Ten Unique Chocolate Wedding Favor Ideas

A Bride On A Budget received one of these items for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

I've said it time and time again: Don't cut wedding favors. I have such a spot in my heart for favors and I really think they are such a wedding necessity.

There's the argument that you are already paying for guests' meals, so you shouldn't have to get them a thank you for eating said free meal. And then there's the argument that many guests will pay for their plate, so you should give them a thank you for that. And then people say the thank you card is the thank you. And you can argue back and forth and around and around, but the easy solution is just to take my advice and get favors and spend your time on other wedding tasks instead of wasting it trying to figure out if you should or shouldn't cut favors from your list of things to buy.

The majority of people who I've spoken to have said edible favors are the way to go. They are likely to get eaten and enjoyed on the car ride home. And, if you're giving an edible favor, make it chocolate. Everyone loves chocolate. So I went ahead to help you and put together a list of ten unique chocolate wedding favor ideas. Hopefully you can get to the end of the list without drooling on your screen.

Ten Unique Chocolate Wedding Favor Ideas

1. Bridal Chocolate Covered Oreo Pop
2. Bride and Groom Fortune Cookies
3. Chocolate Bell Favor
4. Chocolate Covered Pretzel
5. Personalized Chocolate Pretzel Rods
6. Mini Wedding Brownie Pop Favors
7. Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti Favors
8. Personalized Wedding Mint Chocolate Candies
9. Chocolate-Dipped Krispy Treats
10. Sweetheart Favor

Bridal Chocolate Covered Oreo Pop

I love anything decorated like a bride and groom. There are very few times in your life that you can purchase these, so you should do it while you can. That's why you'll see a bunch of those items in this list, starting with a bridal chocolate covered Oreo pop.

You can purchase them as a bride and groom pair, just brides, or just grooms, depending on your needs. That's always nice.

Purchase here.

Bride and Groom Fortune Cookies

These bride and groom fortune cookies are actually the inspiration behind this post. I saw them and just instantly knew they'd be a great wedding favor. What's fun about them is you can choose the message that goes inside them. There are a few stock messages to choose from or you can craft your own.

Purchase here.

Chocolate Bell Favor

Any time you can sneak a little personalization into your wedding, you definitely should. And if you want to on your favors, go with the chocolate bell favor. You can pick from three different types of chocolate and then have your wedding date written on the bottom -- in chocolate. Yum!

Purchase here.

Chocolate Covered Pretzel

There's a shop by my New York house that sells incredible chocolate covered pretzels. Seriously, they're the best. You can't get them unless you live around there and, really, I don't live around there any more either so I can't get them. So we have to settle for this chocolate covered pretzel that we can order online. You can personalize it with a sticker, though, so that's a bonus.

Purchase here.

Personalized Chocolate Pretzel Rods

If you like pretzels, but you're more of a rod person, pick up these personalized chocolate pretzel rods. They're dipped in chocolate and have your names written on them in chocolate. I hope you have long names because that means more chocolate to enjoy.

Purchase here.

Mini Wedding Brownie Pop Favors

What's better than chocolate? Chocolate covered chocolate. Like these mini wedding brownie pop favors. They're brownies dipped in chocolate and then adorned to look like a bride and groom. Yes, just yes.

Purchase here.

Chocolate-dipped Biscotti Favors

Pete loves biscotti. It's his favorite. I have a great biscotti recipe, so I'll probably post it and make biscotti favors in the future. But, for now, you can order these chocolate-dipped biscotti favors. You can have your names and wedding date added to them, making them special.

Purchase here.

Personalized Wedding Mint Chocolate Candies

How super cute are these personalized wedding mint chocolate candies? You can add a graphic on one side (and choose from a variety of them too) and add your names on the other. You can choose your wedding colors for them too, so your wedding favors match the rest of your decor.

You'll want to pick  up some sort of small bags to put these in since you can't really leave loose candies all over your table. Personally, I would go with a clear treat bag because the whole point of them (with your names and colors) is lost if you stuff them in a non-see through bag or box.

Purchase here.

Chocolate-Dipped Krispy Treats

I had an idea recently about making these, but now, I don't have to. And you don't either. Just pick up these chocolate-dipped krispy treats. What's fun about them is they're hand-decorated with non-pariel sprinkles and royal icing wedding designs. So cute.

Purchase here.

Sweetheart Favor

The photo above is the sweetheart favor from L.A. Burdick. The mice, if you can't tell, sit on a base that's about the size of a dime. Their tails are colored ribbons can be customized to match your wedding colors and that cost is included in your favors.

They're pricey, but they're amazing -- and I'm a chocolate snob, so that's high praise. The outside is hard chocolate and inside is a soft and creamy ganache. Each favor has a different filling, so you might want to choose your favors carefully if there's a flavor you don't enjoy.

