Our Wedding: The Favors Part 1

I have been looking forward to this post for more than a year! It requires so much time and detail that I decided to break it down into two parts.

I spent a lot of time searching for the right wedding favor. Anyone who has ever planned a wedding or helped a friend with favors knows that the options are endless. My requirements were that is was not typical or generic. I wanted something with a homemade, hands-on element so that the guests our family and closest friends knew we really appreciated them and had put some thought into our gifts to them. Another element I was looking for was longevity. So many favors are edible and then gone, nothing left to remind people of our special day that they were a part of. The favors that are not edible tend to be cheap frames or a bell or bubbles. Nothing wrong with those per say. Okay, there is something wrong with a cheap frame. I said it. For the most part the non-edible favors are not very practical or useful.

So where do you go when you want a handmade feel, Etsy of course! I looked back at my purchases so that I could source the fish for this post and I purchases a sample of the fish in July 2011. That's a month after we got engaged and 16 months before the wedding. I clearly had a vision of what I wanted early on. Even funnier to me is that the fish color matches almost perfectly with the painted table number frames that were not decided on until about a year later.

{The Fish Ornament}

Aren't these things adorable?!

I hand stamped the a&b and K with stamps & ink purchased from Michael's. I used a Sharpie paint pen in a fine tip to write our date. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. I did it in an assembly line and small batches. I am SO glad I took the time to do this but I won't lie, it was tedious and time consuming.

Like I said, I found the fish on Etsy. There are many reasons I loved it and chose it as our favor. 1.) It's beadboard. I love beadboard. I think Brian's afraid I'll beadboard every inch of our future home. I will probably try to. 2.) It brought in the "Coastal Shabby Chic" theme that I came up with to describe our wedding. 3.) The color was perfect! I did not have to paint these which was great because I clearly had plenty of other projects I was working on for the wedding, not to mention I was in the middle of getting my master's in marriage and family therapy at this point. 4.) It had longevity. 5.) I consider it practical and useful as a Christmas tree ornament. It fit in perfectly with our December 1st wedding. I love love love the idea of our family and friends taking out our fish every year and hanging it on their trees for..ever! How sweet is that? I love it because it is something people can take out, enjoy and then store it again for next year. It is never going to go out of style and being wood, it is durable and won't shatter like a glass ornament.

via

{The picture from Etsy that caught my eye}

{The back of the fish...stamping on the K}

 {work in progress}

This part of the favor was mainly done by me since Brian doesn't have pretty handwriting for dating the bottoms. The way Brian did contribute was with his genius idea of taping the "a" and "b" stamps together, they came out perfectly spaced like you see above with just the right amount of room for the "&". That saved me so much time and frustration because I did not have to line up the "a" and "b". It's the little things that you have to appreciate :)

I will be posting part 2 later this week/weekend. I have been crazy busy with work and super tired since I did treatment plans all Saturday. Normally I have a strict rule that I have all Saturday and all Sunday off from my day job because it consumes my entire week.

I hope you are having a great week.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on the favors or the blog in general. What things are you or have you created, wedding or otherwise?

Don't forget to check out my other recent posts!

xo

Mrs. Kozell