Wedding ceremony structure ideas/storeies

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Who better to ask than y’all???

 

So we’re sort of starting to plan a wedding, not real sure if it’s this summer or next. It’s so us-Dave goes ‘well I figured we were always engaged so go ahead and plan a wedding’ lol. He kind of proposed in Cuba and pretty much the perfect way for me. I’m trying to plan for a differnt type of wedding ceremony and would love some ideas and thoughts, or if you had a different type of ceremony I’d love to hear about it. We’re not trying for a ‘different’ ceremony because we’re cool hipsters or anything-we’re not. We’re just not the traditional types. If we went with a real traditional type wedding we’d be dreading it and uncomfortable….So I was thinking something more us….

My thoughts so far (before we were thinking destination wedding in caribean but with Mikey, it would be wrong to do this without him; not sure if the buns could be involved, probably stressful but they’ll be there in spirit) so we’re thinking either Manitoba or BC resort wedding…I’m kind of feeling pressure to do it sooner than later as I want our grandparents there who are still with us. I was thinking pet friendly resort, rent it for a week, so everyone has a holiday and a fun time. I want to do a fire/video game party instead of a dance-we don’t dance. I want to do it a bit more relaxed than formal black tie but not jeans. I want Mikey as ring bearer definitely. I want horses there in some fashion-perhaps as the ride away from the ceremony?

I want to scrap the traditional wedding party, dad walks you down the aisle type stuff-any ideas for instead type things?  I want my close friends and family honored but I don’t want them having duties and delegations and jobs. Ideas?

I want to keep cake but serve it in wineglasses. I want to keep the obnoxious putting cake in each others faces because that.is.so.us!!  Food fights are common household occurances here.

I want vows, but not churchy but also not legal wedding…soemthing middle ground….some ceremony-maybe like the sand ceremony but different?

I’m not doing a traditional wedding dress-not off white either-just a dress I like.

Hahahah sooo you can see just how lost I am-no idea where to begin!!! Share your stories-please! Any ideas welcome! In fact any wedding knowledge would be so helpful-I’ve been to-….two weddings. (small family lol)

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Well, to start, work out your budget
Then figure out the feel, which it sounds like you have (I called mine classy casual, dress up but not crazy).
The ceremony is for you and your husband to be, it can be however you want it (but meaningful, of course!) You can look for a non-denominational person, or even look to have someone special to you get ordained.
The reception is your thank you to your guests for attending the ceremony, and should be “infused” with you and your fiance, but should also keep in mind the comfort of your guests.
There isn’t really such thing as a “traditional” wedding anymore, personalization is “in”.
Some ways I did my wedding, I wore a big white dress, my husband wore gray suit pants and a vest, his boys wore black pants, matching vest, and mismatched blue ties. My bridesmaids were girls who are important to me, I had them pick out whatever blue dress they wanted, and they showed up the day of and stood for me. There is no rule they have to be your minions, in fact it’s really better that they not be
My dad couldn’t come, so we set up my laptop in the front seat and he skyped it I walked up alone, I don’t even remember it hah, I kinda tunnel-visioned on my husband
We had an outdoor, backyard wedding. We had a dj and dance floor even though my husband and I don’t dance because the majority of our guests do like to.
We appreciate flowers in the ground and still growing, so instead we made bouquets with succulents that I was able to replant and are still alive
We had a local restaurant cater, buffet style, and it was AMAZING. Seriously yum. We had a cake topper “cut cake”, and 4 different types of cupcakes from an incredible bakery.
Since we did it at home, I bought all the linens and silverware for a fraction of rental price, and was able to resell for almost what I paid for them. That was nice.

Annyyway, we planned ours in 3 months We were engaged for almost 2 years but life kept happening and we couldn’t nail down our wedding date, so finally we picked a date the soonest it was possible and went for it

What does “kind of” proposed mean?

[jerseygirl]

Congrats Lesley!!

[Beka27]

Yes! Congrats!!! I can’t say I’m surprised, you guys have been together for a long time!

Sam and Lady’s Human made such an an important point:

The ceremony is for you and your husband to be, it can be however you want it (but meaningful, of course!) You can look for a non-denominational person, or even look to have someone special to you get ordained.
The reception is your thank you to your guests for attending the ceremony, and should be “infused” with you and your fiance, but should also keep in mind the comfort of your guests.

