Candy Apple Wedding Favors..what Would You Charge?
Decorating By Kiddiekakes Updated 24 Sep 2009 , 5:28pm by Deric
I have never liked the idea of passing out food as wedding favors ( www.sunflowerfavors.com/products_by_event/wedding_favors). You don't want the chance that something is old and rotten and most people won't eat it before it goes bad anyways. Not everyone likes the same types of treats, either. I like the idea of providing a wedding favor that will last forever. Does anyone else share my same thoughts?
Dude, this a cake board. 
Hi, Aussie Girl Here, I love "Toffee" Apples! I'm having an Autumn Wedding and I was thinking of Toffee Apples for thr favours.
I use Royal Gala Apples, which are sweet juicy (SMALL) red apples!! and just grab some icy pole sticks from the craft store.
At our school carnivals. we sell toffee apples that only cost $2.00 per apple. if they are bigger - usually $3 but no more!!
Granny smith apples are way to big for wedding favours, and they only need a thin layer of toffee (coloured red) so the family members dont struggle with the large apples and the children dont break there teeth, lol!!
So I suggest that you opt to use SMALL apples. dont know what currency difference is from Aussie to everywhere else !! But I'll let you do the math.
I here that most of you on here, melt candy's....
well I make my toffee from scratch, which is your basic sugar and water - with alterations like adding colour, butter and glucos.
its pretty much the same - i think melting candy's would be easier. lol Good luck anyway!!
I make toffee apples for fetes too. I soak the end of the sticks in lemon juice so the apples don't discolour inside, but let the sticks drain before you use them. Wash the apples in warm water which has had vinegar added to remove the wax or use the vege wash. Wipe each one well with the water because as said before it is the little patches of wax that cause the toffee to bubble off. I now buy them straight from a farmer who puts my apples aside so they stay unwaxed. The best thing I have learned is when you make the red toffee, remove it from the heat and then sit it in a heated electric frypan until the bubbles subside completely and leave the pan of toffee in the frypan with it turned on until you finish coating the apples, keeps the toffee the right consistency. I also start one pot of toffee then ten minutes later start a second which gives me enough time between batches to coat apples and let the bubbles subside then the second batch is ready to go. Depending on the weather they usually only last a day or two before the toffee starts melting off. As for pricing at the fetes they sell for $3 each. I only use small apples. Australian prices are of no help to you though.
Deric, I have the opposite view. I tell my brides if they're going to spend money on wedding favors, then get edible favors because then the money won't be wasted. Since I'm at most of my weddings, I see too many favors go right in the trash.
I've cleared tables and 70% of the guests leave their favor on the table when they leave; I watch people leave and they drop it in the trash can by the door. Kids gather them up and play with them in the corner of the room. One bride gave away packets of seeds (they were tree-hugger types) ..... the seeds were on a tray and they asked each guest to pick one up. Over half were left at the end of the night.
What a waste of money.
Here's my blog where I address this very issue: http://cateritsimple.blogspot.com/search/label/favors
I personally don't need more clutter in my home. This stuff that "lasts forever" just gets thrown in a drawer somewhere so my children can trash it when I die. So trash it now or trash it later.
(and personally, I find a framed photo of the bride/groom such an "odd" gift. I'd like to say 'tacky' but that's in the eye of the beholder. "Here, folks, I'm going to give you a gift to thank you for coming and LOOK! It's a picture of ME!" I don't know .... rings a little narcissist to me.
)
I completely agree! I made these cute little coasters for people to take home as a favor - probably 70% were left on the table. My friend took a bunch of them and said, look what you're getting for X-mas for the next 20 years. I'm not sure why I didn't think to serve food. (It was before I got super into caking, cookieing, and everything else).
I totally agree with indydebi once again..I'd rather give a food favor than a junky picture frame or tiny crystal candy dish etc..Some of the favors I have seen at Italian weddings are very expensive crystal but I mean really...who wants or needs crystal but I suppose that is their custom.The point is I have seen favors left on tables etc also so if you are going to spend the money..why not make it something people can enjoy.I did 150 sugar cookies last summer for my friends wedding as favors.While I sat there at the reception I saw at least 4-5 people crack open the cookie and eat it...The kids loved them and the guests did too...Just goes to show...they didn't even get them home!!
One of the best favors I ever got at a wedding - a little box of 4 Godiva chocolates. Yum! I was waiting to see in anyone else left theirs so I could nab them. (I wasn't the only one, either!)
I hate bubbles for favors. Those are the ones I always see left behind.
We did give out shotglasses for our wedding and it warms my heart to see them on people's shelves all these years later when I go over their house. I don't expect most people to have it anymore, but it's surprising to see the occasional one.
Looking back, yeah it was a bit much, but I like seeing them in my wedding shadowbox.
I think food is a lot more practical. There's many weddings I go to that I don't want something from it. Sure, my brother's or best friend's...but DH's distant cousin who we only hear from for the wedding and haven't heard from since? No.
There's many weddings I go to that I don't want something from it.
I had a friend tell me that she went to a co-workers wedding and the favor was a refrigerator magnet photo of the couple. She said to me, with a fun laugh in her voice, "I just work with the bride. Why would I want a picture of two white people on my refrigerator?" 
(Not an outdoor person .... if you want me to shoot myself tomorrow, then all you have to do is force me to work in the yard today. I am not going to be one of those little old ladies who likes to "putter around" in the flowerbeds. My retirement will be spent in a condo with no yard and no flowerbed!
)
With a handsome man and umbrella drinks I hope! 
