The Great M&M Deception

Once upon a time, my then-fiance and I decided that we did not need to have favors at our wedding - we have never kept anything that was a favor from a wedding, or, if we did, it always ended up in the trash pile the next time one of us moved. On the other hand, my mom was really attached to having M&M's at the reception, since both of our names start with M, they wouldn't even need to be personalized.

My issue was that I thought that the M&M's would look like a last minute addition if we just used the ones as they came in the bag, so I requested that my mom get only green and yellow M&M's, because I thought they would just look perfect. I found some favor boxes at target that were cute and cheap, thinking that I would just tie a green ribbon around them when I got to Houston. My mom was not sold on the green and yellow M&M's, saying that it was silly to spend the extra money when no one would notice. She suggested that we buy regular M&M's and then sort through them and take out the ones I "found offensive." I told her I thought that was gross, and that we shouldn't take the time to sort through the M&M's.

What a surprise I had when I got to Houston and my mom showed me a plastic bin filled with small ivory boxes (nicer than the ones I had picked out) tied with cream, green, and yellow bows. I was very impressed. "Can I open one?" I asked.
"Sure, just grab a cream-colored ribbon, I like those the least." I opened the little box and inside were green and yellow M&M's, and only green and yellow M&M's. Perfect. Just the way I had envisioned them.

Fast forward to the day of the wedding. We're in between the ceremony and the reception, and the groom wants a snack. He goes down to the foyer where the extras are stacked next to place cards and brings back a couple of boxes. He opens one and starts laughing - they were just regular M&M's. My mom had just made a few boxes with green and yellow to throw me off the scent.

Wedding Favors

So I was reading a blog on the Real Simple website (http://simplystated.realsimple.com/nearlywed/2008/03/5-favors-on-a-f.html), and thank goodness. The editor who is writing the blog is also debating the whole favor issue.

Do you give your guests a favor? I mean, if we're going to have 350 guests at the wedding, the budget doesn't really allow for each of them to get an elaborate wine bottle opener. On the other hand, I've been to a few weddings in my day, and the favors from those weddings are not exactly hanging on my wall. I do appreciate the thought, but I'm just not going to plant seeds, and even if I did, they would probably be killed by the doggie.

So, the reason I referenced the blog above was that the editor writing the blog's first initial is M, and so is her fiance's, which is the same situation that I am in. Her mother is also really pushing for having M&M's at the wedding. I feel like it is just too obvious. I also don't really like the idea because my friend absolutely LOVES M&M's, but she didn't have them at her wedding, so I feel like it would be silly for me to have them at the wedding. Not to mention that I think my mom would be too cheap to order the bags of solid color M&M's in the wedding colors, so I would probably spend the week before the wedding at the house sorting out the green and yellow candies.