If I went to a wedding and there weren’t favors I doubt I’d even notice. The last wedding I attended, the couple made a donation instead. I was relieved.
I hate wedding favours too, and when they’re from family you just can’t throw them out for YEARS!
Only wedding favour I ever kept and used: a very nice stainless steel spoon rest. Every time I look at it or wash it, pretty much every day, I think of the couple and/or the wedding.
Candied almonds, candles: they’re all wasted on me. They gather dust for a while then get thrown out. Chocolates get eaten right away, but that sort of defeats the purpose if they’re meant to be a reminder of the wedding.
I could do without favors, personally. Frankly, I could do without most of the trendy trappings in most of the weddings that I’ve attended.
I will say, though, that I liked the oak seedling that was given at a wedding a few years back. I planted it in my then-SO’s yard (I’m an apartment dweller) and even now, if I’m in the neighborhood, sometimes I’ll drive by to see how it’s growing. It reminds me of two people that I care about and their commitment to one another.
Chocolate is always good too. 
We gave out two favors: one, a fridge magnet that said “I survived Dan and Katherine’s wedding” with a silly picture on it, and two, a stand-up frame that holds a strip from a photo booth. We had a photo booth at the reception, so people could keep their favorite strip from it in this inexpensive display frame. We wouldn’t be hurt if people threw them away; they were inexpensive.
Another vote for no wedding favor here. I don’t even think I’d miss it.
In answer to the OP, though, something practical and not monogrammed, or edible. We had a niece that gave out wine bottle stoppers. I use it all the time.
I got married in Vegas and for our favor we put dollar bills and a poem about how we found each other and hit the jackpot and how we hope you also hit the jackpot in Vegas in an envelope and handed them out. We figured most people did not want to have to carry home stupid crap so we gave out cash instead. I still think it was the best possible option, especially since we had about 2 dozen people who RSVP’d and then never showed up. That way we had an excess of dollars instead of an excess of engraved bells or something.
Fucking brilliant.
We gave out half-bottles of wine, and since the wine was actually pretty good, they were well appreciated! They worked out to about $6 each, IIRC. The vineyard actually bottled one with zero-alcoholic wine for my grandmother, who no longer drank but didn’t know it (seriously, she spent 9 years believing we still gave her white wine on a regular basis - she wouldn’t accept stopping entirely!)
Several of my friends and family members have kept the bottle (it’ll be 5 years next week), and some haven’t even drank the wine. I’m not sure the wine would still be good now, though. We have one bottle of white left, actually…maybe we should (attempt to) drink it next Friday!
I don’t recall ever getting a favor from a wedding. Not that I’ve been to that many weddings anyway, but it’s not like I went for the loot.
We commissioned a local artist to do a limited run of art prints signed and numbered by him.
We got many positive comments and noone left theirs behind so I guess they were fairly popular.
My brother and his wife met when she wrote into the newspaper he worked at to compliment him on a story he had written about her father. Her father had run one of the local Little Leagues for many years and my brother, at the time, was a sports reporter.
Their favor was a baseball, embossed with their names and the wedding date, and each of them had signed it. It was pretty cool. I even still have a few floating around the house.
as already stated, an open bar 
seriously, though, I’ve only been to a few weddings as an adult, and none of them had any “favors” that I can recall.
My friend got all of us Chicago Bears sweatshirts. We all wore them every-time we got together.
My soon-to-be ex- and I gave decks of cards. We ordered so many that most people got two or three. I still have half a box somewhere.
I like the idea of making a donation somewhere instead. I’ll have to remember that for next time I give being married a shot.
For my daughter’s wedding we had jelly-bean shots instead of chocolates (with the jelly bean flavors selected to mimic the flavor of Riesling wine) and then each couple/family/person got a Key-shaped bottle openerwith a heart at the top since most everyone was big into beer. We wanted something useful. People seemed to like them, and I hope they will think kindly of the kids when they come across it in their junk drawers in years to come.
Best one I can remember from other weddings was a tiny bottle of wine, and Godiva chocolates.
The best favor ever was at my sister’s wedding: they gave out tiny tape measures! I still use mine all the time. It’s the only wedding favor I still use (including my wedding – especially my wedding, as we put my mom in charge of favors so that she would not get in our way in other things, and she found the most hideous candles ever… though we did burn one just to say we had used it). Okay, they do say “Love without measure” on it, which is extremely cheesy, but hey… tape measure!
Nothing wrong with chocolate favors, either. Oh, and another friend gave out bookmarks – I think they were handmade, but out of nice paper, and I still have it somewhere even if I don’t use it very often.
Considering this was our wedding cake, and this was our cake topper, I decided to make our ownuniquefavors. They cost a little over $1.00 each but did take about 15 hours to make 30. They are made from Sculpey III, a polymer clay, and baked to harden. I painted our last name and wedding date on the bottom of each one. I’ve collected mice for 30 years, my husband’s nickname is LabRat, and mine is Mousie.
I was going to give cheese knives as favors, but I opted for something more personal and economical. (Our reception food was cheese themed of course.)
Oh those are lovely. What a nice idea!
I got married in a garden, so the “theme” was sort of floral.
I went to a local, super-cheap craft store, and bought a ton of tiny baskets, at 4/$1, and a few rolls of tulle and ribbon. Then, off to Lowe’s (or Home Depot, or whatever) for industrial sized buckets of wildflower seed mix. I made little tulle bundles of seed and stuffed them in the baskets with a little paper tag with our names and the date and some cheesy little verse.
Ten years after our wedding, one of his coworkers told us that she still had an amazing wildflower garden. She’d gathered up a bunch of the extras that were in a big basket, and planted her yard. It’s been 15 years since I married him (and 3 since I left him). The leftover seeds had gone into an empty patch alongside the house we shared. They still bloom!
How about a catered “Cookie Table,” say a dozen for each guest. The favor? Boxes to take cookies home!
Just thinking out loud, honey.