I was quite surprised at how hard choosing the wedding favours for our guests turned out to be. It was probably my own fault, I was extremely fussy! I wanted to give everyone something that they would actually want to keep and/or find useful, as they were coming such a long way to attend our wedding in Hawaii. I definitely didn't want to hand out those candied almonds that were so popular at weddings when I was a child -  I hated them! I also didn't want to give chocolates, as I wanted something that would provide a lasting memory to our guests.

I have now visited just about every website that sells wedding favours about 20 times. It was quite frustrating and tiring! I finally chose some little manicure kits for the ladies and sterling silver key rings that had bar tool implements (like a bottle shaped swiss army knife, see pic below) for the men. But then we decided NOT to have a seating plan, we would just put guests on tables but not tell them where on the tables to sit. This posed a problem as there was no way to guarantee that a guest would sit at a seat with the correct favour for their gender.

So it was back to the websites to find unisex favours that everyone would want to keep! Unfortunately nothing was grabbing my attention. We considered beach themed picture frames, double happiness Chinese candles, sterling silver fortune cookie knick knacks, personalised shot glasses, but none of them seemed like things that every guest would actually want to keep. At one stage I thought about combining my Chinese heritage with the destination of our wedding, Hawaii, by getting mini bamboo steamers (they are so cute, see the picture below!) and putting pukka shell necklaces in them, as they are unisex accessories. But I thought about the guests going and realised not many of them were the pukka shell necklace wearing types.

But then we decided to have one long rectangular table, which is what I'd actually initially wanted but we didn't think we'd be able to fit it under the marquee. But once the RSVPs were in, we were 10 guests less than our highest estimate, so the one long table was back in play! This also meant assigned seating, which also meant gender specific wedding favours were back on the table (so to speak).

However, I also had very specific favour boxes in mind. I wanted them to be square, aqua blue, with white ribbon around them, and a foam frangipani flower attached to the top. Which sounded beautiful to me! HOWEVER, the manicure kits and the box the bar tools came in didn't fit into the largest aqua blue box we could find! So back to the drawing board again!

I really couldn't find anything else for the men that I liked, so we ordered one of the bar tools, took it out of its packaging and tried it in the favour box. It fit easily! One problem solved.

I spent WEEKS agonising over the womens favours (mother of pearl trinket boxes, silver cased mirrors, glass coasters) then hit on the perfect idea - sterling silver frangipani pendants. I spent ages trying to find some that were pretty, not cheap and tacky looking, not too small, but around the same price as the bar tools. I eventually found a wholesaler that could do them at a reasonable price, only a few cents more than the bar tools. This is what they looked like on the website:

But the wholesaler didn't take non-US credit cards! So we contacted our wedding planner (who does have a US credit card) and got her to order them for us and add the cost to our bill. Unfortunately we couldn't order just one, so we ended up ordering all 25 sight unseen, which was really risky as we didn't have the budget to order something else if they turned out to be awful!

I still haven't seen the pendants, our wedding planner received them a couple of weeks ago. But she assures me that they look great and not cheap and tacky - let's hope so!

One other thing we are providing our guests as an added little gift are some beautiful rice paper and bamboo parasols to shield them from the sun. Asian Import Store sells some really lovely ones, and the more you buy, the cheaper it is per parasol. They had some amazing colours and patterns, but in the end we decided to keep them clean and white. Here's the ones we chose:

Wedding planners are awesome! They know exactly what to do to plan a wedding (as well they should, seeing as it's their job). They know all the good vendors, so you don't have to go looking for any as they present you with 2 or 3 of the ones best suited to you in each category and help you decide which one to use. They know all the equipment you will need and know where to hire or acquire it at a price to suit your budget. They know all the little details that you probably won't until it's too late. They also keep you on track budget and time wise and make sure everything is on schedule. If they do their job right, they take a lot of the work and stress out of planning a wedding.