Purchase here.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Which of the chocolate wedding favors do you like best?

Deciding on wedding favors?
Check out our post on  100 Wedding Favors (Your guests will actually take).

Wedding Door Hangers

A Bride On A Budget received these items for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

I was on Pinterest once upon a time and saw wedding door hangers. They were so cute. You add them to your wedding welcome bag so your guests can hang them on the hotel doors the day after the wedding.

I was determined to have these.

I looked all over, though, and couldn't find wedding-related companies that actually made these. I found ones that printed similar items, and found companies that tried to get me to print on other items and then DIY the rest, and I even thought about printing as 4x6 prints at the drugstore and cutting them.

And then I found door hangers at 123Print. That's not the only product at 123Print, though. You can get full stationery suites, starting from save the dates and ending at thank yous ... plus everything in-between. For every item, you can use a pre-made design and edit to add your own information, or you can upload your own image.

Personally, I knew I wanted to design my own door hangers. See, the ones that are pre-made are mostly for businesses, since they usually hang these door to door for advertising. The pizza chain here hangs one on our door once a week, at least. There's no way the pizza chain and I needed the same template, so it was easier for me to just head to PicMonkey, design, and upload my design.

You have to understand that these are not print at home items, so you won't get them as immediately as you would if you printed them on your own printer. You do have to wait for the designer to set it up, print, and ship. It took mine a bit longer than a week to arrive. I wasn't in a rush, so that was fine with me, but this isn't something you should save until the last minute.

When they did arrive, they were perfect. They were bundled in sets of three and, since there was room between the product's edge and the box's, there was tissue paper stuffed between. That way, the product didn't shuffle around in the mail and get ruined. I was super happy about that -- and would definitely have felt secure ordering wedding invitations from them.

With wedding stationery, you do want it to be perfect and want to assure that the corners aren't rounded (unless that's the style you picked, of course).

I pulled one out of the box, and it was perfect. That's the only word I can use to describe it.

The door hanger was printed on a glossy paper, so it has this beautiful shine to it. And it just looks really, really expensive. They're not, but they look that way (which is exactly what you want for your wedding).

I expected these to be printed on matte cardstock. Why, I don't know. I couldn't actually find anything about paper type when I ordered, but I just expected it. So you can understand why this glossy paper surprised me.

The door hangers come with the door hole left it and it's up to you to pop them all out (or don't, if you don't have the patience, but then you run the risk of your guests not using them and that would be a waste of your money). If you were to try to print these at home, you would  literally have to cut every door hole. You wouldn't be able to just drop these in your wedding welcome bags and expect your guests to have packed scissors in their suitcases. So even though popping these holes out might seem tedious, it's easier than DIY and cutting (and this is coming from the girl who spent 13 hours cutting wedding invitations). I'm seriously so impressed with the quality of the door hangers that I feel completely confident that all the other products the site provides are "wedding quality."
BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you order these wedding door hangers for your wedding?

DIY Wedding Sparklers & Free Printable Tags

Some of these items were sent to ABOAB for review. Other items were purchased by ABOAB and were not compensated.

I brought six boxes of sparklers to our wedding. I so badly wanted to have a sparkler send off. If I'm being completely honest, that's the exact reason we picked the photographer we did. I was looking through their photo books, loved their shots, but then saw a sparkler send off. I was the only photographer from all the bridal expos we went to that had one in their books. I figured if they could do that, they could do anything.

At our wedding, the videographer asked if we were doing any sort of special goodbye and I mentioned the sparklers. But by the end of the night, the only people who knew about it were the videographer, the photographers, and myself. It wasn't possible to try and round up people and pull them from the dance floor just so I could get one shot. And I didn't want a lasting memory from my wedding to be when I dragged people away from the band and made it all about me.

Which is was, in a sense. But these people traveled a dozen hours and took days off from work to come to our wedding. I wanted them to only have amazing memories.

What I should have done, if I thought about it then, was to make labels and have the sparklers in a jar where everyone saw them as they walked in. They could light them during the evening or realize that they were for the end of the night. Don't make my mistake. Instead, follow my tutorial to DIY this for yourself.

DIY Wedding Sparklers

What You'll Need:

• Wedding sparklers
• Paper trimmer
• Sparkler tags (you can use my free wedding sparklers printable below or just purchase wedding sparkler tags on Amazon)
• Mason jar
• Tissue paper

What You'll Do:

Cut the tags.

Fold the tag in half, but don't crease it. Stab the sparkler's point through.

Fill a mason jar (I added tissue paper and stabbed mine in there so they stayed).

Then, be sure to spread the word that there will be a sparkler send off. And remind your guests to remove the paper tag before lighting the sparklers because you definitely don't need a fire.