I would think long and hard about who you want to attend and ways to make them feel honored as important people in your lives. You mention wanting to have it sooner so the grandparents will be around and able to participate, but then you mention having a video game reception. I’m not sure how your grandparents are, but I know how mine are, and mine would not feel comfortable in that environment.

I would seek advice from your parents and Dave’s about what your ideas are and how you want them incorporated. Has your father dreamed of “walking you down the aisle” since the day you were born? I would hate to take that moment from him in an effort to be “non-traditional”.

Renting out a resort for a week sounds incredibly expensive, so budget also has to be figured out. If your wedding guests would be paying their own way, are you willing to possibly miss having important people there, just for the sake of location? You can invite them, but they may have to decline due to lack of finances. Another option is to find something that is still in a central location, so they can stay if they want, or they can come for the day.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I ditto the congrats. As someone who just planned a wedding, I say “Be prepared for a lot of work.” Even the simplest ceremony is a ton of work. We didn’t do the food or decorations, the hall took care of that, but there was still so much to do. And costs can get out of hand as well. Even for little things.

I also started out with “I don’t want a traditional ceremony” but in the end, it ended up being quite traditional. It was just easier that way. We didn’t have a church wedding, we got a minister to marry us in the reception hall. It was a super quick “Wham Bam Thank you Mam type of wedding”. Very quick and simple. It only took like 10 minutes which was great because I hated standing in front of all those people.

I’m kind of feeling pressure to do it sooner than later as I want our grandparents there who are still with us.

This was the case with me as well. Since I couldn’t have my Dad there I at least wanted my surviving grandparents there and they are in there late 80’s so you never know. I’m really happy because I got some beautiful pictures with them. Something I’ve never had before.

I wanted to incorporate horses as well. As a girl, I always said I would have a horsey wedding, but it just wasn’t realistic for us, unfortunately.

I had a small bridal party. One bridesmaid, one Best Man, My 2 flower girls and a ring bearer.

Are you interested in a “themed” wedding? I wanted to originally have a sort of ancient Rome theme to match my dress but it would have cost a lot of money to get special decs and stuff. We don’t dance either but we got a great DJ and everyone danced and we had fun just mingling. We didn’t want to do the “first dance” and have everyone stare at us so we just invited all the guests to dance with us to our song “Don’t wanna miss a thing by Aerosmith”. We had a very relaxed ceremony.

For Party Favours, I made my own idea. I molded chocolate hearts, half dark and half white, and put purple “S” on the chocolate ones and orange “R” on the white ones. I put 2 in a little box with paper shreds, tying them with purple or orange ribbon and a little thank you note attached. The guests really loved them. It was a ton of work making like 300 chocolates but I had my Mom and friends helping me.

I also planned my wedding in only a few months. I started by buying my dress in August. I wouldn’t recommend this, the more time you have the less stress it will be.

[Elrohwen]

Oooo, congrats, dear!

I’m all about supporting non-traditional weddings! I wore a knee length dress and we had pub trivia during the reception (we love trivia). My advice is to pick somethings you love and incorporate them into the wedding. I think having a fairly traditional ceremony + reception is comforting to most people because they’re familiar with it. Within that basic framework you can do so much that is special to you. You can change the food, you can change the music, etc. We chose food that we loved, had the DJ play songs we loved, and, like I said, did pub trivia. I think doing fun things within the traditional framework is always fun and cool. Our ceremony wasn’t too strange, but we had a judge and a I had a quartet play some cello songs that I grew up playing and loving. Having songs you love dearly makes a big difference.

For cake we had cheesecakes – not fancy or stacked into tiers, just simple cheesecakes. We did NY style, chocolate, and pumpkin (since it was a fall wedding). We’re not big cake people, but we love cheesecake and wanted to have something we loved. I’m all for serving the foods you love, and hope other people will just appreciate it. Our entree selections were lamb, duck, and sea bass – I love them so I picked them and everybody found something to eat. Don’t compromise on what you want to serve.

My other big thing is to pick what’s important to you and spend money on those things. The menu was important to us, so we spent more there. The flowers weren’t, so I told the resident florist that I wanted orange flowers and to do whatever he wanted. I think if you pick a few important things to spend money on and let the other stuff go, you’ll be perfectly happy with your wedding.

