Favor Bags

Wedding favors (favours) are a small gift given to guests from the bride and groom as a token of appreciation. The tradition goes back many years and is thought to have orginated with the ‘bomboniere’, a small box made of porcelain or crystal and decorated with precious stones.

Seemingly due to the expense of the traditional bomboniere, this was replaced by five sugared almonds. These represented health, wealth, happiness, fertility and long life.

The tradition of giving guests a wee favor continues at many weddings today. I made these favor bags for a friend. Each bag had heart lollies inside with ‘amour’ written on them.

They are made out of a firmish paper, with a crepe paper inner. The crepe paper is snipped to create a frill effect along the top of the bag. A trim is sewn along the top of one side of the bag as shown, with the ends tucked into the side seams, fold in half along the bottom and sew down each side.