Is this a relatively new trend? I can’t remember the last wedding I went to; probably at least 10 years ago. My own (first) wedding was more than 20, and giving gifts to the guests wasn’t even on the radar. My recent marriage was a courthouse affair, so it didn’t come up.
I think it’s a cute idea if you’re all excited about it, but to me it just sounds like extra work.
I like edible favors. Particularly of the chocolate variety. For our wedding I made Hershey’s Kiss rosebuds. They were simple, looked cute on the tables, and probably aren’t cluttering up anyone’s junk drawer eight years later. I totally stole the idea from another event (shower?) I had attended. A bunch of them would look cute as a bouquet in a vase (see link). Mine were purple instead of red.
This isn’t a new trend here - there’s been favors at every wedding I’ve been at going back at least 26 years. I would not care, however, if there weren’t any.
Having favors or not having favors may also be a regional thing.
As noted here, some people like them, some people don’t care about them. I’m not a huge fan but on the other hand I definitely expect them at a wedding - I think a lot of people do.
Sometimes they’re really neato or personal (like CDs or that awesome tulip bulb idea) or sometimes they’re just some candy in a bag.
My brother and his wife decided to forego the favors and donate money to the VFW. When I was getting my hair done for the wedding, my hairdresser said her daughter was doing the same thing - donating to the MS Society. She said her daughter was able to get MS Society pins in exchange for her donation, so the pins ended up being actual “take home” favors.
As a special treat, my brother and his wife set up a nice table in the reception area with military photos of everyone in their families who’d ever been in the military, with an explanation of their gift. Some folks were really blown away by the idea and I think a few of the older folks shed a tear. It was a cool idea.
The only wedding favour I have ever kept was a box of stick matches. They are still in the cupboard where we keep our “good dishes” because we use them fo things like lighting candles.
ETA: We’re having none at our wedding (which is a long, long ways away still).
Oooh! That’d make me very happy! Otherwise, if they’re not edible, forget it. 
I thougth about this for ours and we are doing personalised M&M’s in mini takeaway boxes. Easy & cheap.
I’m of two minds. I really appreciate the thought and effort put into the favors by the bride and groom. I think it’s a really sweet gesture.
On the other hand, everyone I know is getting married now, so I’m collecting all this (forgive me) crap that I can’t throw away because it’s sentimental. I’ll take pictures to remember the wedding by. I don’t need anything else.
One wedding favor that was great, though: homemade chocolate pumpkin bread. That was freaking GREAT, so yummy, and by the end of the night people were competing for the extras.
My daughter, whose daddy was giving her $2,000 towards her wedding and told her she could keep whatever she didn’t spend, just had those little bubble-blower thingies, which she got from the Dollar Tree for a pittance, and little cups of Jordan almonds, and that seemed like enough to me. And to her.
Number One Niece, whose daddy had agreed to pay for her wedding to the tune of “Whatever Brides Magazine says is the average cost of a wedding this year”, had the whole nine yards–little silver bells to ring, bubble-blower thingies, Jordan almonds, place cards, thingummies wrapped up in net, I don’t even remember all the assortment of tsotschkes that were crowding the tables. Was like a display table at Brides R Us.
Number Two Niece, since she was paying for it all herself, had bubble-blower thingies. Period.
I have to say that if you’re at a wedding reception and all you can find to talk, or think, about is the quality, ingenuity, and cost of the table decorations, then either you must not like the bride and groom enough to simply be happy that you’re in their presence on this Great Day, or else you’re at the wrong wedding. 
Do whatever makes you happy, CJ, and devil take the hindmost.
I went to one wedding where the favors were Pez dispensers. That was pretty cute, but only because it was meaningful to the couple getting married.
We eloped, so I didn’t have to think about this.
Nicely stated. I’m venting here because I’m in the midst of planning myself. Part of the reason why the average cost of weddings is sky-high these days is because of this trend that brides and grooms should be catering to their guests every need. I’m all for giving your guests a good time, but it’s gotten way out of control. Much of all of the wedding bullshit isn’t necessary to having a good time, and certainly won’t be remembered a few months down the road by anyone other than couple.
Weddings are about priorities - figure out what’s really important to you and your fiancee and what’s not, and plan accordingly.
I’m horrible.
I hate the rampant consumerism of stuff.
I feel guilty throwing away any gift, even something token and little.
I hate throwing away stuff - makes me feel environmentally guilty.
I hate having a lot of crap in my house.
So little gifty things push pretty much every one of my hot buttons. Feel guilty twice if I throw them away, they clutter up my house if I don’t.
If you have to do favors - I believe they should be fairly consumable (food, seeds - I’ve been to weddings where the favor was seed packets, the tulip bulbs are nice as well), or at least fairly ecologically sound (i.e. nothing that is pure landfill fodder - matchbooks with the bride and grooms name on them).
I have a cookie cutter in the shape of Texas from a wedding - what I’m supposed to DO with a cookie cutter in the shape of Texas is completely beyond me. It was very cute at the moment, but one of those “clutter or trash” gifts.