In case you want to use my Taylor Swift-inspired tags, you can save the file below to your computer. It's formatted to print on a typical 8.5x11 sheet of paper and has dielines so it will be easy to cut. Just right-click the image and save as.

And yes, I took a sparkler selfie. That's what happens when you have an office of one. It actually was really nice to just go and do sparklers by myself. They were all lit for me. And that made up for me missing them at our wedding.

Just a few things to keep in mind if you decide to have sparklers at your wedding: You'll want to douse the sparklers in water after they are done, so be sure to have a bucket of water close. And, if you are planning on making an aisle of sorts, make sure the sparklers are far enough apart that your dress doesn't catch fire because one decided to lean. If you are asking your guests to hold these so you can walk through, be sure to make sure someone lines your guests up far apart from each other. You really don't want to get set on fire on your wedding day.

We have a few other wedding printables available for free, too. They're listed below:

• Bridal Shower Word Search
• Mason Jar Hot Chocolate Mix Favors
• Be Wise, Don't Drink & Drive Owl Printable
• Lucky Duck Wine Rehearsal Dinner Gift
• DIY Bridesmaids Cards
• DIY Thanks A Latte Coffee Wedding Favor
• Honeymoon Packing Checklist
• DIY Bridesmaids Wine Bottle
• Famous Couples Bridal Shower Game
• Thank You For Being My Groomsman Cigar Gift
• Tears Of Joy Envelopes
• Bridal Bingo

BRIDAL BABBLE: Are you planning on having wedding sparklers?

Wedding Invitation Suites (and what needs to be included in your wedding invitation)

A Bride On A Budget received these items for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

Wedding invitations are not like other invitations. If you have another party, you just hand write an invitation, leave your phone number as the RSVP, and wait for the calls to come in (or not, if you wrote "regrets only"). As long as you have the date, time, and include the "why" part of the invitation, you're good.

But with wedding invitations, the actual invitation is just one component.

I got a chance to check out a few pre-printed invitation suites from Paper Source. These are not actual weddings that are happening, so don't pack your bags and try to crash the wedding of Deborah and Brandon because, well, you won't get there (partially because these are probably fictitious people but mostly because the Riviera Palm Springs isn't even at the location on the invitation -- thank you Google).

When looking at invitations, guests aren't just looking at the main piece of paper. They also have to look at all the "accessories" (like the RSVP cards and envelopes). Together, the full line is called a "suite" not a "set" (you can throw that around in your circle to feel special).

Wedding Invitation Suites (and what needs to be included in your wedding invitation)

Let's start with the actual invitation. What do you need to say on it?

Wedding invitation text checklist:

• Bride's and groom's name
• Wedding date
• Location of ceremony and/or reception (name and address)
• Time (of ceremony and/or reception)
• Parents names (if they are helping to pay for/host the wedding)

Wedding RSVP text checklist:

• Literally, the letters RSVP
• The RSVP date (traditionally one month before your wedding)
• A line for guests to write their names (it often begins with M)
• A place to circle/check yes or no
• A place to write number attending

It is proper etiquette to address the RSVP envelope to yourself and add proper postage (most RSVP cards will require one standard stamp, but if you have a very small RSVP card, it will need to be hand sorted and will require extra postage).

I had no desire to hand write our return address on the RSVP cards, so I ordered return address labels with our names and address to just stick on the front of RSVP envelope. If you search a bit, you can find return address labels that look more like stickers. Get those because they're bigger and will take up more real estate on the envelopes. Regular address labels are a bit too small to fit in the middle of the card.

If you are inviting out of town guests, you want to set aside a block of rooms at a local hotel (most hotels will give you a discounted room rate and will not hold you responsible for unblocked rooms, especially since a month or so prior to the wedding, they will release any unblocked rooms to the public). If you have rooms blocked, include the hotel information (name, address, contact info, any group codes) in the invitation.

If you are only blocking rooms at one hotel, you could also include directions from the hotel to the venue. Remember, though, the more papers you add into your invitation, the heavier it will be. Save yourself a little postage and stick the directions in the wedding welcome bags.

Wedding invitation component checklist:

• Wedding invitation
• RSVP card
• Self-addressed stamped envelope (to fit RSVP card)
• Directions or map (optional)
• Hotel information sheet from the hotel (optional)
• Rehearsal dinner invitation (optional and only if you are inviting the entire guest list to the rehearsal dinner)

What not to include:

• Registry information

Be aware of how much your postage will be. We've addressed this previously, but in case you missed that post, envelopes that are either oversized, undersized, or heavy will change your postage price. Plus, keep in mind that traditional-size envelopes will be sent through a sorter. And that sorter doesn't care if you have a very pretty bow on the front of the invitation that might rip through the envelope. Nope. It will just sort the mail and your guests may receive something that looks like it was used as a bullet proof vest.

