Help with wedding favor ideas! Be creative...

[DMickey28]

I need help!! There are so many creative people on this board I am hoping for lots of results!!

Many of you know, I am getting married in six and half weeks (Yikes) on the island of St. Thomas. We are crusing on RCCL Sunday - Sunday and dock in St. Thomas Monday where we get married!!!! We have 9 people and us (11 total) cruising with us.

The Plan:

Wedding at noonish on the beach, cake cutting, pictures and first dance on the beach.

Two hour tour of St. Thomas in open air safari van leaving ceremony and returning to the ship around 3-4pm. We are providing boxed lunches to eat a the beach on one of the stops. We will do pictures all over the island....

Dinner on the ship at 8:30pm..here are the options...
We have two dinner tables in the main dinning room next to each other. We can do that and buy everyone's drinks and stuff... or we can go to Portofino's (extra $20/person, italian fare) and possibly have a larger one table and have our wedding dinner there.....(we would cover the extra cost of course)

I am thinking everyone goes back to the ship, freshens up and does what they want until about 7pm. We all met up then in a piano bar, maybe with everyone meeting at 7 and DFiance and I coming a little later.. the whole annoucning the bride and groom thing... since we don't have a "reception" we are wearing our wedding attire all night!! Have some drinks at the bar and head to dinner.. then head to one of the ships clubs later on!

Here are the questions for you!!

Do you think that we should do the main dinning room or Portofino's?

Do you think we should decorate the tables, name plates and beachy stuff? Within reason of course... and how?

Is there anything that you can suggest as part of the day to make it better?

Thanks for the responses... my objective from the beginning of this thread somehow changed!!

How about cool wedding favors? Any ideas... we are filling beach bags for everyone with stuff for the cruise that people might forget and some wedding oriented stuff. Any cool idea's you can share!!

 

[Shugardrawers]

Your plan sounds wonderful. I think you should pick the more private place for the dinner though. That would be my preference anyway. We had a reception dinner in the middle of a busy restaurant and wound up with many extra people trying to crash the party!

Decorating the tables with beach type theme sounds great, again better in a more private place.

And I just have to chime in on wedding favors. I make custom candy bar wrappers for a living. You know, Hershey bars with wrappers over them that have the bride and grooms names, date and whatever else on them. I think they are the greatest and something everyone is likely to actually eat. I can make you a great deal on them

 

[tkyes]

Go for Portifinos. It's much more private than the main dining room. You are sailing on Royal Caribbean right? The main dining room is pretty noisy and can be busy. If you can fit your group in Portifinos I say go for it.

Party favors...hmm...I would try and keep with the beach/cruise/tropical theme. If it's a small group you can probably do something a little higher end?


These are pretty cute - they go with the tropical theme. There are some other pretty cute ideas on this site too.

http://www.weddingfavorites.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=STARMAG

Nice stuff on here too -

http://www.beau-coup.com/


http://www.favorsbylisa.com/ - This website has out of town baskets too.

You know your group - can you personalize them? I mean, give some gourmet coffee to the big coffee drinker of the group, bath crystals to the one who loves to pamper themselves...

 

[lilpritch04]

I am not that great at making suggestions, but I think your beach bag favors are completely appropriate and will be much appreciated. If you want to be addicted to another board, go to www.theknot.com and post for ideas there. They helped a lot with my wedding and there are great articles and ideas for all aspects of weddings. They have a board specifically for Destination Weddings.

 

[adamak]

I wrapped jelly beans in square lace and tied it with a ribbon. We actually wrapped everything ourselves to save money. Not a bad idea actually.

 

[justhat]

We had a digital photographer at our wedding who took pictures of each couple/family, whoever went up and they got their photos in a little paper frame that had our monogram and date on the front. People absolutely loved this since what do people like more than a photo of themselves. We've been to many of the homes of our friends and family since our wedding and they have their photo displayed in their houses. For you this would be even easier as they are taking photos all the time on the ship. You could just buy one of the photos of each of your guests and put in in their beach bag. You could either ask the ship if they can do this at a special time for you, or use the photos they'll take when you first board the ship or when you get off in St. Thomas. Both photos should be ready by dinner that night, but if you ask I'm sure they'll make sure they're ready for you. You could either get their individual couple/family photos, or get everyone in for a whole group photo. Your guests would probably love this since odds are they'd end up buying at least one photo of themselves anyway, and if they don't like the one you pick maybe they could exhange it later in the trip (not sure of RC's policy on that).

Oh yeah, I would definitely do dinner at Portofino's. it'll be nice to have something different and special for your wedding night and you'll be in the dining room on the other nights of the cruise.

 

[Aimeedyan]

What about a personalized CD of you and your DH's favorite music? That's one favor I would actually use, you know? You could easily burn them, and then make personalized CD labels.

CHEAP, too

 

[zulaya]

My SIL just went a wedding on the North Shore of Lake Superior and the favor/placecards were rocks that they had gotten on the shore and then used paint pens to write the names of their guests on the rock. They also had a bag of smaller agates/rocks from the shore as favors.

Now you could go to Michael's and get something that looks beachy/tropical - I think they may even have something like starfish and shells and do something like that. If it's big enough you could write "Jane and John, August 20, 2004" as a memento they could keep.

Best of luck.