Favors Sneak Peek: Tag Toss-Up

My cousin and BM Melissa is going to be in town this weekend, and I've been instructed to put her to work - lol. Believe it or not, its really been a struggle trying to come up with things she can assist me with. Partly because I'm on track with my to do list. And partly because I'm kinda anal and like to do things myself so I can troubleshoot when something goes awry.

But anyway, there is at least one project that I could use her help with: punching out the favor tags. Yes, I know I've been hush hush about the favors, but lets focus on what you do know. You know that they are going to be filled with green MnMs, and that they have they will have a cute tag attached to them. Considering we're making favors for 150, you can see why I'd pick this as a project BM Melissa could help me with.

Last weekend, I spent a good portion of my Saturday working out what I call tag logistics. If you remember, I originally had the tags designed by a seller I found on Etsy. I loved them. Absolutely loved them. But when I printed them out, I did not like how the green printed. My bad for not printing them before I accepted the final project. Dont ya'll make that mistake, okay?

That mistake is really where today's story begins. After I got the logistics all worked out, it occurred to me that the greens wont match. Like they will clash. Not even remotely coordinate. Its something that even the guests might notice. And if nothing else, I would notice. So I opened up my BFF PowerPoint and worked to recreate the tag. After I accomplished that, I was left with the following options:

Option A: Leave the tag as originally designed.
No extra work but prepare for the icky clash.

Option B: Print it in black and white.
This would be easy - no need to coordinate if there are no colors, right? Well what about the teal? The favors would be green, black and white, no teal? That doesn't seem right.

Option C: Just make the tag teal.
Ultimately, this is what I decided to do. But for some reason I was very hesitant to do it. I printed it out several times to check and make sure that the tag looked cute in teal, and that there would not be too much teal on the table. I don't think there will be, and at least I know it definitely matches the other teals.


So there you have it folks. The real favor tag. I really wish I had thought about clashing when they were initially designed so that I wouldn't have had to go through the process of re-creating them myself. I cant wait to get these suckers printed and punched out so that I can run them through my Xyron. Then there's attaching the labels, filling them with the MnMs and figuring out how to get them to the venue.

Geez, now that I think about it, I cant wait until I can check favors off my list for good!

♥

Favors Sneak Peek: Fillings

(Personal pic, click to get the full effect.)
Ever wonder what 50 bags of MnMs might look like? Well, here it is. You're looking at the almost 40 pounds of Peanut MnMs that we need to fill 150 favors.

The favor fillings have been up in the air for awhile. Green Peanut MnMs were always my first choice, but up until recently, I had let them go as a viable option. Off topic, I just read on Wikipedia that green MnMs are allegedly an aphrodisiac (lol). When I first started researching them, I was only able to get them through an MnM store. Luckily, there's one in Orlando, and my favorite groomsman (my BF Brew) was willing to pick them up for me. However, they were going to cost us $11.99 a pound. I didn't know exactly how many we'd need, but I guesstimated (incorrectly) about 20 pounds. That meant, we'd have spent $240 on the candy filling alone. Talk about busting the budget! I had to come up with a new plan.

So then I toyed with filling them with caramel corn - a personal favorite. Unfortunately the PHI doesn't really do caramel corn. Then I considered jelly beans. They'd be pretty cheap, but they just weren't us. If we had to pick a candy we both love, we'd choose Peanut MnMs. Every time.

Well, the MnMs/Mars gods must have caught wind of our struggle. Why else would they, for the first time in my recollection, released bags of all green MnMs for Valentines Day and put the girl MnM on the packaging? I made it my business to ride over to Target to pick up a bag. Turns out we could fill 3 favors with one bag, so we'd need about 50 bags. Plus, since Target charged me less than $2.50 per bag, it was cheaper for us to buy lots of small bags rather than order them "wholesale" from the MnM store. After crunching my numbers, I happily went back to Target to purchase 50 bags of MnMs. Yes, I got some funny looks from people (because I pushed them around the store in a cart), but overall it was a smooth transaction.

I knew, that by purchasing them at Target, they would go on sale the day after Valentines Day. What I didn't know was if I'd be able to get 50 bags the day after Valentines Day. I had to find out. So the PHI and I loaded all 50 bags into the car, and drove over to Target...just to see. We were planning to either return the ones we bought and buy more, or try for a price adjustment. Turns out 1) Target doesnt do price adjustment, and 2) Target had 2 bags. Just two! So our gamble would not have paid off and we'd still be here brainstorming favor fillings, rather than looking at a (wonderful) huge pile of MnMs.

Take home message? Idunno what the take home is here. This is by far the craziest thing I've done for the wedding. I guess the message here is: Don't be afraid to do what you gotta do to say within your budget. For most brides, that means contracting services and negotiating prices. But, if that happens to mean wheeling a cart full of MnMs through Target, then so be it.

Just be sure to let me know so we can talk strategy before you head over there.

♥

Favors Sneak Peak: Tags

Generally speaking, I want to keep the favors under my hat a bit.

BUT, I had this made last week (by the awesome Jessica; find her Etsy shop here) and it's just so cute I had to share. Oh, and don't bother to ask what I'm putting these on...if you don't already know, you wont hear it from me. At least not yet :)

Happy Monday!
♥