Wedding favor etiquette, answered plainly.

First, the rule that cancels most of the others

Favors are optional. They have always been optional. There is no tradition that obliges you, no guest who will remark on their absence, and no version of a wedding that is judged by them. If reading this has made you feel behind, you are not.

What guests do notice is whether they were fed, whether they were sat near somebody they could talk to, and whether they were thanked. Those three are the actual etiquette of a wedding. Everything below is about a pleasant extra, and it is worth keeping in that proportion — whether favors are worth the money at all is a separate question with an honest answer.

Who gets one

One per person if the favor sits at the place setting. That is the standard arrangement, it is unambiguous, and it avoids the small awkwardness of a couple working out whose it is.

One per household is correct and unremarkable for anything bigger or shared — a bottle, a plant, a candle, a framed photograph. Nobody expects two of something that is obviously one thing.

Children are their own case. A child given an adult favor is being given something for their parents; a child given something of their own is being given something. This is one of the few places where a small, separate, cheaper thing is measurably better than the same thing as everyone else.

Vendors, the band, the photographer. Not expected, and appreciated far out of proportion to the cost if you do. Two or three spares covers it.

How many to order

Order to your confirmed guest count, and not to the number of invitations you sent. The gap between those two is routinely large, and ordering to the invitation number is the most common way people end up with a box of forty favors in a loft.

Then add a small margin, for:

• the late yes you will get in the final fortnight;
• the two or three that are damaged, dropped or stood on;
• the vendors, if you are doing that;
• one for each of you to keep, which people forget and then regret.

A handful is enough. Ordering 15% spare on a personalised item is how a modest favor budget doubles.

Where they go, and what that choice means

This is the decision that does real work, and it is not really about placement.

At the place setting

Everyone gets one, whether or not they wanted one. It looks generous, it dresses the table, and it doubles neatly as a place card if the favor can carry a name. The cost is that you are paying for one per seat and some proportion of them will be left there.

On a table by the exit

People take one if they want one. Fewer go, and the ones that go are wanted — which for anything with a per-unit cost is often the better trade. It needs a small sign so people know they are for taking, and it needs to be somewhere they physically pass.

In a welcome bag, at the hotel

A different animal, and mostly for destination weddings and weekends. A welcome bag is hospitality — water, snacks, a schedule, painkillers — rather than a keepsake, and a favor in it reads as part of the practicalities. Perfectly correct; just do not count it as the favor if you also want something on the table.

When to put them out

Before guests are seated, always — a favor being distributed during the meal turns your reception into a service. If they are at the place settings, they go out with the settings, which means the venue or your coordinator does it in the afternoon and you never think about it again.

Whoever is doing it needs written instructions and the box in the right room. This is the single most common failure with favors and it has nothing to do with etiquette: they were beautiful, and they were in a car boot.

The things that are actually mistakes

Very little in this subject is rude. These four are the ones worth avoiding, and none of them is about convention:

1. A favor with your own faces on it. A photograph of the two of you is a gift to yourselves, and it is the hardest thing in the world for a guest to throw away or to display. A date, a name, a place — fine. A portrait is a lot to ask somebody to find a shelf for.
2. Anything that needs two hands to carry home. By the end of the night a guest has a phone, a jacket, a bag and possibly their shoes. An object has to fit in what is left.
3. Anything perishable in a warm room. Chocolate on a July place setting is a puddle by the toasts. It is the right kind of favor and the wrong season for it.
4. Per-guest personalisation you have to redo. Names on favors are lovely and they marry you to a seating plan that will change twice in the last three weeks. If you do it, do it late.

A favor is not a thank-you

The one piece of genuine etiquette in here that people do get wrong. Anybody who gave you a gift is owed a written thank-you, addressed to them, naming the thing, sent afterwards. A favor on the table is a token from the day and does not discharge that debt — they are different obligations, and only one of them is real.

If you want one that is kept

Interested rather than neutral, so read it that way. The category of favor with the highest survival rate is the one that holds something — a photograph, a recording, a message — because throwing it away feels like throwing away what is inside it.

That is what we make. A Dote card is a card the size of a credit card, and a guest holding a phone near it watches your wedding video. It fits in a pocket, it needs no app, it can carry a name so it works as a place card, and the video it opens can be swapped for a different one years later without the card changing at all.

It is the wrong shape of thing if your favor budget is a couple of dollars a head, and we would rather say that here than have you find out on the pricing page.