Personally, I've received way too many invitations where the bow/jewel/bead, etc. punctured the envelope. This is (generally) the first indication I'm getting of how your wedding will be ... and unless it's in some rough neighborhood, a bullet hole isn't the introduction I want. My suggestion? Keep the BeDazzler back in the early 90's and go with a flat invitation.

My other suggestion is don't hand write your return address on your actual invitations. One of the best things we did was invest in an address stamp. You can get them in ink or as an embosser. The embosser is more expensive, but you don't need to purchase ink. Depending on how often you plan on using this, you might want to pay more now and save later.

We used our address stamp for our save the dates, our bridal shower thank you cards, our invitations. our wedding thank you cards, and two sets of Christmas cards (then we moved). When I created ours, I made sure to only use our first names so that we would be able to keep and use it for as long as we lived in the apartment.

We've gotten so much use out of ours that I've decided from now on, an address stamp will be my gift at engagement parties. Best. Investment. Ever. If you don't believe me, you can check out my post: 5 Times You'll Wish You Had A Stamp During Wedding Planning.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you include everything in your wedding invitation suite?

DIY Wedding Sunscreen Bar

A Bride On A Budget received some of these items for review. Additional items and all thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB. 

It's almost summer, which means that there's a chance your wedding weather is going to be a bit warmer than if you got married a few months ago (and warmer than it will be in a few months).

Summer weddings mean you need to take a little more into consideration when planning, like if your venue has a working air conditioning unit. There's also a good chance that your guests who want a quiet place to talk will step outside into the sun and heat. You don't want to send them home burnt, so you should definitely watch out for them ... and set up a wedding sunscreen bar.

DIY Wedding Sunscreen Bar

What You'll Need:

• Plastic basket
• Basket filler (we used Easter grass)
• Sunscreen
• Card stock (in two colors)
• Corner rounder
• Paper trimmer

What You'll Do:

• Put the filler in the basket. 

• Arrange the sunscreens in the basket.

• Print the words "protect yourself from the sun" on a piece of white card stock. Using a paper trimmer, cut the words out. Then, use the corner rounder to round the corners.

• Using the paper trimmer, cut a colored piece of card stock larger than the white piece. Use the corner rounder to round its corners.

• Glue the white paper to the colored one. Stick it in the basket and place the sunscreen bar somewhere your guests can find it. We put ours next to the flip flop basket.

This was actually my dad's pre-wedding creation and I think he did a great job.

We had a couple baskets to choose from when we were making it. We found a cute purple wicker basket, but it was too deep for the sunscreens. A few of the sunscreen we used -- like the Coppertone ClearlySheer Beach & Pool Mini-Spray -- are short, so they just fell and got lost in the basket. And if everything falls and rolls around in the bottom, guests who walk by would just see an empty basket and not use what you had set out for them.

Then, we thought about using a larger basket, and my dad suggested cutting round holes in Styrofoam, sticking the sunscreen bottles in the holes, and covering it. That would have worked for the initial presentation, but you would need to rely on your guests to use the sunscreen, then stick it back in the appropriate hidden hole. Instead, we anticipated that our guests would just lay it on top and this pretty presentation would be ruined.

So instead, we decided on a small basket and filled it with leftover Easter grass. The grass was really forgiving. We had six bottles total, all of various SPF's and types. Usually, when I'm spending the afternoon at the beach, I tend to purchase lotion. I put it on before we run out the door, and I'm protected at the beach. But for weddings, it doesn't exactly work that way. You have guests in gowns and suits, previously sprayed with perfumes or lathered with body lotion. Most women's faces are adorned with makeup. The last thing they want to do is ruin that with a suntan lotion. So sprays are great. Guests can just close their eyes, spray it on clear, and enjoy the outside.

At the end of the night, we were left with only one little mini spray. Our guests had taken the rest home with them (which meant a  few guests left with an additional favor, so they were overjoyed since most of our guests were spending the days after our wedding at the beach). I actually went out with some remaining guests a few days later and everyone was using the Coppertone Sport spray on a walk downtown. It was nice to see that our wedding sunscreen bar wasn't just decoration, but it was something that guests actually used the day of our wedding -- and after. BRIDAL BABBLE: Is this DIY wedding sunscreen bar something you would do at your summer wedding?

The Perks Of Digital Wedding Invitations #spon

This post is sponsored by Inviter. All thoughts and opinions belong to A Bride On A Budget.

My mom has a scrapbook where she saves wedding invitations paired with wedding photos. The first time I saw the book (at least, the first time I remember seeing it) was a couple years ago. I just loved seeing the old invitations.