Seriously, the lemon juice on the stick works really well to slow browning. I also make sure that the candy or caramel fully covers the apple and fills in the little "well" where you insert the stick so that there is sort of a seal.
I had dutch mints as my favor, and most were eaten during the reception. The strangest ( and most expensive) favor I've ever gotten at a wedding was a personalized silver napkin ring. They looked great on the tables, but what do you do with one napkin ring... and a personalized one at that?
I have never grasped the need for wedding favors at all. For all the reasons listed in this thread--they're unnecessary; they're costly; they get left behind; some are ugly; most are useless; not many people want them; etc. Why does the happy couple have to give gifts to their guests for coming to the wedding? A thank you note for the wedding gift should suffice.
We have a stockpile of small picture frames in the basement. Anyone want to buy some slightly used unmatched wedding favors?
I have never grasped the need for wedding favors at all.
I agree. I even mention in my blog that (to me) they seem to be a relatively new phenomena. Define "new" any way you like, depending on our age or your region. But for all the weddings I went to growing up (we had a BIG Catholic family with LOTS of cousins getting married!), I just don't recall favors. And I would have remembered, 'coz with 5 siblings, we would have fought over them!
Birthday parties are the same way. I grew up taking a gift to the birthday kid and we got cake and ice cream while we watched the kid open their gifts. Period. This past May, I had to help my daughter make candy bags to give to all of the kids coming to the party. WTH is that all about? 
It's MY birthday and *I* have to give YOU a present?
Food as favors...yes!
Hate getting photos, music compilations ('yes, we have the same taste in music, I also think Lionel Richie's "Hello" is da bomb!'), personalized anything, ceramic figurines, knick knacks, doodads...egad I'm a grouch.
Caramel apples...tough! I agree with k8. Do a trial run and cost from there. Good luck.
Food as favors...yes!
Hate getting photos, music compilations ('yes, we have the same taste in music, I also think Lionel Richie's "Hello" is da bomb!'), personalized anything, ceramic figurines, knick knacks, doodads...egad I'm a grouch.
Caramel apples...tough! I agree with k8. Do a trial run and cost from there. Good luck.
Food as favors...yes!
Hate getting photos, music compilations ('yes, we have the same taste in music, I also think Lionel Richie's "Hello" is da bomb!'), personalized anything, ceramic figurines, knick knacks, doodads...egad I'm a grouch.
Caramel apples...tough! I agree with k8. Do a trial run and cost from there. Good luck.
I don't remember favors from any of the weddings I attended as a kid in our big extended family either.
But as the next generation--my cousins' kids, and my nieces and nephews--started to get married.....there were the favors. And people spend a small fortune on them. To me, it's just another unnecessary wedding expense. I have yet to receive one that I really liked. Or needed. Or wanted. Or used. And I don't think I ever received an edible wedding favor.
At my wedding we gave out a little favor that I made, it was a plastic spoon with 2-3 hershey's kisses in the spoon, we wrapped the end with tulle and tied it with a ribbon with a note attached that said " A spoon full of kisses, from the Mr. and Mrs. " Everyone loved them and I still have a couple of them as keepsakes.
Sorry off topic!
The only thing i remember bringing home from weddings years ago was those little pieces of wedding cake cut into small pieces, wrapped in plastic wrap and paper doilies! The single women were suposed to put them under their pillow that night and they would dream of their future husband! lol
One of my brides did a candy apple kit as her favor. Her colors were green and pink. She put a Granny Smith apple, a stick, a handful of carmels in a plastic favor bag, tied with a pink ribbon, and a card of instructions on how to make a carmel apple.
That's a good idea. An apple kit.
Didn't the favors start or become a way to thank each and every person who came to your event? IDK. I make my kids make their birthday party favors. We talk about the party and why you need to be thankful and give back to those who took time for you. DH thinks I am a little bit to "After School Special".
I love the apple kit! I might sneak (eat) a caramel and I could handle disposing of an apple in some productive way.
This might be a better thought for the 'why I'm weird' thread but giving me a candy apple presumes a lot.
Presumes I can add it to my diet in the next few days.
Presumes I would choose to eat it.
Presumes I want to carry it around in my dress up clothes, ride it around in my car and right away get it in my frige until I can get to it. (what if I gotta stop somewhere and the apple melts in my hot car--awkward and messy)
I don't know~ I would kindly not accept one thank you anyway--I'd leave mine on the platter--it's like being given unsolicited fresh produce --it often gets fuzzy in the veggie drawer waiting for me to get with the program.
I guess what I'm saying is I gotta be in the mood for a candy apple and frankly I have yet to get in that mood.
I know I'm old and crabby.
Whenever I did get into the caramel apple thing, I sliced the apples into a bowl and poured warm caramel over that.
Whenever I did get into the caramel apple thing, I sliced the apples into a bowl and poured warm caramel over that.
Did that just last night! My local orchard called me to let me know the Cortland Apples were in (the only apple I eat, ever since I discovered them!) so I rush over and bought the BIG bag with plenty of carmel dip! Heavenly!
There's many weddings I go to that I don't want something from it.
I had a friend tell me that she went to a co-workers wedding and the favor was a refrigerator magnet photo of the couple. She said to me, with a fun laugh in her voice, "I just work with the bride. Why would I want a picture of two white people on my refrigerator?"
LOL!
it's like being given unsolicited fresh produce..
Kind of like the "Fruit of the Month Club" episode on Everybody Loves Raymond...."EVERY MONTH?!!!!"
I can't believe how many people have responded to my post! I did like hearing all of your points of view about wedding favors. Thanks everyone!
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