Research done by Lisa Cavanaugh, an associate professor of marketing and behavioral science at the University of British Columbia, has found that gift-givers tend to misjudge how much people will appreciate socially responsible gifts like donations. Unfortunately, though, it seems people might not want that either. And what’s more eco-friendly than a donation? The wedding-planning website The Knot reports that the practice of giving wedding favors has decreased by 21 percent over the past five years “due in part to many becoming more mindful about sustainability.” The website recommends eco-friendly options for those with such concerns. Insead of a physical favor, Shannon Detrick, who posts wedding tips on TikTok, recommends something she’s been seeing more of lately-charitable donations made by the couple on behalf of their guests. “Sometimes people will leave behind things that have-it’s sad, but-the couple’s name or date on it,” she told me, “because once you leave the wedding, to that person, it’s over.” A surprising number of the videos feature the word actually used almost as a pejorative: “wedding favors your guests will ACTUALLY use,” “Wedding favors I would actually take home.” Claire Roche, a California wedding planner, noted in one video that she often has to gather up all the unwanted favors at the end of the night. This can be inferred from just about every result that comes up when one searches wedding favors on the modern go-to source for wedding tips: TikTok. And websites such as Etsy, Minted, Zazzle, and the relative newcomer Partier make it easy to mass-produce gifts branded specifically for your special day.īut the well-meaning gesture doesn’t always land. Now attendees leave with just about anything that can be given a wedding-appropriate slogan: bags of coffee (“The perfect blend”), luggage tags (“The adventure begins”), plants (“Let love grow”). The wedding favor qua tradition is said (by many wedding websites) to date back to 16th-century Europe, where the aristocracy gave bonbonnières-small decorative boxes containing various sweets-to their guests. The wedding industry is happy to provide a way to do so. Those throwing the event naturally want to give a little something back. They buy a new outfit, take time off from work, hire a babysitter. They book flights and hotel rooms, they purchase gifts off a registry, they shell out cash for various pre-wedding events. Guests tend to spend a lot of time, effort, and money to join a couple on their special day. The intentions behind wedding favors are good. (She encourages people to choose something consumable.) Now that I’m planning my own wedding, and inundated with ideas for what to provide to my guests, I’m stuck on the question of why couples seem to think their guests will want a commemorative tchotchke from their wedding taking up space in cabinets and drawers for years to come. I reached out to her suspecting that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t find much use in, for example, a single piece of glassware emblazoned with someone else’s wedding date. “The spoiler alert is that no, guests do not want them,” Jane Handel, a wedding planner in New York, confirmed to me over email. Small thank-yous from couples whose nuptials this person has attended, customized to reflect the day they shared together. Items branded with various dates, names, and cutesy slogans (“Two of a kind!”). Sunglasses, koozies, matchbooks, bottle openers. During peak wedding season, the junk drawer of someone with a large family or wide circle of friends might look like the inside of a swag bag from a newlywed-themed business conference.
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