But I wonder how much longer her book will last, though, because cutting out invitations is one of the way couples are saving money. With invitations averaging about $5 each, I get it. It took me so long to decide on wedding invitations because I wanted ours to be perfect. And they were. They were more than I ever could have imagined.

But, honestly, who still has one? I do, and I bet my mom does in that book of hers, but everyone else probably kept it on their fridge until my wedding day, stuck it in their bag to grab the address off the GPS, and then probably threw it in the hotel room garbage that night. It kinda breaks my heart to think that's what happened with something I spent hours and weeks agonizing over, but that's the reality of it.

That's why saving on your stationery is so important. The how of it is tricky, though, because you can't just not have invitations. You can't just expect people to show up at your wedding if you don't tell them when it is. But you can still creatively save with a very modern concept: digital wedding invitations.

Hear me out for a minute.

So much of our lives are spent in the digital world. Realistically, I spend more of my day talking to my friends on Facebook than I do talking to them in real life. And as I type this, I'm scrolling through Instagram and liking photos. But, if you want a real example of how integrated we are: My 94-year-old grandma makes dubsmash videos and posts them on her Instagram.

Me and my funny daughter having fun. #video #dubsmash #dubsmashgrandma #myjapanesegrandma #myfunnygrandma #funnyvideo #laugh #stayinalive #beegees #dancing #family #life #music #song #familytime #familyfun

A video posted by @myfunnygrandma on Jan 15, 2016 at 4:51pm PST

We live in a time when our photos live on our phones not in photo books; our documents are in the cloud instead of file cabinets; and our music is in files not albums. So why not update your wedding invitations too?

Inviter is a website where you can craft video invitations. It's pretty easy -- and inexpensive. You can create an event with 100 invites for only $14.99. That's a mere 15 cents per invitation. Much more budget-friendly than $5 a piece.

So, how do you do it?

Sign up for an account and create your event, adding in your venue, time, etc.. You will need to have a video ready in order to continue, so keep that in mind. Personally, I didn't have a video of me and Pete on my phone. Weird, right? The only video I had handy was one of my cat, Totes McGotes, trying to break into a room I was hiding in. This is my life, people.

If you don't have a video either, that's okay. There are free apps that will use your pictures to create a slideshow.

After you get the video uploaded, you can edit the layout of your invitation template and your guest page. You can customize them to incorporate your wedding colors, which is fun. You can then share via social media or by adding your guests' email addresses.

Which means you would have to get their emails. Yes, a slight bother, perhaps, but the perks of digital wedding invitations far outweigh the bothers.

The Perks Of Digital Wedding Invitations

Eco-Friendly

Paper invitations can be a lot of paper. There are invitations and envelopes, RSVP cards and envelopes, then additional inserts (like directions, maps, hotel information, and more). That ends up in the trash (unless it's me throwing it away; then it ends up in the recycle bin). Still, though, intangible invitations means no garbage.

Easy Access

Have you ever been on your way to a wedding and then realized you left the invitation at home? You have to text or call someone to get the name of the venue and the time of the reception. What a pain. If you sent digital invitations, your guests would just pull up the email on their phone and all your wedding invitation would be at their fingerprints.

Posterity

If you send a paper invitation and someone throws it out, it's gone. But if they save the link to your wedding invitation, they can look at it whenever they want. Sure, that sounds unnecessary now but in a couple years when you're feeling nostalgic, it'll be nice to have.

Easy RSVP's
It's really a bit of a pain to keep track of the RSVP's. We made a spreadsheet and I updated it all the time, but then we ended up calling and texting people to track them down after the deadline. With digital invitations come digital RSVP's. You can track them in the site and then send your friends a little reminder when the RSVP date rolls around.

Savings

A big part of why digital wedding invitations are so alluring is the cost factor. If you remember my math from above, 100 digital invitations will cost you $14.99 at Inviter while an average of $5 an invitation means $500 for 100. So you're saving $485. There are so many other things you can spend that $485 on: wedding favors, your cake, shoes, wedding welcome bags ... 

Speaking of savings, you're in luck. Inviter is giving A Bride On A Budget readers 20% off with the code IVTNSUPR. The code is valid until June 31, 2016. Be sure to check out all the pricing here. And, you can see an example of an Inviter invitation here.

And, if you're curious, you can see my invitation to our imaginary wedding part two (and the video of Totes) here.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What other perks of digital wedding invitations can you think of?

A Bride On A Budget Wedding Planning Survival Kit

This A Bride On A Budget Wedding Planning Survival Kit is sponsored.

The first time we went to a bridal expo, one of the vendors asked if we had our venue yet. "I have the groom ... but that's it," I joked.

Honestly, though, that wasn't it. I also had a notebook with designated sections to write down information about each vendor. I had a section for venues, one for flowers, another for cake (because cake was most important to me!), on and on. Each vendor had a page and I would furiously jot down anything useful.

