Wedding Favours for a Special Wedding

I haven't been around much lately because we have had a family wedding. I know...a poor excuse!

This is my beautiful niece Rachael and her new husband Ben. They were married last weekend in Brisbane in his old school chapel at Gregory Terrace.

I just love weddings and this one was really special as she is the first of the next generation to marry, and is my brothers eldest daughter.

Here are the bridesmaids, the roses and frocks were stunning.

So my job was to make favors for the table.... 105 of them to be exact. My niece wanted little tea lights, to decorate the tables. They also needed to match the rose theme and colours. So after a few prototypes I came up with these. Cream roses, with a deep red bow, filled with natural soy wax.

They are shot glasses, with rose petals glued to the base and tied with ribbon.

I started with basic shot glasses in a boxes of six, and silk roses from a dollar shop. I worked out I could make 22 from a bunch of flowers. The trick to making a large number of something is to keep the costs reasonable. My niece was keen to have simplicity, without being ridiculously expensive or wasteful. She also wanted something a bit different but with a traditional look.

After pulling the roses apart, I then glued them to the base of the glasses with hot glue. I very quickly learnt not to push the petals down with my fingers..... ouch!!

I then cut narrow craft ribbon into 30cm lengths and glued these to the petals with a dab of glue.

The worst bit was tying the bows. To make sure they stayed put I added a dab of glue.

So I then had a dining table full of pretty little candle holders. This took me a few weeks as the bows were a bit fiddly. After trying parrafin tea lights, I decided to pour my own using soy wax. I got some great stuff over the net. I love soy wax as it is natural, doesn't smell or smoke, and burns for ages.

I must say the wedding tables really sparked with tea lights at each place setting. They have a great ambience.

Feeling the need to crochet something I decided to use my bookmark patterns for a butterfly and dragon fly to make a hanging bridal charm. This was a last minute photo that I took on the pew while we were waiting for the bride and my brother to arrive.

I did this in cream cotton to match the creamy coloured roses; added a length of chain and some matching ribbons and starched the critters up to make them stiff. I was please how these turned out and they were a change from horseshoes and hearts.

Aren't they a handsome couple?

By the way this was an earlier prototype which I felt was a bit flat.

Now the wedding is over, I might experiment a bit more as I had so much fun making these. It was a glorious day, and a really beautiful wedding. Refreshing to see a young couple so much in love, and to have a very traditional and family celebration of their marriage.