My fiancée Shelly and I are in the process of picking “favors” for our wedding. Allow me to explain the term “favors” to those of you who are foreigners, hillbillies, ignoramuses, or me one week ago. A “favor” is a small gift for the wedding attendees. It’s an allegedly useful item that’s usually made of glass or metal. (Plastic and cardboard don’t seem weddingish enough.) There might be a ribbon or a candle involved and it probably has some inscription to commemorate the event.
“Favor” is one of those great ironic names. To my way of thinking, you’re not doing a guy a favor by giving him something he doesn’t want and can’t throw away. That’s more like a penalty. In fact, I could imagine exactly this sort of penalty for minor crimes.
Judge: “You urinated in public. Your sentence is that you must keep this functionless knickknack somewhere in your home for the rest of your life.”
Urinator: “Noooooo!!!!”
We plan to have alcohol at the reception. I worry that I’ll guzzle a few Grey Gooses, corner some elderly relative and say, “Heeyar. Pack thish liddle peesh of crap very carefully and then take it back and display it wiff your glass turtle collection. It’s a little favor from ush to you.”
I tried to deduce the purpose of wedding favors but came up dry. Obviously the gifts will not be chosen based on any need that is shared by the attendees. It is unlikely that anyone will get watery-eyed and say, “My life was a tragedy until I got this one champagne glass with someone else’s name on it. It completes me!”
Apparently the point of the wedding favors is to avoid embarrassing ourselves in front of the Pope or Martha Stewart or whoever else we invited. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any of my friends or family that would judge us by the quality of the wedding favors, as in “I kind of liked them until the whole bottle-opener-with-a-bow incident.”
I assume the judgmental invitee is one of Shelly’s family members that I haven’t yet met. There must be a picky aunt in the mix that’s ruining it for everyone. Otherwise the attendees would be getting something useful like backscratchers or those cool flashlights that wind up.
My theory – already judged unhelpful – is that we should simply agree on a price-per-favor that is non-embarrassing and buy from the catalog-o-favors whatever is nearest that price. I’m thinking that anything below 75 cents apiece would be shameful, and anything over 100 bucks would cause my relatives to start stealing. Somewhere in that range there has to be a vase or a bottle stopper that doesn’t look exactly like the ones at Costco. That plus a ribbon is all we can ask.