Interestingly enough, wedding favors have been a bit of a hot topic in the Coyote household. I have to admit, I am not big on wedding favors. It’s almost always some sort of useless trinket that sits around my apartment for six months until I decide to throw it out. And when I finally do I feel guilty that I have thrown away something that a couple put time and money into choosing. Because of all this, I am pretty hellbent on giving our guests a favor that won’t sit around on their shelves collecting dust. Thankfully there are so many unique and interesting favors nowadays, so I figured this would be an easy-peasy decision.

Oh, silly Coyote, thinking something wedding related would be easy. When I brought up a few of my ideas to Momma Coyote, I quickly learned some interesting things about what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable in the realm of wedding favors. I am not sure if this is specific to my family, or maybe to my Italian culture, but in my circle wedding favors have a few different components and are apparently a Big Deal.

First, you absolutely must have Jordan almonds. A wedding without Jordan almonds will have you excommunicated from the famiglia FOR LIFE. I have to been to enough family functions to know that Jordan almonds are on the must-have list. And so, a few weeks ago I sat down with Momma Coyote and we ordered ourselves a few boxes of “confetti”:

Image via My Italian Wedding Favors

Side note: If you want some serious culture shock, take a look at that website. It is phenomenally Italian.

Second, while the Jordan almonds are a component of the favor, they cannot be the only favor. Usually they are wrapped up in tulle and then attached to the actual favor. Again, I kind of expected this and had long ago fallen in love with Mrs. Jellyfish’s lottery-ticket favors. I brought it up to Momma Coyote and, while she loved the idea, she didn’t think it was enough.

Momma Coyote suggested a donation (perhaps similar to Mrs. Doily’s favors), but the Jordan almonds AND a lottery ticket AND a donation just seemed like too much for me. Too much paper, too many explanations.

And so it was back to the drawing board.

I kinda love edible favors. At the last wedding I went to the bride and groom had wrapped up M&Ms and placed them inside a glass. I quietly went around the table eating my little baggie of M&Ms. And Mr. Coyote’s…and my brother’s…and the random cousin’s I was sitting next to…heh. Yum. The more I stumble across edible favors, the more I want them in our wedding.

How about these fortune-cookie favors?

Image via Sschaf on Weddingbee

Or some tasty treats with your own monogram on them?

Image via Gracious Bridal

Canned or jarred treats can be really personal and last a lot longer than a cookie:

Photo by: Katy Gray on The Bride’s Cafe via Lover.ly

As a coffee lover (and one of Starbucks’s most valuable customers) I am head over heels for these coffee-bean favors:

Photo by: Katrina Louise on Wedding Chicks via Lover.ly

There are so many great ideas out there. Now I just need to choose one! Are you having favors at your wedding?

This article was originally posted on Weddingbee.

My cousin C, one of Wizard Aunt’s daughters and more like a sister to me than a cousin, is graduating high school next year and wants to go to pastry school. She started taking cake-decorating classes a year or so ago, and she’s gotten so good at it that she’s now the designated cake baker in her group of friends (as well as our family!). I mean, seriously, can you believe a then-16-year-old made this?!

Cake by Cousin C / Photo by Wizard Aunt

How awesome is she!? She makes cakes for everything now, so of course we wanted her to make our wedding cake, and she happily agreed!

There were a few problems with this, however. They live about a nine-hour drive away from here, so we were trying to figure out if C would bake the cake there, bring it with them in pieces, and assemble/decorate it here, or if she would bake the whole thing here after they arrived.

Their car is small and would already be packed with luggage for three people for the wedding weekend, so there probably wouldn’t be room for a multi-tier cake in there, even if it was disassembled. Plus, they usually split the trip into two days to make for easier driving, so would a cake survive two days in a hot car? Probably not.

Baking the cake here seemed to be the best bet, but it was a logistical nightmare. They would be arriving sometime the day before the wedding and would go straight to their hotel. There obviously isn’t an oven she could use there, nor is there one at the venue, and no one we know lives in the area. It would be at least an hour drive to get C to a house with an oven she could use, but then that person would have to be home to let her in, and most of our close family are going to be at the venue that day setting up. She’d also need to get all the ingredients somewhere, which would mean a trip to the grocery store. And then she’d have to drive another hour back to the venue, with the cake.

The other problem is that we’d have no one to actually cut and serve the cake at the wedding. Our caterer won’t cut a cake that’s not theirs, and the venue employees don’t do any type of food serving either. So, basically, poor C would be left to cut and serve cake to our 100-plus guests. The last thing I want is for her to feel like she has to work at our wedding, so that was definitely a no-go.

The more we thought about this, the more we realized it probably wasn’t going to work. Then one day, I suggested cupcakes. Guests could serve themselves at the wedding so no one would have to cut anything, but it still didn’t really solve the problem of where-to-bake-these-things. So I said, heck, I could bake them myself in the days leading up to the wedding, and just have C decorate them when she gets here. The venue has a food-staging area with lots of counter space, so C could park herself in there during setup and decorate away, and store them in the giant fridge there when she’s done. Then the morning of the wedding, all that would need to happen is someone would have to put them out in the reception room.

This seemed like the best possible option, and Wizard Aunt and C agreed. And the more I think about it, the more ridiculously excited I get. I love to bake for a crowd, and I love that I get to serve up a little homemade hospitality to our guests at my own wedding, and I love that C is still involved. I already have two recipes in mind, and when I told Mr. Wiz, his eyes got huge and he went, “Yesssssssss.” So I think he’s excited, too. Just a little.

We will still have a small “top tier” to cut at the reception and save for our first anniversary (or maybe just for the honeymoon, since I’ve heard that year-old frozen cakes are pretty gross). That way we still get to use our cake toppers and cake serving set!

Are you baking your own desserts for your wedding? Will any of your family members help out?

This article was originally posted on Weddingbee.

I picture our bar setup for the wedding as quite casual. We’re providing a few bottles of wine per table during dinner, which I think will just sit on the tables. There will also be a few liquor options and a bunch of beer, which I am imagining on a separate bar table with ice, straws, and extra cups. But what about our cocktail hour, while the wedding party is off having photos taken?

We’re not having a bartender, so fresh-made signature cocktails aren’t really an option. I don’t want people to have to wander into the tent to find booze, and I want them to use their Mason-jar glasses, so we’re offering, drum roll, please…punch!

I mean, how can you resist sweet setups like these?

This article was originally posted on Weddingbee.