Just have fun and plan a wedding you guys would love to attend and you’ll be golden 🙂 I hated planning my wedding (so much work!) but I love talking about weddings with other people, so I’d love to help with details.

[Stickerbunny]

Well, for the vows, write your own! That would certainly make them “you”.

For dress, just say casual formal, or dress casual, etc… no jeans and t-shirts, or work stained clothing, but something nice but not super formal. Or, since you wanted it in the carribean but can’t make it and have everyone you want there, maybe do a theme for dress ?

I am all for family not having duties – omg I hated being flower girl for my cousins wedding lol so stressful and coordinated. What I saw on TV once was instead of a flower girl, they handed out flowers to ALL the kids in the wedding and they just threw flowers on the aisle in front of the bride, it looked kind of cool. So find ways to “fill” the roles in ways that are fun like that instead of putting stress on your family / friends.

If you do use horses, just be careful about how you use them since a lot of the “hired” horses for events and stuff are not treated very well and people will put them into all sorts of stressful places for money. As transportation away from the wedding for you two would be fine though, maybe with a saddle blanket that says “JUST MARRIED” instead of the sign they usually put on cars?

[LBJ10]

Yay! Another wedding! =D

My wedding wasn’t too traditional. We had some traditional elements, but we added some things and substituted others. Do whatever is meaningful for you, it is your day after all!

Something we did different was that we had sort of a “Jewish”-style processional. That’s where the groom walks in with with his parents and then the bridal party walks in. The bride usually walks in with her parents, but I had my parents walk down together before me and then I walked alone. The reason for this was complicated, but it had to do with my mom not wanting to walk in by herself. So we did this to make her more comfortable. We had a non-denominational minister do the ceremony because it was difficult to find someone who would be as flexible as we wanted. She did such a wonderful job, but I remember my grandma thinking it was weird that a woman was marrying us. LOL We had a poetry reading, the sand ceremony (if you don’t know what that is I can explain it), and we wrote our own vows. When the ceremony was over, we did the traditional exit with everyone throwing rose petals at us.

For our reception, we don’t dance either. But other people wanted a dance so we rented a dance floor and hired a DJ. We had him do some fun things like playing limbo and stuff. We weren’t going to do the “dollar dance” but everyone at the reception was asking if we could do it. So we told the DJ to go ahead and people lined up to dance with us. *shrugs* We had a restaurant cater our reception, buffet style. We had a traditional looking wedding cake, but SURPRISE it was carrot because I LOVE carrot cake. Instead of a grooms cake, we had kolaces instead (my husband’s family is Czech). My favorite part is that we had magnets made for our wedding favors. I hate those cheap things that people throw away the second they get home. So we decided to have magnets because everyone could use another magnet on their fridge!

[Molzy]

LB, I love the magnet idea, that is great!

I was just invited to a wedding that I think is an awesome idea. I’m a grad student, and the couple getting married are both grad students. So they don’t really have the money for a big wedding, nor do their friends have the money for nice wedding gifts. So, they are getting married at the local state park, pot-luck style! They are asking everyone to bring a dish to share, and your “wedding gift” is the recipe for them to start their life. I thought it was a unique idea, and it also allows people from out of state the choice between a local hotel or camping. It might not work if your family is super traditional, but I feel like it gives the family the option to still give “real’ gifts, while not burdening everyone invited, if that makes sense. I think it totally depends on your family and friends.

Good luck, I can’t wait to hear what you choose to do!

[Lis]

I see EXACTLY where you’re coming from, as my wedding is going to be super weird too.

offbeatbride.com is seriously my best friend right now. Go visit it. Join the tribe. They’re amazing and supportive and very much “that’s an awesome idea!” no matter what.

[LBJ10]

Thanks! We splurged a little bit on ours and got the ceramic tile kind. They have our names and the date on them. I love going to people’s houses and seeing them on the fridge. =D You can get cheaper one though that are vinyl or whatever. I just wanted something I knew people would hang onto for a long time.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Thanks all!!!

@ Jers-thanks!! I do deserve Congrats ahahah  since I pretty much made him propose…he’s all ‘oh I thought we were pretty much engaged’….’fine, I’m planning a wedding then’ lol -so us.
 

@sam-That sounds very cool! We were pretty much the same-everyone asks when we’re getting married but we’re just busy! 

@Molzy-that sounds like what my cousin is sort of planning!

