The latest trends in wedding favors are those that create an experience for your guests long after the wedding is over. Unique wedding favors are more than just a souvenir. The most unique wedding favors will engage the senses of your guests and recreate the festivities of your special day. Here we’ll take at five of the hottest wedding favor ideas:

Personalized Cosmopolitan and Margarita Cocktail Mixes
What better way to reward your guests than with a delicious, single serving cosmopolitan or margarita cocktail mix that is sure to put a smile on their face. These unique wedding favors come in glossy foil packets that can be personalized to fit the theme and style of your wedding. Personalized mixed drinks are a top choice for entertainment savvy couples.

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Package these unique wedding favors with an elegant martini glass ornamented with a sheer fabric bow.

Personalized Chocolate Candy Bars
It’s rare to find anyone who doesn’t savor the taste of a smooth, milky chocolate bar. For a unique wedding favor that is sure to please everyone and be truly unique, a chocolate candy bar with a personalized wrapper is great solution. Choose either mini candy bars or full sized candy bars then pick an image and font that fits your style. Full size chocolate bars offer lots of room for customization. Add your names, wedding date, event time, city and state for a highly personalized and beautiful memento.

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Arrange full size chocolate favors on the guest’s plate or fill glass bowls with mini chocolate bars for guests to help themselves.

Personalized Tea Favors
Invigorate your guests with the promise of a cup of aromatic tea, representative of the warmth and comfort of your new marriage. Each tea bag comes sealed in a gorgeous white foil pouch that can be customized with your names, wedding date, and choice of message. With a vast selection of beautiful fonts and images, this inexpensive wedding favor is a smart and delicious choice.

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Place one or more personalized tea bags into an elegant teacup and embellish with an ornate ribbon.

Personalized Coffee Favors
Coffee packets are a gift that everyone can enjoy. These unique wedding favors are packaged in attractive glossy foil and can be customized with your names, wedding date, and choice of wedding message. Choose an image and font that represents your style and you’ve got a fantastic wedding favor that looks and tastes great. Once your guests enjoy the hot cup of delicious coffee, they can hold onto the beautiful packaging as a memento fit for a scrapbook or photo album.

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Insert the personalized coffee favor packet into a personalized coffee mug or packaged in a basket with raffia, hot chocolate, and personalized tea packets.

It is the company of friends and family that make a wedding memorable. Rewarding those who come to share your special day with a thoughtful favor gift is a wonderful way to show your appreciation. Choosing wedding favors that excite the senses give your guests a chance to relive the pleasure of your wedding day.

By:Christine Harrell

Wedding favors are small gifts given as a gesture of appreciation or gratitude to guests from the bride and groom during a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception.

The tradition of distributing wedding favors is a very old one. It is believed that the first wedding favor, common amongst European aristocrats, was known as a bonbonniere. A bonbonniere is a small trinket box made of crystal, porcelain, and/or precious stones. The contents of these precious boxes were generally sugar cubes or delicate confections, which symbolize wealth and royalty. (In this era, sugar was an expensive commodity and was treasured only among the wealthy. It was believed that sugar contained medical benefits).[citation needed] As the price of sugar decreased throughout centuries, the tradition of providing gifts to guests reached the general populace and was embraced by couples of modest means.

As sugar became more affordable, bonbonnieres were replaced with almonds. For centuries, almonds were commonly distributed to wedding guests to signify well wishes on the bridegroom’s new life. In the thirteenth century, almonds coated with sugar, known as confetti, were introduced. Confetti soon transformed to sugared almonds, which later evolved into the wedding favor for modern day weddings. Traditionally, five Jordan almonds are presented in a confection box or wrapped in elegant fabric to represent fertility, longevity, wealth, health and happiness. The bitterness of the almond and the sweetness of the coated candy exemplify the bitter sweetness of a marriage.

Today, gifts to guests are commonly known as wedding favors and are shared in cultures worldwide. Wedding favors have become a part of wedding reception planning, especially in the United States and Canada. Wedding favors are diverse and can range from the classic sugared almonds to small metal items. Some gifts may be personalized with the couple’s names and the wedding date.

The importance of and demand for wedding favors has created a new category of business in the wedding industry where thousands of sites compete selling just wedding favors. Wedding favors have surpassed the term ‘trend’ and have become commonplace among today’s weddings. “Wedding favors are no longer a niche market in the wedding industry. In fact, many wedding favor retailers would probably agree that it is become an industry of its own.”