My grandmother has a great story from a wedding she attended. The bride went to a tony party a couple of months before the wedding, and the vases in the centerpieces were goldfish bowls, with live goldfish swimming around the stems. She loved it, and decided she wanted to do that for her wedding.
Her outdoor July wedding.
The tables were all laid for the reception when they went to the ceremony. When they came back, every bowl had a lovely arrangement, with five or six upside-down fish floating at the top. Fortunately, the bride and groom had stopped to take pictures between the ceremony and the reception, and her mother and aunts went around and strained the fish out of the centerpieces before she got there. She didn’t even notice that there were no fish in the centerpieces, and didn’t hear the story until she got back from her honeymoon.
We gave them. Ours were half-bottles of wine from a local vineyard, with a picture of us and our names (and a made-up wine Château name!) on it. They were a little expensive (maybe 5$ each? I forget!) but fun, and very good wine, actually! I know a lot of people kept the bottle, even after drinking the wine.
I think we still have 1 or 2 bottles left, which we probably should drink soon, because I’m not sure the wine is one that would age well!
I have no idea what happened to the centrepieces. Since my flowers were selected simply by saying “white, and a “spikey” look”, I just let the florist do what she wanted, and frankly, I don’t even remember what they looked like. I assume they resembled my bouquet!
Depending on the location of your wedding, you might want to make “washroom baskets” too. Our location had washrooms that were “private” to the wedding (not shared with people in the main dining room/hotel guests), and in each of them we placed baskets with typical bathroom things that people might need. I think we put things like tampons and pads (for the women, of course!), Advil, a plastic comb, some bobby pins and hairspray, dental floss and band-aids. We dumped some candy into the baskets too, just for fun. A few people told us after that they appreciated that; one friend was worried she’d have to leave because of her headache, but she took some Advil and it went away!
If they are plastic, they get tossed - I have never kept a single plastic favor. If they are food/candy, they get eaten or given to the nearest kid. If they are actually nice, I keep them. We have gotten bud vases that we still use and we gave little colored glass tea-light candle lanterns for our favors that doubled as table decorations. Most stuff gets tossed, though. People won’t miss it if you don’t have favors.
I’m generally not a fan unless they’re edible or plantable. The fiance and I are considering scratchie tickets for our wedding (tying into our “lucky” wedding day of 08/08/08) but if the budget starts to get tight they’ll be the first thing to go and I doubt anyone will miss them.
It’s a nice thought, but like a lot of other nice thoughts, can be carried to extremes. And there is a competitive aspect to it, adding to the stress that brides nowadays seem to put on themselves: “Well, Boopsie had X and Y, so we gotta have X, Y and Z, since we’re way nicer than she is and we want people to think we’re richer, too.”
I got married so long ago it seems to me the biggest problem was where to park the dinosaurs.
It’s like the goody bags at childrens’ parties. Plastic bags full of plastic crap. The kid’s been eating junk and candy and drinking pop all afternoon and you send him home with more of the same? And cheezy dumb toys from Walmart that break the first time you touch them? Pencils that you can’t sharpen?
You have your party, whether a wedding or a birthday, because you want your family and friends to help you celebrate. They don’t need gifts from you.
My friend did little boxes (like Chinese food ones but small and bright colors) with a livestrong and a pink wristband in each one. They considered it in memory of a couple of people who they would have wanted to be at their wedding. A little morbid, but it was something people might wear and it meant a donation was made.
One of my parents’ friends from Sequim, WA, lavender capital, had lavender sachets I think. That people might take away and use.
I think if you do them, you would have to make one for each guest. I think of them as separate from the centerpieces, which would be flowers. OTOH, the first friend above made centerpieces out of glass bowls with river rocks and bamboo, with photos of the people who should sit at that table clipped on to the bamboo. She was on a tight budget and pulled that one off inexpensively.
ETA: This wasn’t for a wedding, but for a baby shower. As mentioned above, we picked out flowers bulbs in individual boxes (from JoAnns) that were pink, and put them inside net bags with tags attached.
Thanks for the advice so far. The tulips are a marvelous idea, but I don’t think they’ll be that practical. On the other hand, the wedding will happen in April, so the flower seeds are a possibility if we decide to do this. The washroom baskets sound like a good idea, too.
As far as I’m concerned, this wedding has only 2 priorities. One, since I’m one of the board’s religious fanatics 
getting God’s blessing on this marriage. Two, sharing our joy with family and friends. Nothing else matters, although good food has been arranged, and good music is being arranged. I want our guests to be able to relax and have a good time.
I was at a wedding where there was a favor similar to that with seeds & a tiny flower pot. I liked that.
That said, I could have done just as well without the favors at all.
The last wedding I went to had live goldfish in the centerpieces; everyone at my table kept teasing each other about who was going to have to take home the nearly dead fish that was half floating around his bowl.