It’s guaranteed when you attend a wedding your going to witness a beautiful and sentimental union between a loving couple, enjoy delicious food, partake in and possibly watch some rather unique dance moves, treat your taste buds to a sweet slice of cake, be the MVP when it comes time to catch the bouquet or garter, and aside from having a wonderful evening possibly participate in unique wedding activities and walk out with a sentimental, well thought out wedding favor. We are always amazed at the unique and creative details our brides put into their wedding. We have seen various takes on alternative wedding activities besides the “established” money dance, garter, and bouquet toss. Here are a few of our experiences with fun wedding favors and adventurous wedding activities.
The Candy Buffet
We get really excited when a bride mentions she will have a candy buffet during her reception because they are always delicious to look at, tie in with the wedding colors, incorporate their candy favorites, and bring out the inner child in the wedding guests. Candy buffets are tempting, have a wide area of candy in various colors, and the decadent display makes your mouth water. You don’t realize how many varieties of candy there are until you see a candy buffet displayed.
What’s great about candy buffets is you can either hire an outside vendor to create a display or you can do it yourself. You can find candy that either incorporates your wedding colors or you can go with a theme. We are dying to create a candy land buffet and incorporate the fun characters and the land they live in like Gumdrop Mountains, Mr.Mint, Gramma Nutt, Chocolate Swamp, and Princess Lolly. Not only would it be delicious but it would bring back the nostalgia of the characters and the fun times you spent playing the game as a child.
Photobooths
Who doesn’t want to see their wedding guests documenting the evening with photos? Photobooths are a great way for guests to pop in and take a snapshot of the wonderful time their having. They also provide a great party favor for guests to take home and pin on their fridge. You can utilize duplex photobooth copies and have guests attach them to your guest book with a fun note beside it.
If you don’t have the budget to get a photobooth you can utilize an empty, open wall at your reception venue to create your own photo backdrop. Your backdrop can be monogrammed with your wedding date and name, or as we just recently saw in Martha Stewart, decorate your background with real or artificial flowers to create a flower wall. Set up a camera and a printer for the evening and you have created a do it yourself photobooth. We recommend getting a tech savvy friend to help “run” the photo booth if you plan to do it yourself so they can refill ink, fix paper jams, and other issues that may arise with the vast number of photos that will be taken during the evening.
Flip Books
The C&C Team recently went to BRIDES magazine mixer and fell head over heels in love with the flip book favor craze. We saw them on wedding programs before and absolutely loved the unique wedding favor. When we saw the flip book booth that evening we could not wait to jump in and create one. The camera man takes a 10 second video of you with a background of your choice and then turns that video into numerous photos. The photos are then composed into a book and when flipped through show your mini movie! They are fun because you actually get to take a piece of the action home with you and share it with all your friends. We couldn’t help but show ours to everyone because they are so unique and fun.
Caricatures
Fun, silly, and one of a kind artwork. The C&C Team once again got to partake in this fun favor activity when we attended San Diego Style Weddings Spring Mixer. Caricatures are fun because you get to see yourself as a cartoon character and smirk every time you see it. We have our hilarious cartoon portrait hanging in the office for us to laugh at and remember the fun night we had.
I wonder if they all come with a hat and white bunny? A magician will keep your guests spellbound while your taking photos during cocktail hour. Perhaps guests will even learn a few tricks of the trade.
Customized Favors
Our favorite customized favor was custom-made hot sauce bottles. The bride and groom transformed a standard everyday tabasco bottle by putting a photo of them with their name on the front. On the back they listed the ingredients with funny sayings such as, come together to make a fiery and spicy combination. Not only is it personal and humorous it is something guests will use often. We have also seen customized olive oil and peanut brittle that guests can utilize and enjoy after the wedding.
Bouquet Giveaway
We truly enjoy this new take on the bouquet toss. Instead of having all the ‘single ladies’ come to the dance floor to catch the bouquet the newly married couple ask that all married couples come to the dance floor. After dancing a bit the DJ will then go around asking couples how long they have been married. The couple who has been married the longest will receive the bride’s bouquet as well as warm wishes.
No matter what you do activity or favor wise make it your own and enjoy.
Be Marry,
C & C
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