Problem Solved: Favors

Mmmmm, Dewar's chews. Dewar's was recently voted The Best Thing About Bakersfield, btw. I'm not making that up.

I went and bought 2 pounds of each of their five flavors (peanut butter, peppermint, almond, caramel and chocolate almond).


My good friend Archie helped me keep an eye on the candy while I sorted, bagged and tied.


I tied each bag up with a ribbon and placed them all in a basket for people to pick up on their way out. It was a fun project but took about three hours from start to finish. Definitely a good thing to do with a movie on.

I want to do a little sign to let people know we appreciated having them be a part of our special day - are there any good "we love you, take a favor" rhymes out there? I just can't resist my last opportunity to do something cute.

Stressful Wedding Things: Favors

ARRRRR. Seriously? I have to do this? Fine. It's gotta be candy. I've been to my fair share of weddings and I don't even remember what the favors were. But the one that sticks out in my mind is my friend's wedding where each guest got an individually wrapped Smith's heart cookie - both yummy and thematically appropriate.

I want my favors to be both edible and local, so I can support local business and give people a taste (literally) of Bakersfield. Right now I'm thinking a handful of Dewar's chews, wrapped with a ribbon. Something along the lines of the picture on the right:

[I'm being a bad blogger right now because I saved this image a long time ago and can't figure out where I got it from. If this is from your blog and/or wedding, hats off to you for coming up with a great favor idea!]

Cupcakes!

In addition to the actual wedding cake, I knew all along that I wanted cupcakes. I LOVE cupcakes.


Mmmmm. Doesn't that make your mouth water? Who doesn't enjoy a great cupcake? And one of FH's nicknames for me is Cupcake, so it has a nice thematic touch to it as well.

If we were getting married in LA, we'd be paying $4 a cupcake for major taste but also major attitude. Seriously, people. I used to frequent a cupcake store that shall remained unnamed where the workers would scream at you if you left the door ajar (fresh air dries out cupcakes, apparently.)

Cupcake stores are everywhere you look around here. But Bakersfield, not so much. I did some research and found some good options that my Mom, sister and I promptly proceeded to visit. There's not much we won't undertake for this wedding.

One store didn't have any cupcakes in stock when we visited. "You should have called ahead!" she told us. Um, aren't you a cupcake store? Shouldn't you keep some cupcakes on hand then??

Another store was, well, flat out rude. No thank you. If I wanted cupcakes + rude, I could have just stayed in LA.

Then someone suggested Sweet Surrender. Not only was it the most adorable store ever, they were super helpful and had great cupcakes on top of that. We tested nine (yes, nine!) different flavors last weekend and they were all fantastic. I'll be placing my order with them shortly and I'm thinking of something like this to give it all an elegant little oomph:

[find them at buttercreambee]

Problem Solved: Cake

My wonderful fabulous cousin (who I am still in awe of, as when I was young, because she can french-braid her own hair - how awesome is that??) bakes wedding cakes as a side business. When I first got engaged, I asked her if she would make our cake for us, if she was able to make the trip out. I just found out that she will be able to come out for the wedding and I couldn't be more excited.

It's also perfect, since one of my goals was to incorporate people we knew and love and the fantastic skills they possess into our wedding day. FH's gregarious older brother is going to be our officiant, his talented niece is going to play our ceremony music, and my insanely creative little brother is designing our wedding invitations.

But back to cake. We still have to talk it over but I'm thinking yumminess is way more important that a big fancy cake. I like the simplicity of this:

[from The Knot via The Pissed Off Bride]

DIY: Escort Cards

This one, I'm beyond excited about.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a book nerd. My love of books is going to be reflected in our centerpieces (more on those tomorrow). But since FH is a plane fanatic and private pilot I'm also trying to work in the plane angle as much as possible. Books and planes are a valid wedding theme, right???

So imagine my excitement when I found these at online superstore Candy Warehouse:



I like the idea of keeping all giveaways (favors, etc) edible and thus, practical. Because really, who doesn't like candy? I'm thinking I'll use these as escort cards, a la the beautiful display from this wedding featured on the First Comes Love wedding blog :


I've gotten less than enthusiastic feedback on my idea, but I think I can make it work. I want our wedding to be FUN and I have confidence that I can transform brightly colored airplane lollipops from potentially tacky to very classy.