Thread: Wedding Giveaways

Howdy all,

So it's that time in my life where I have to settle down and get married. I got engaged in May this year but we recently just settled on our wedding day.

The day we picked is February 18,2012. Now the date is about a year and a half away, which means I have to get planning on some things.

One such items is the wedding giveaway. Our thank you gift for coming.

I know many people give things like creamer sets or wine glasses or other such house related items. But in all reality if you go to alot of weddings your gonna end up with many unused and unopened boxes just laying around useless.

I have come up with a different idea and would love your input. Please constructive criticism only. If you don't like my idea let me know why, don't just say it's stupid.

So my idea was to make and wrap individual bars of soap. It would be something we hand made as a thank you to our guest. Obviously we would try to make the soaps look and smell as pretty as possible and wrap them up nicely. But do you think that a nicely packaged soap would be a appropriate giveaway?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hope to hear what you all think.

It's a lot more practical than a lot of other potential crap that will get put away never to see daylight again.

I think it's a great idea.

My wife and I made our own invitations. That is, we made the paper ourselves and embedded within it rose petals that were accumulated from the roses I had given her previously. We also embedded flower seeds into the paper so that the invitations could be planted. They actually turned out very well.

And, if the engagement doesn't work out, at least you can be very clean for finding someone else!

That's a really cool idea.

We are going for a vintage theme for our wedding and making our own paper would really fit into that idea.

We were planning on just printing our own invitations, but making and printing would be really neat.

I take it a quick google search will tell me how to do it? Or do you have a secret recipe lol.

I asked my wife about this idea just now, and she had the same reaction as me. "Soap? Do I smell bad?"

The idea is great, it's a personal gift that you have made, but most people have a soap that they prefer to use, or they have allergies to certain kinds of soap (like I do), so wouldn't be able to use it.

It's your call, it's your wedding, just thought I'd offer my thoughts. Good luck!

Gosh, Utopian! That is one of the most touching wedding invitations ever. If I was invited to a wedding and received an invitation like that and I knew the story behind the invitation itself I would be very touched. Really lovely.

I think that the soap idea is very nice but it rather depends on how many people you're inviting and how well do you know these people. If you have many people... you'll turn your house into a soap factory for the next year or so! If you know people very well, that is ok but you may offend that third cousin that you don't know so well - he may think that you think that he needs a bath...

In my oppinion - and again, if I were invited to a wedding and the bride and groom gave me hand-made soap I would be very happy - I think you might "romanticize" the thing. Just my 2 cents...

And by the way... congratulations!

Originally Posted by Utopian

It's a lot more practical than a lot of other potential crap that will get put away never to see daylight again.

I think it's a great idea.

My wife and I made our own invitations. That is, we made the paper ourselves and embedded within it rose petals that were accumulated from the roses I had given her previously. We also embedded flower seeds into the paper so that the invitations could be planted. They actually turned out very well.

And, if the engagement doesn't work out, at least you can be very clean for finding someone else!

I personally think it's a great idea I used to work at a Mikasa outlet store (not giving them a bump as they are all shut down now) and was amazed at the useless crap people would buy for "thankyou for coming to our wedding" presents. Honestly who is gonna use a two inch crystal candle holder for little tea lights? Soap is a practical gift that you can be sure they will use until it's gone or at least to add a deceptive touch and nice fragrance to a bathroom. (one of those guest only soaps that stick around for years) I would only suggest finding a gentle scent that will appeal to everyone. Congrats on your engagement hopefully the lucky lady will accept your odd wet shaving habits.

To you!!!

Haha I am lucky she encourages my wet shaving habit.

That's the one thing we don't want. We want to give people something they would use. As for the smell we were going to make it a subtle lavender.

I never thought of the do I smell bad angle I'll have to look into it more.

IMO I don't know how people could see it as a problem. You are giving a hand-made item to everybody. If you singled out one person to give soap to I could see an issue.
As for allergies and such, just include a little paper with ingredients. Inevitably there will be someone who doesn't use whatever gift you give, but I can see a lot more people appreciating this than I can most wedding gifts. This is truly something special you are doing that includes a lot of thought and work. I would be honored if I received such a gift as should everyone there.
Remember most importantly on that day that they don't matter and it is an honor just for them to be allowed to witness the event. Your entire job is to make the little lady happy and if this is something that would make her happy then do it.

-G

Originally Posted by basil

That's a really cool idea.

We are going for a vintage theme for our wedding and making our own paper would really fit into that idea.

We were planning on just printing our own invitations, but making and printing would be really neat.

I take it a quick google search will tell me how to do it? Or do you have a secret recipe lol.

I think a google search might be more productive. Basically we used a blender to grind up scrap paper in water to make a slurry, added some starch and the rose petals, and poured it into a tub. I make some interlocking frames, one of which had fine mesh, one that served as a press, and one that served as a receptacle. We'd swirl around the slurry to make it homogenous and then sort of "pan for gold." You have to pull out just enough of the slurry to make it the right thickness and it had to be uniformly distributed. The seeds couldn't remain in the slurry (they would germinate if wet so long) so we had to press them between two thin sheets and then fuse the sheets. Each sheet of paper was placed between a layer of cloth cut from an old bedsheet. All were stacked together and then pressed to compress and dry. It took a while to get it all perfected but the end result was very attractive and unique. Even my mother in law approved--after she saw the end result, not before!

Oh, and we got the perfect blue tint that we wanted by putting in just the right amount of cash register receipts from a local grocery store. We made a few extra trips there just to get more receipts!

We did this 10 years ago, so my recollection of it is not perfect. That's why I'm saying a google search might be more helpful. I still have the frames somewhere in the basement so, if you need, I MIGHT be able to find them and send you a photo of them. I say might because I'm currently digging up part of my basement so the rest of it is a mess right now.

You wouldn't happen to have a picture of the finished invites would you?

Or is that what you meant by frames. (sorry I'm reading while I should be working, so my speed reading might miss some important details).