Budget Favors for Your Wedding Guests

Keepsakes for Your Guests That Won’t Max Out Your Credit Card

Every bride would like her guests to take away something more than just beautiful memories from her wedding. But those mementos can add up to a hefty total in no time. You don’t want to be cheap but you want to stay on budget.

Commemorate your wedding with your own real postage stamps.

With PhotoStamps you can turn your own digital photos into real US postage! Create yours today. Read Dee's blog, cheap wedding ideas and tips.

Hire a friend who has a high quality digital camera. Arrange for a color printer to be available during your wedding. The friend snaps photos of your guests, prints them and posts to a bulletin board. Each guest has a photo to take home.

If you want something a little more formal, set up a chair next to a floral arrangement. Each guest sits in the chair to have their photo taken. For a couple, one sits in the chair and the other stands behind it. Each photo is printed with the caption “Josh and Sue’s wedding 2007”.

Buy a few dozen roses in pastel colors and remove the petals from each rose and dry them a few weeks before the wedding. Don’t use yellow roses they have a tendency to turn brown, or red roses they dry black. You can easily dry the rose petals by placing them in a basket in a warm place and stirring them every few days. You can jump start the process by turning the oven on to the lowest setting for 15 minutes, turning it off and then placing the rose petals in a basket in the oven. Remove after a couple of hours. The oven can not be set at higher than 200 degrees and it must be off before you start. You can also buy dried rose petals in bulk.

Scent the rose petals with a few drops of scented oil. Place a tablespoon or so of the dried petals in the center of a circle of fabric netting – sold in crafts stores. Tie the circle with a ribbon that matches your wedding color scheme. Place baskets of these sachets on each table at the reception, or have a few friends hand a sachet to each guest as they leave the ceremony. The sachets will not only be a lovely color accent but the scent will perfume the air on your wedding day.

Have a friend buy several dozen roses in the colors the compliments your wedding. Hand each guest a rose as they enter the wedding site. The rose can be tied with a narrow satin ribbon bow for a more formal touch.

M&M candies can be special ordered. Order colors that match your wedding scheme. You can also have them imprinted with the first names of the bride and groom. Package a 1/4 cup of M&Ms in a clear cellophane bag tied with a ribbon. Hand each guest a package or place the packages in baskets at the exits.

Buy tapered cream colored candles, one for each guest. Tie each with a narrow satin ribbon tied in a bow. Have business sized cards printed that say “Josh and Sue share their love” or something similar, with the date of the wedding. Punch a hole in each card and thread onto the end of a ribbon then make a small knot to keep it from sliding out.

A month or so before the wedding start looking for inexpensive champagne glasses at discount stores, big box stores even second hand stores like Goodwill. Buy a glass for each guest. Fill with foil wrapped Hershey kisses cover with plastic wrap over the kisses and tie the wrap around the stem of the glass with a ribbon. Use the same type of cards as above, with something like “Josh and Sue share their love with you on their wedding day, and the date.”

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