I ended up keeping a second notebook at home with a list of everything I needed to do and crossing things off as I went along. So, as I designed the A Bride On A Budget Wedding Planning Survival Kit with items from Expressionery, I knew notebooks had to be on there.

In fact, everything you as a bride (or maybe your bride, if you're a bridesmaid) could need is in the kit ... except the groom. You have to find him yourself.

A Bride On A Budget Wedding Planning Survival Pack

Pink Jute Zippered Wallet

This wallet is adorable. I love the feel of the jute cording and the zipper is great (one of my biggest gripes in life is a crummy zipper).

There are three sections inside, plus a zippered pouch, credit card slots, bill holders, and a small outer pouch. This wallet would be a good place for a bride to keep the business cards she collects at wedding expos (and it matches the pink and gold theme I'm going with).

Plus, it's a just a great wallet so your bride could use it after her wedding. Everyone will think it's just a cute wallet, but for her, it will be a reminder of her wedding planning. So sweet.

Address Stamp

If you read my post on 5 Times You'll Wish You Had A Stamp During Wedding Planning, you know how much I love personalized stamps as a gift for engaged couples.

The short version: This stamp will get used at bridal expos, on save the dates, thank you cards, engagement party and wedding invitations, and RSVP's. It's much easier to stamp a return address every time instead of handwriting it.

Plus, you'll get a lot more mileage out of a self-inking stamp than traditional address labels (which usually come in a sheet of 24 and by invitation 25, you have to order more).

To Do List Large Notepad (in cabaret) Personalized with to-do list / FOR OUR WEDDING

I was very in control of planning our wedding. I mean, I do run this wedding blog for a living so I know more about wedding planning than any one person should.

So when my mom or maid of honor or Pete would ask me what they could do, I didn't really have too much to delegate. That is, until wedding week when I was delegating as much as I could (I asked my parents to pick up champagne and orange juice for mimosas; I asked my maid of honor to scour dollar stores for blue gift bags because I needed six and the store I went to only had three; I asked Pete to print out shuttle information cards that I designed for our wedding welcome bags).

I was just texting out tasks, but it would have been so much cuter to have used this notepad. Plus, the afternoon before our wedding, I wrote Pete a schedule of what was happening, what time it was happening, and who needed to be there. It would have been great to use this paper instead of just a plain sheet of notepad paper (especially since he still has it almost two years later).

Floral Overlay Folded Notes (in blush) Personalized with FROM THE FUTURE MRS.

 
I personalized the entire pack to be pink and gold because I'm sort of obsessed with the combination of sweet and regal. And every item is personalized perfectly for the bride-to-be, like these thank you cards. They're "From The Future Mrs.", which means a bride will be able to use them throughout all her wedding planning. They're great for a quick thank you for any unexpected gifts or one to her mom and maid of honor after her bridal shower.

With most Expressionery products, you can personalize them as you wish. I made all the items in this kit pretty generic so they will work for any bride-to-be. If you are tweaking the pack yourself, you could change this to say "From The Future Mrs. Smith" (or whatever your friend's new last name will be, if she is changing it).

Classic Pin Dot Notebook (in blush) Personalized with WEDDING NOTES

 
This is the perfect notebook for a bride to carry with her to bridal expos and wedding appointments. It's compact enough to fit in her purse (especially if she's like me and still carries around oversized hobo bags in hopes that the trend never fades).

The cover of the notebook is flexible, in case it needs to move out of the way of a water bottle that gets tossed in her purse, and the cover is laminated ... just in case said water bottle decides to leak all over.

The gold dots on blush background is very Kate Spade-esque, without that extremely high price tag. I think that's part of why I was really drawn to the style of the cover. Plus, the pages are collage ruled (my favorite!), giving the bride enough space to write everything down -- because there is a lot to write.

And finally ...

Best Day Ever Photo Collage Mug

I'm so in love with the best day ever mug. We had a similar personalized mug once, but we dropped it and the handle flew off. We never replaced it ... until now.

I filled this one with my favorite photos from our wedding, but let's think engagement gift for a minute. Every woman I know has texted (and shared on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) a photo of her, her boyfriend turned fiancé, and her engagement ring -- usually with the caption "I said yes" or "He put a ring on it." You'll probably get that text, but, if for some reason you don't, you can always save her photos from social media and use them to make this mug.

Chances are, she'll say her wedding day is the best day ever but until then, proposal day will be. So making her this mug, which will be filled with seemingly endless cups of coffee (maybe wine) through her time of planning, is perfect.

The only thing you'll have to add to this that Expressionery doesn't sell is a pen. I'm thinking a long pen with a large pink poof on the top (a la Cher from Clueless), more for show than function, but you can add a simple gold pen instead.

