Autumn Wedding Favor Ideas

Borrow from the season's colors, scents and harvest

By Pam Gaulin

Photo by iStockphoto.com

Celebrate your wedding and the fall season with appropriate autumn favors. Edible favors made from apples, honey, chocolate or maple sugar will sweeten the pot for guests at the reception. Homey favors that pair well with domesticity emphasize the theme of a happy home and the cozy atmosphere of a fall wedding. Romantic favors, based on sayings about fruit and love, or easy do-it-yourself favors, also work for a seasonal wedding.

Seasonal

Apple-themed favors are well-matched to autumn weddings. Sweet treats, including large caramel apples or sachets of dry mulling spices for apple cider, may be tied off with clear cellophane and raffia. Paper pyramids filled with tea leaves, maple sugar leaves in a box of two or four, and bunches of honey sticks wrapped with ribbon all make tasty autumn wedding treats.

Chocolate

Choose a sweet and seasonal autumn wedding favor made with chocolate-coated sunflower seeds. The seeds are available in a mix of brown, yellow, green and orange coatings. Wrap them in circles of tulle tied off with gold ribbons. Foil-wrapped chocolates in the shapes of acorns and leaves may be placed in favor boxes or tiny baskets topped off with a ribbon matching your autumn wedding colors. For a rustic touch, place edible chocolate favors inside small brown paper bags and tie off with metallic ribbon and raffia.

Domestic keepsakes

Grace the tables with autumn wedding favors that have practical appeal. Personalized wine stoppers and wine openers with leaf motifs work with an autumn harvest theme or with a fall wedding at a vineyard. Serve up bamboo or leaf-etched glass coasters as favors your guests will use at home. Beeswax candles in fall colors and shapes or tea light holders matching the wedding theme are also appropriate autumn favors for guests. Cookie cutters shaped like leaves, pumpkins or acorns combined with individual packets of dry cookie mix may also be given as favors.

Romantic

Carry the romantic theme of your seasonal wedding into the text incorporated into your favors. Common ideas include pear favors with matching themes of " What a pair" or "The Perfect Pair." Use leaf shapes and leaf-adorned favor bags or boxes for a "Falling in Love" or "Fall Into Love" theme. For the fall wedding using Tuscan colors, use tiny bottles of olive oil or jars of gourmet olives that are labeled, "Olive you," to keep things carefree and humorous.

DIY

Create your own unique autumn wedding favors, including aromatic cinnamon sticks tied off with wedding color ribbons or raffia. Supply mini pumpkins and gourds along with tiny pumpkin carving tools to amuse reception guests at a Halloween or casual wedding. Plan on going this route if you're having a small wedding; otherwise creating your own wedding favors could take an inordinate amount of time. You can also enlist friends and family -- or your bridal party -- to help you make them.