You don’t have to spend a lot of money when making gothic themed wedding favors. In fact, we did it for less than $50.00 (for each project) and ended up with some of the coolest looking unique favors. Since there were three couples planning gothic themed wedding I had the chance to play around with some ideas that I had rattling around in my head. Mike and Michelle were having the smallest wedding with only 40 people attending the reception. Grace and James expected about 75 and Corey and Carla were having 120 people. Obviously the more people attending the event will mean more work and a slightly larger budget but if you are a smart shopper you should be able to save a lot of money doing things yourself over buying them premade. Let’s face it, there aren’t that many places that have gothic themed wedding favors and if they you, you can bet you will be paying top dollar for them.
Mike & Michelle – 40 Favors
For this one we went with plastic coffins and filled them with skeleton candy and at the bottom of each coffin was a silver skeleton key. We bought fifty of them for .25 cents each. After filling the coffins we added a thick paper tag to them with the wedding date, their names and some graphics. They only took about two hours to make and it was one less thing that they had to worry about. They did make a few extras in case they were needed or extra people showed up. This is an extremely simple wedding favor but with some personal touches added to it, it looks great.
Grace & James – 75 Favors
They both love the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” so they wanted to incorporate as much of the film and characters as they could into their blessed union. We bought 85 wooden trinket boxes and painted them glossy black. James picked up a large mirror off the street (free) and cut it into small pieces to fit inside the boxes. This took about a week to do (plus grinding down the edges) so it isn’t something that you are going to want to do at the last minute. We used hot glue guns to secure the mirrors inside the lids of the boxes and used felt for the inside bottoms of them. James’ mother made ceramic black hearts and strung them on jute. They looked positively perfect inside the boxes.
Corey & Carla – 120 Favors
They are both goth lovers and tree huggers so they wanted to go with a green wedding favor. We started brain storming and came up with a rather ingenious idea but it required three months of planning. We got eight ounce yogurt cups, painted them black, used an industrial sealer on them and filled them with dirt and fertilizer. Into each cup we placed a seedling for a tree. We bought these at a local nursery that was tickled pink that they wanted to give each guest a special gift that would remain with them for years. On each cup there was a tag that read, simply, “May this tree be a constant reminder and thank you for sharing our special day”. Time was the biggest factor with this favor; the seedlings needed almost constant care and looking after and so far, with three weeks to go until the wedding, they are all thriving.
If you are planning any type of “off beat” wedding there’s no need to spend an obscene amount of money on wedding favors. Guests will remember and cherish the little things, the hand made things that are crafted with love. Anyone can walk into a party store or go online and order something; it takes time and patience to make something from hand and put thought into it. I am not bashing the premade gifts, some people just don’t have the time for it. Personally I would rather have something that is hand made and had some personal touches to it than something that could be found at a hundred other weddings.
