whether you like the design. A seed packet suits a crowd with gardens and ends up in the hotel bin with a crowd of city renters.

A donation instead of an object. A small card at each place setting saying you gave to a charity in your guests' honor costs the price of the cards plus whatever you choose to give, and there is nothing to carry.

No favor at all. On the $34,000 example, skipping favors keeps $510 for something guests will notice more, like a better dessert or another hour at the bar.

If your venue already puts a dessert or a treat at each place setting, that treat does the job a favor would do, and a second item at the same seat costs money without giving guests anything new.

What usually fails

A personalized jar or bottle usually fails for reasons that have nothing to do with how it looks. It needs a box or a free hand, most guests are already carrying something, and shipping and ribbon push a $6 quote further past $4.36. Anything printed with your names and date has the same problem as a jar: a guest who barely knows you has no use for it once the night is over.

Write your number at the top of the notepad tonight, divide it by your guest count, and only look at favors that come in under it. If nothing on your shortlist passes all three questions, skip favors and spend the $510 on the dessert or the bar.