@Puffy-a theme would be really cool, I’ll have to think on that-I love it!

@ Beka-I don’t think the grandparents would attend the late night party/reception -but we want to have something besides drinking and dancing. I don’t think it’s really fair to have people spend a bunch of money on your wedding, so we would factor renting the resort for 4 days-week into the budget. I’m not having a huge wedding, so not a huge resort, or only the rooms we’d need. I guess I’d have to discuss the whole dad walkikng you down the aisle with my dad….ugh voice of reason lol

@Elrowen-omg I LOVE the trivia idea-I’m sooo stealing that.

@LBJ10-what’s the dollar dance? That sounds like a neat way to do the procession

@Sticker-I love that idea of all the children getting flowers to throw-how cool! Yes I agree-I don’t want the wedding to be stressful for anyone or people to have all these jobs. Just a quick ceremony and a fun evening.

@Lis-thanks for the link!

[LBJ10]

The dollar dance is where the bride and groom stand up on the dance floor. Then guests will come and line up for who they would like to dance with (one line for the bride and one for the groom). Each person will pay money to dance with either the bride or the groom, the more money they give the longer they get to dance. Usually the maid of honor and best man will oversee things and collect the money. But sometimes people will try stuffing it in the bride’s dress.

I originally didn’t want to do it because I don’t like to dance and it is like you’re asking for money. A bunch of people were upset that we weren’t going to do it though and they were practically begging. So we told the DJ that it would be fine. I was surprised at how many people lined up to dance with me. LOL Even some of the kids lined up and their parents gave them money.

[ScooterandAnnette]

We did a Vegas wedding, it really cut down on the stress. The coordinator at the resort took care of pretty much everything ceremony-related. For favours, since we were getting married in Vegas, we had decks of playing cards printed with our names and the wedding date and the Chinese double-happiness symbol.

Honestly I think if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t tell people we were getting married. I’d plan a dinner party and invite everyone and tell them we had an important annoucement to make so it would mean a lot to us if they could come. Then partway through dinner I’d thank them for coming and say our annoucement is – we’re getting married. In half an hour. Here’s your disposable cameras for taking pictures if you want, the officiant will be here soon, dessert will be after the ceremony. We’re really pleased you could all join us. No aisle, no fuss, no showers, no DJ, no games, no gifts – just the people we’re close to sharing the moment with us.

I’d always thought that Celebrations would be a good place for a wedding reception. It’s a comedy/musical dinner/show place we have here – in Edmonton and I think Calgary it’s called Jubilations (same company, different name there). You’ve got a meal and entertainment all wrapped for about $50 a person.

I’m not really a traditional type of bride, lol. For our wedding we each had 1 attendant. My best friend was matron of honour. She asked me what she should wear for the wedding and I told her I didn’t care as long as it wasn’t jeans. Pants, dress, colour, style – really didn’t matter.

20 years later nobody looks back on their wedding and says oh the decorations were so beautiful. Focus on the things you want to remember years and years from now – the rest are just details.
– Annette

[jerseygirl]

omg K&K! You could get married in your scuba gear under water!!  You could sign your vows and everything.    I am joking.    Mmmm…why am i regretting suggesting this to you?

 

Just want to throw in this pic too. 

hee hee

Sorry.  I’m not being very helpful on the wedding stuff.   People are giving some GREAT advice.

My friend got married on the beach. Can’t get more relaxed then that. 

My sister and her hubby had a small church wedding but had their parents as their witnesses.  That’s a way to have them involved equally. I like the idea because then one isn’t having to accomodate x number of bridesmaids/groomsmen and less likely offending any individuals who were not asked etc…  Cuts out the drama.

[Tipsy Bunny]

My older sister was married very nontraditional. It was in our backyard and my middle sister was ordained online so that she could perform the ceremony. There wasnt an aisle, everyone was in a circle and my middle sister’s boyfriend played The Beatles on his cello. There was no walking, just a, oh hey we are getting started so everyone gather round with your drinks and head over, kind of thing… (btw, we had “muglies” you keep your ugly mug and fill it up with whatever drink you want, washing station of course for when you want a new drink. That was a hit! And they do take their mug home as a token!) It was very very quick, 10 minutes at the most. They passed the rings around for the family to bless them, and then when the ceremony was over, instead of running off and taking pictures, they walked around and talked with all the family members! The rest of the night was spent partying! Like my sister said, she wanted it to be a big party that she happened to get married at. She had a photobooth with props in the garden, a margarita fountain, my dads employee was the bartender, instead of throwing rice or birdseed we light sparklers! Not one family member forgot her wedding and talked about it for months about how fun it was!