Eventually, this pack will actually be curated right on Expressionery's website for easy ordering. For now, though, you can click on any of the links, use our personalization as a guide, and create your perfect pack. Be sure to add any items that your bride will love.

Plus, you can get 30% off personalized stationery with the code ENJOY30 (for a limited time) or 30% off a full price item with the code GIFTS30 through June 30.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What other items would you include in your wedding planning survival kit?

The Ultimate Guide To Wedding Thank You Cards

A Bride On A Budget was sent these cards for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to A Bride On A Budget.

We were fortunate that a ton of our friends got married before us. We were able to go to their weddings and see what we liked (and didn't like), what worked (and what flopped). We were also able to get a ton of thank you cards before we had to think about ours.

One of the thank you cards was from my friend Nicole. Her card was actually still sitting on our fridge until we moved. Why? Because it was pretty much the epitome of the perfect thank you card. She got married over four years ago and, in that time, we've been to countless weddings and gotten just as many thank you cards. And the only one that was still on our fridge was Nicole's.

So when it was our time to do thank you cards, I knew I had to use a few of her tips and tricks so hopefully, years later, people would still have our thank you cards.

I learned a lot about thank you cards, more than you would expect actually. But that's how it went with every aspect of wedding planning. So, to help you, I've put together The Ultimate Guide To Wedding Thank You Cards.

The Ultimate Guide To Wedding Thank You Cards

1. You have six months to send them.

With wedding thank you cards, you actually have up to six months to send them before you're "late" on them, especially if you're adding your own photos. In some cases, it can take up to three months before you'll get your professional photos back from your photographer. After that, you'll select the ones you want for your wedding thank you card, order your card, and then find a night (or weekend) to sit down and write them all. It takes a while and your guests understand that. Anything longer than six months post-wedding gets a little dicey, although you should try to send them out within 12 weeks.

If you're not including photos, you should send them out as soon as possible.

2. Send a thank you card to everyone who attended your wedding and anyone who sent you a gift.

You had a wedding and you invited people to celebrate with you. You didn't invite people so that your wedding would turn into a fund raiser. Yes, many of your guests will give you a gift but they don't have to. Sometimes, their presence is just their present. And that's okay. But you still have to thank them. No, you're not going to send a card saying, "Thanks for nothing" because that's rude. You will, however, want to send them a thank you card saying, "Thank you for making the trip to our wedding and spending our special day with us. It meant so much to have you there." Because you know what? In life, someone's time is worth more than their money and if people took the time to celebrate with you, you should be grateful.

There are guests, though, who won't be able to make your wedding. Maybe they're busy, maybe they're unable to travel, maybe they just don't like weddings. Who knows. But sometimes, those guests will send you a gift anyway. And that's really, really nice of them. You need to thank them, of course, but you can wait until you're sending out everyone else's thank you cards. That's especially nice if you use photos because those people missed seeing you in a wedding dress and your groom in a tux, so photos on your wedding thank you cards allow them to see just how amazing you looked.

People who just send back your RSVP card, decline your invitation, and do not send a gift, are the only people who don't get a thank you card.

3. Choose photos that represent your wedding.
We got married downtown, took photos on the courthouse steps and near the water, had a beach reception, and a huge part of our wedding was Pete getting to play a song with our wedding band (and I bought him his dream guitar as a wedding gift to play during that song). I picked a photo from each of those parts of our wedding to go on the thank you card. I didn't pick anything from the church, but they were more serious and I wanted photos that showed more personality. Our guests who missed the wedding were able to see what happened. And all the photos, actually, were taken during private moments that were (almost) just us and the photographers. So even our guests that were there didn't see these moments until the thank you card. When I look at the photos, these are the moments that I feel capture our day beautifully. They were all selected very purposefully and I think they do a great job.

4. Stick with your theme.
If you have a color that you used throughout your wedding, continue that with your wedding thank you cards. Our colors were eggplant, lilac, and silver, so I made sure to use those colors everywhere we could. Our favors were silver buckets with purple ribbon (which my mom made). We used silver, eggplant, and lilac in our programs and in our thank you cards. Actually, our programs are also from MagnetStreet (you can check out a full post about them here). I made sure to use the same colors when we designed the thank you cards. MagnetStreet makes that really easy, so it works to your advantage to order your entire stationery suite from the same company. You don't have to order them at the same time, but the same store means the same colors and everything will match.

Plus, if your entire wedding was focused on black and pink, you don't want to all of a sudden introduce yellow at the last minute. Your thank you card is the bow on top of your wedding. Tie is nicely and make it cohesive.

