Aug 24 2009
Real Etiquette: Soap Favors
Dilemma: I want to give handmade soaps as favors to our wedding guests. My fiance says it’s too girly. Would it be bad form to give them?
Our Take: We love handmade soap – but not as a wedding favor. Giving your guests a personal hygiene product is a tricky undertaking without some kind of context. If you’re getting married at, say, an old soap factory it might be a fun tie-in to your wedding day. If it’s a seemingly random bar of soap, many guests are going to question why they’ve been gifted with it (’Do I stink?’) and I’d expect many would just leave them behind.
If you’re keen on giving your handmade soaps as gifts, they’d be great as shower favors (see? tie in to a theme!) or to your maids as part of a homemade spa kit.
Related posts:
- Real Etiquette: Appetizer Reception Wording
- Real Etiquette: Complex Invite Wording
- Introducing Real Etiquette
- DIY Bride Wants To Know: What Are Your Favors?
- Real DIY Wedding: Cynthia & Christopher
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree on this one.
I think they will appreciate having something that they can actually use, instead of something that will end up in a drawer or on the back of a shelf.
I gave handmade soap as favours at my wedding (I made the soap) and it was a huge hit. (BTW, not a single guest their soap behind.)
I don’t think handmade soap is too ‘girly’. When I sold my handmade soap at arts and craft shows I found that many of my most loyal customers were men!
I honestly don’t think your guests will think that you are trying to send them a message that they stink.
I think if you only gave a few guests handmade soaps they might take offense but since all the guests would be given the same favor, they wouldn’t all assume that they stink. I would guess that most men wouldn’t care much about the soaps but I don’t think that men typically care much for favors anyway.
People are too sensitive! Why would you think you smelled if everyone at the wedding was getting soap? I think it is so much more useful that some dumb gift with their initials on it that frankly is cheap and has no use to me. Be useful, be creative, be unique!
We gave small bars of soap as favors, but included a story of the tradition my husband and I had of writing love notes to each other with soap on the bathroom mirror (particularly before one of us went out of town). The note encouraged them to use the soaps for the same thing for their loved-ones.