[Monkeybun]

My weddign was super easy and super cheap. Married in my mom in laws living room, with her, my hubby’s dad and grandma, 2 of our friends as witnesses, and a couple of my mom in law’s friends that did the cake and flowers for us. All we paid for was the license. My mom in law was friends with the minister too So, cheap cake, cheap food, cheap wedding lol.

My hubby went to his best friends wedding years ago that was neat. No one dressed up, men were required to wear hawaiian shirts and shorts, ladies could wear summer dresses. Easy to dress for

[Elrohwen]

K&K, a suggestion if you want to do pub trivia – we had a close friend write the questions so we would be able to play along. She did a mix of general knowledge questions and questions specific to us. It was pretty funny when we got this one wrong: “What is their bunny’s middle name?” We call him Otto T. Leviathan, so we put “T”, but apparently she was looking for “The” and we got it wrong. lol It was fun to have a mix of question styles.

The typical trivia we have around here (the local bars all work with the same company, so they have the same rules and format) involves four quarters of four questions each, which was good to break it up a bit. We did one quarter of questions, then people could eat dinner or whatever. In between quarters there are “bonus” rounds – often involving a picture round (like name the movie pictured, or the actors pictured, or something). We created those (so we couldn’t play for the bonus rounds) – one was identifying movies that we loved, and the other was matching obscure muppets to their names (DH loves muppets, and we thought it would be cute).

I also wanted to share what we did for the bridal party. I had my best friend (maid of honor) and DH’s sister. DH had his best friend and one of my best guy friends. Our bridal party didn’t have to do anything other than show up and hang out with us during the day before the wedding (and go to the rehearsal dinner the night before). I really didn’t want to give them “jobs” or make them put a lot of effort in, but I was so glad to have them there for us the night before and the day of.

[Elrohwen]

Jersey, I love that picture! What a beautiful barn and gorgeous horse!

[kralspace]

just one bit of advice, hide your shoes.

I’m supposed to leave tonight for my nephews wedding tomorrow and just realized that Dammitcharlie ‘redesigned’ one of my dress shoes while he was sneaking around in the closet the other day…..lol. Now if he make the other one match, it’d be ok.

[jerseygirl]

Oh no! ^   Hope you were able to salvage them. Living up to his name I see. :p
I could definitely see something like that happening to Lesley with Mikey or the buns.
A dog got to the bottom tier of my mums wedding cake the morning of the wedding. I’m sure it stressed out her mum but mine still finds it amusing.

@Tispy Bunny, that wedding sounded great. Especially everyone standing in a circle. I remember going to my childhood friends wedding and not even being able to see her the entire ceremony. I think with wedding traditions, a lot of the reasons for doing certain things is not relevant or meaningful in modern life.

[BinkyBunny]

 First……CONGRATULATIONS!  

I don’t have a lot of advice since mine was pretty traditional, but I strongly agree on figuring out your budget first.  Then you can prioritize and figure out where to cut corners if you need to.  Nothing worse then starting out married life with a big debt. 

 We were able to cut corners by doing alot of stuff ourselves.  When we went to pick out invitations, my jaw dropped at the price.   We went to a craft store and created the most beautiful invitations ourselves by buying sheets of soft handmade paper (with flowers and seeds within the paper), and then we loosely attached it with green vellum paper (which is what we printed our info on), and since it was a fall wedding, we included a colorful fall leaf (they were the kind that were preserved so the color stayed the same).   Everyone asked where we got the invitations and were shocked to find out that we made them ourselves. They thought we must have spent a gobzillian on them.    

We also did the center pieces ourselves — had glass jars with water and put the preserved fall leaves inside and they just gently floated around and on the surface (I was surprised that they didn’t fall to the bottom).  

ANYWAY…my point being that we were able to do alot of things on our own and make things just how we wanted them, and sometimes you can look even look at traditional wedding books and put your own unique twist — just brainstorming ideas by looking on the net and in the books too. OR even go to a craft and art store that has a ton of stuff.  There is a great one in San Francisco (Flax art & design) that has the traditional crafts and then more creative, zany and whacky stuff.  It’s huge and we were able to get alot of inspiration just from walking through there.  So if you have something similar where you live, it might be worth a visit.   

