I’m often asked to make jewellery for a wedding, sometimes I get to make bridesmaids gifts too, but I was surprised when I was asked to do ‘something special’ as wedding favours for one bride and groom
The brief was
“Natural looking, celtic- including some welsh symbolism, angels, moon and stars, hearts, chocolate, personalised, professional and different”.
To be fair this is the sort of challenge I love. I’d done favours before, but usually a charm in an organza bag type of thing. This was going to be a lot of fun and I was going to have to draw on my network of artisan crafter to help with this.
We decided to make a bag of wishes beautifully packaged and with a unique feel to it. We added a wee bottle of spirit, gemstones, coins and a glass-charm that brought together the angel, and the heart, moon and stars a personalised chocolate with a butterfly shaped welsh flag.
To present them, all the items were put into a blue organza bag, (the wedding theme) then into a burlap bags, which have a lovely natural look to them. Finished off with a printed tag with a personal message from the bride and groom on one side and an explanation of what each of the wishes were on the other. The guests names were handwritten onto the tags so they doubled as place settings, and finished off with a wooden charm in the shape of a welsh love spoon engraved with the names of the happy couple and the date.
For another wedding, the bride wanted to include, clover and bees whilst the groom was keen to include the kokopelli symbol incorporated into the design in memory of his friend, so we added that to one side of the tag and replicated it on a personalised chocolate. The engraved wooden tag was in the shape of a clover leaf and engraved with their names: Another very happy customer indeed.
Since that time, I have been asked to make favours for birthday and anniversary parties, delegate bags for conferences and themed hen-party favours, every commission is different, every bag unique. Yes they are time consuming, yes my fingers hurt after assembling 250 bags but I get the most enormous feeling of satisfaction, and pride at a job well done when I see the look of delight on my client’s face when they see the finished package for the first time. That amazing feeling of having such a happy customer makes me love what I do..
I’d love to hear what was the best (or worst) wedding favour you ever received.
