Gift Wrapping Your Wedding Favors (Without Losing Your Mind)
By: Braxton Wells
Truly unique wedding favors can be lovely and elegant all by themselves, but you're probably still going to gift-wrap them for a more impressive presentation to your guests. Many favors come prepackaged and ready for display with cellophane wrappers and silk, satin, or organza bows already tied on. Other favors, though, need some assembly or even a little fixing up. For example, if you choose gift pails for your guests, you're going to have to fill them all with your choice of treat (mints, candies, Jordan almonds, etc.). Or, if you're planning to give souvenir frames, you might want to address the placecards inside, so you can use the frames as welcoming signs for each guest arriving at their seat.
We won't lie to you: all that work can be time consuming. But if you have to make the time commitment, why not schedule a fun and interesting pastime, to make the hours go by quicker? Here are some ideas on making the time spent gift-wrapping a little easier to bear.
Make it a party. If you're stuck with two hundred placecards to address or a hundred and fifty gel candles that need tags inscribed, you're going to have to bite the bullet and call in some help. Invite your bridesmaids over one Saturday night, order take out, and enjoy one another's company while you get the work done. Time always flies in the presence of good company, especially that of your closest friends.
Inviting your bridesmaids to help also involves them in the wedding preparations, making their contribution more than just standing with you at the ceremony. And of course, the time commitment involved in wrapping or inscribing each favor will be much smaller when you have a team of helpers, meaning the whole group of you will have plenty of time afterwards to just chill out and relax.
Take in a good DVD. You've probably been so busy with your planning and preparations that you might not have had the chance to unwind with a good film. Take your wedding favors, set them up in front of the television, and pop in a good DVD to entertain you while you get the tedious work of gift-wrapping and personalizing done. Don't worry if the movie is any good or not - just pick something you know (or suspect) will keep your mind off the routine. If nothing else, you might watch any of the dozen or so classic films about movies, taking in their sumptuous decorations and bridal designs. You'll find it's great mental therapy to watch and commiserate with the harried characters struggling as their wedding days approach. Here are five of the best from recent years.
1. Father of the Bride (1991)
2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
3. That Old Feeling (1997)
4. The Wedding Singer (1998)
5. It Had to Be You (2000)
Piece the work out over several nights. This actually involves carefully budgeting your time and the amount of work to do. Much like a workout routine, it also requires you to make and keep time commitments on a regular schedule. For example, if you have 200 wedding favors to work through, resolve to do twenty a night for ten nights. Or, stretch them out even longer. Finally, you might agree to work on them for an hour every night until they're done, possibly while watching a favorite television show (or the news, etc.)
Spend some time with your honey. It's his wedding too, remember? Getting your true love to help out might seem mean at first, but it's something the two of you should work on together. Have fun with it, though: put on some music in the background, or open a bottle of wine while you go through the piles and stacks of favors. Maybe the two of you can pick out his groomsmen gifts. There's a nice symbolism to giving your guests favors that were a collaborative effort from both members of the new couple, as well.
Pull an all-nighter. Obviously this one works best during the weekends and around holidays. While it's sort of a last-resort measure, if you're a night owl by inclination anyway, committing yourself to getting it done all at once can still be fun. Put on your PJ's, make a pot of your favorite coffee, and hunker down.
This strategy also works well in combination with some of the other approaches mentioned above. In particular, you might plan to have a movie marathon while you work, or invite your fiancée to join you staying up until dawn. After all the work is done, you can go for a walk at daybreak or simply hang out and watch the sunrise.
Have your favors personalized from the get-go. Some recent advances in graphic design technology allow for personalized engraving, monogramming, or inscriptions to accompany your wedding favor at no additional cost. These personalized accents typically include the bride and groom's names, the wedding date, and sometimes a personal message such as "thank you" or "thank you for joining us on this special day."
Personalized wedding favors range from candles to wildflower seed packets to the wrappers and ribbons on smaller, more delectable favors such as mints and candy tins.
Check with your wedding favor retailer or supplier to see if personalization is available. There may be an additional delay in personalizing the favors before they're shipped, so plan accordingly.
My Wedding Favors offers a broad selection of favors, including wedding party favors and favors that arrive at your door stylishly gift wrapped in only the most sophisticated, fashion forward decorations. For a complete look at our catalog, including a wide variety of bridal shower favors, we invite you to join us online at www.myweddingfavors.com.