5. Include a personalized photo in the thank you card.
This is something Nicole did that I absolutely knew we were doing. Her photographer took a really nice photo of my family and extended family during her cocktail hour. I remember him taking the photo and thought it was great ... although I figured there was a chance I would never see it. I did see it ... in our thank you card. That photo is hanging on our fridge too, years later.

When we were sending out our cards, I made sure to find a really nice photo of everyone I could. There were a few people who just weren't in a single photo and some who were just in the background. So in those cases I either skipped a photo or, if it was a couple, I sent a nice photo of at least one half of the couple.

What I wanted to do, but didn't and wished I did now, was to set up disposable cameras near the escort cards and ask everyone to take a selfie when they walked in. That way, I would be sure to have a photo of everyone. But, really, not everyone signed the guest book (which was between the escort cards), so you can't expect that everyone would have taken a selfie either. Honestly, you're not going to get everyone, but you can try.

6. Hand write a personalized note in every card.
I know, it sounds so easy to have a generic message printed inside your wedding thank you cards and sign your names (or heck, even have your names printed too). But no. Just no. Your guests spent time and money to come and spend your wedding day with you. The least you can do is write them each a personalized note, thanking them for their generosity.

From the start of our wedding journey, I involved Pete in the card process. He helped me address and stuff our engagement party invitations. He wrote half of the thank you cards after the engagement party, the shower and again after the wedding. And he helped me stuff and stamp our wedding invitations too.

The way we did our shower thank you cards was simple. I wrote pretty much everything, and then Pete added an ending sentence or two (like, "Can't wait to see you in June!" or "So sad we won't be seeing in you June!") and we each signed our own names. The shower was thrown for me, so it was my responsibility to write most of the card but the gifts we received were half mine and half Pete's, so if he was sharing the gifts, he could share the card writing.

We followed a similar pattern with our wedding thank you cards (and our engagement party thank you cards too). We had a (pretty much) generic way to start almost every card and then a way to finish every card. So we each started half the cards with the salutation and the first sentence, then we traded cards so I would finish the ones Pete started and he would finish the ones I started. Then we both signed our own names. It was half the work, since no one had to do all the cards, and a nice way for us to spend time together.

7. Buy a stamp or an embosser.
You're going to hand write your wedding thank you cards; you don't want to hand write your return address on every single envelope. I'm not a fan of address labels, honestly, because they're finite. You order a specific number of them and you have that many to use. With a stamp or embosser, you sort of have an infinite amount of uses. So far, from one ink pad, we've done our save the date cards, wedding invitations, thank you cards, and our first Christmas cards.

I absolutely love our stamper and it's been clutch for everything except our thank you cards. We ordered the luxe pearl cards from MagnetStreet, which is basically a really beautiful Italian linen paper that has a gorgeous shine to it. They're not flat matte cards. They have a heavy weight and appearance that is well worth the extra money. The luxe pearl cards comes with a matching shiny pearled envelope too. It looks beautiful in the mailbox ... but didn't mesh so well with our stamp. The ink never dried. We ended up using extra clear address labels on top as a sticker and that worked just fine, but we wouldn't have had this issue with an embosser. So your better bet is an embosser since you don't know what paper type you'll choose for everything. Whatever you choose, invest in one of those. And, if you make it like ours (sans last names) you can continue using them even after you're married.

8. Remember to add a stamp.
I know, that's such a silly reminder but you do have to stamp these. And if you order "small" cards (or even large ones), they have to be hand sorted so you'll need to add extra postage to them. If you don't, your guests will get a note from the post office that they owe some money in order to get their thank you card. Save yourself the phone calls (because people will call if you don't put enough postage) and make sure you put a stamp -- in the right amount -- on your cards.

Designing our wedding thank you cards from MagnetStreet was really simple. I was able to scroll through the options and choose the one I liked best. The Sketched In Love thank you card was originally shown in blue hues, but I was able to change the colors, the font, the text, and (of course) the photos. I uploaded about 15 photos and was able to easily select and deselect photos to see what fit best.

When I was done designing them, the edge of one photo bled onto the back of the card. I absolutely didn't want that to happen, so I put a note in the "special request" section and asked a designer to fix that for me. Before the cards were printed, I was sent a proof of my order. The cards were designed exactly as I wanted (with no photo bleed). It was really great to be able to review them, especially since thank you cards are an expense. You don't want to spend a ton of money on something that isn't exactly what you want.

Our thank you cards from MagnetStreet came packaged in a really pretty white ribbon. It felt like I was opening a present, which was nice. They didn't come folded, which I suspected would happen since that's how our programs arrived. Folding them was easy, though, so no worries there. They felt really nice and high quality when we opened them, so I was so happy. We didn't want any moment of our wedding to feel cheap and I knew MagnetStreet wouldn't let us down.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What other tips do you have for writing wedding thank you cards?