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

@Annette-that sounds soo cool I love the cards idea-very vegas-and dinner theatre. We go to Jubilations a lot that would be very neat!

Bahahah Jers-as soon as you suggested that I’m going ‘cooool’ except Dave refuses to get certified (barely swims) and hated when I made him in Cuba…but still a thought heheh Also yes yes -Mikey and the bunnies have redesigned many a loved shoe.

Tipsy-that sounds so relaxed and so much more us!! I might steal that muglies idea that is cool!

Thanks BB!! I love the tips on what you can do yourself! I definitely think it’s crazy to spend 30-100,000 for one day-so looney I think!!

Thank you everyone for all the great ideas!! I’ve been to …three weddings (small family) so very hard to draw on experiences! I really really appeciate all the thoughts! The whole reason we’ve really been procrastinating is we don’t want to do the traditional because it would just be so stressful for us. I’m so excited about all the ideas and thoughts you’ve shared-we could really make this a day to look forward to!! Thank you thank you!

[Tipsy Bunny]

Yeah!! Just stop by any Goodwill you find! Thats where my sister found ALL of hers! She bought 100 muglies and never hit $100 hahaha, especially if you go to the 50% off sales at Goodwill! But they did splurge on their own muglies, they went to one of those paint your own pottery places and painted their own muglies It was super cute!

[LBJ10]

We made our own invitations and programs. Oh my gosh, it was horrible. LOL Of course stupid me wanted to hand emboss roses on them. My hand was so cramped, I really wanted to shoot myself half way through.

You should look around for unusual places to hold the reception (if you want to hold it somewhere other than a backyard). That is always fun! My reception wasn’t at a really weird location, but it wasn’t your traditional banquet hall. We rented a loft downtown that had been completely redone (it used to be a warehouse). It had it’s own kitchen and bedroom, a library, a fireplace, and a really large central area where the tables and dance floor were set up. The walls were brick and the floor was carpeted. The beams on the ceiling were exposed (left bare). It was a really nice, “trendy”, and upbeat atmosphere. The prices for those places seem more reasonable and they aren’t trying to kick you out right at midnight like some places do.

[lwayne]

Posted By ScooterandAnnette on 11/02/2011 10:28 PM

Honestly I think if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t tell people we were getting married. I’d plan a dinner party and invite everyone and tell them we had an important annoucement to make so it would mean a lot to us if they could come. Then partway through dinner I’d thank them for coming and say our annoucement is – we’re getting married. In half an hour. Here’s your disposable cameras for taking pictures if you want, the officiant will be here soon, dessert will be after the ceremony. We’re really pleased you could all join us. No aisle, no fuss, no showers, no DJ, no games, no gifts – just the people we’re close to sharing the moment with us.

Best idea ever!!  I’ve actually thought about doing this…  except both our parents are divorsed and would’t be caught dead in the same room unless there was going to be a ‘wedding’.  And so they probably would make that assumption on their own.  Also, they live in different states.  I’ve also thought about just eloping and not telling anyone for a few years, then being like “oh yeah, we got married like 3 years ago, you didn’t get the memo?”.  Hah, that would be kinda mean.  

 

K&K -If you want horses and non-traditional: start with an outdoor wedding.  They are always pretty (unless it rains ), decorations are easy. It would be cool to have it at like a horse ranch or something.  Different than the typical flower garden outdoor wedding.  

[LittlePuffyTail]

I felt the same as BB at the price of invitations. Even going to Michaels or a stationary store and buying a kit was ridiculously priced. I bought some gorgeous ivory textured paper at Wal-mart and we printed off our own and then rolled them up like a scroll and tied with a gold ribbon. They were really pretty and totally went with my Roman style dress. The ones we mailed, we just folded up, tied with the ribbon and put in a matching coloured envelope.

These are the favors I made:

 

I made these as gifts for the kids in my bridal party:

I bought the little bears cheap online (I was excited to find them in my exact wedding colours), sewed and embroidered the little bags myself and filled them with gourmet jelly beans. They were a big hit and it gave the kids something to do during the speeches.

 

[Joyfull_music]

You have probably seen this video already, buuuuut…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

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