It’s your day: Why leave them with almonds when they could have an exquisite butter cookie that looks like you? Design by Susan Caliendro of Rolling Pin Productions.
April 2005
Updated March 2008
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Unique Wedding Favors Your Guests Will Favor
Forget Jordan Almonds: Give The Best Wedding Favors
Throughout history, throughout the world, wedding favors have been part of marriage celebrations. In many cultures, the newly united couple provide a token or memento to express appreciation to their wedding guests. The five white, sugared almonds you’ve received at weddings are an Italian tradition dating back at least to the 16th century. The five pieces symbolize health, wealth, happiness, fertility and long life. The sugared almonds themselves represent the sweet coating the bitter, symbolic of married life.
In the 17th century, French confectioners invented the hard-sugar-coating we call Jordan† almonds and the French call dragées (drah-ZHAY). As pretty as they may be in pristine white, or in gold or silver leaf, those white nuggets with their rock-hard sugar coating are a dentist’s best friend (evidently, French culinary scientists of the 17th century had great teeth).
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Jordan almond does not refer to the sugar-coating but to the large variety of almond used for the confection. It comes from Málaga, Spain, not Jordan; Jordan is an old mistranslation of jardin, French for garden. |
If you both care about their dental health and would like something more memorable to express appreciation to your guests, America’s best chocolatiers and other specialty food producers are at the ready. Here, in alphabetical order, are more than 15 Nibbleworthy options for the Big Day. Our wedding reception (or shower) favor recommendations are creative ideas, from chocolate, candy and cookie favors to favor ideas that make a truly unique gift and memento (maple syrup and pickles, anyone?). Most important, we’ve tasted everyone, and they are absolutely delicious.
Prices and product availability are verified at publication but are subject to change. We try to update our information regularly; but if you find out about new prices before we do, please click here to let us know.
*Kosher-certified
Blackberry Patch:
Pancake
Syrups
Delicious fruit pancake syrups from Blackberry Patch will last a lot longer than other food gifts. Your custom label can commemorate the event—for example, Melania and Donald’s Sweet Blend ~ January 22, 2005. There are also sugar-free flavors, equally delicious ( read our review).
They’ll enjoy your wedding favor for a long time with this delicious fruit breakfast syrup favor. Twelve ounce bottles, 12 case minimum (144 bottles), in mixed Blackberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Maple Praline, and Roasted Pecan. $540 ($3.75/bottle). |
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Byrd Cookie Company:
Miniature Cookies
Byrd’s makes bite-size cookies and savory biscuits. Two tasty cookies, Key Lime Coolers (left) and Razzberry Tarts, are dusted in bridal white confectioner’s sugar. There are also delicious, savory biscuits like Jalapeño Cheese (right). Any cookie or biscuit can be ordered in a custom-screened tin for about the same price as a some elaborate hand-made cookies and boxes of truffles. Read our full review of Byrd’s.
Cookies in tins custom-screened with your design and inscription. Minimum 100 tins; $9.95/tin for one color screening, 50 cents for each additional color. |
These cookies are a Nibble favorite.
Click here for our review. |
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Chokola'j Artisan Chocolate:
We fell in love with Chamomile Honey Caramel hearts: superb caramel from Long Island wildflowers, infused with chamomile (it tastes like apple) in a delicious organic white chocolate shell. If it takes getting married so that we can have more of them, call the Justice of the Peace! Read our full review of Chokola'j Artisan Chocolate.
Two-piece favor, $5.95. |
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Chocolat Cèleste:
Chocolate
Truffles
Start off your wedding feast by enticing guests with a edible eye candy: a jumbo key lime white chocolate truffle from Chocolat Cèleste. Or, pick another color to match your decor, or a flavor to match your palate: there are 16 including chai, champagne, dulce de leche, Irish crème, and pear cognac. Send revelers home with another to enjoy tomorrow. Read our full review.
Jumbo truffle, $3.50; boxed truffle with ribbon as shown, $5.50. |
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Chukar Cherries:
Chocolate-Covered Cherries, Blueberries & Pecans
Chukar Cherries specializes in products made from Washington State’s delicious cherries. When the owner married, she developed these Dark Chocolate Cabernet Cherries, Milk Milk Chocolate Bing Cherries, White Chocolate Blueberries and Chocolate Honey Pecans as favors for her guests. Kosher certified by KOF-K and 100% natural. Read our full review of Chukar dried cherries.
Case of 48 individual boxes, $144; customization extra. Visit the website or call 1.800.624.9544.
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Cocoa Designs:
Cocoa-Covered Pralines
The best pralines we’ve ever had are made by pastry chef Ariella Arzaut, based on her French grandmother’s recipe. In addition to the classic, Ariella makes an all-white chocolate praline that says “wedding.” You can have a Cocoa Designs vellum envelope with the traditional five nuts, or an entire tin with a custom label. May your life together be as heavenly as these confections.
Vellum envelope bites $2.25 each or $2.00 each for 100+. Personalized 4 ounce Cocoa Nuts tins are $10.99 each with custom label (100 tin minimum), or $9.99 with Cocoa Designs label (25 tin minimum). |
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Damn Good Cookies:
Cookie Wedding Cake
This charming wedding cake favor is made of cookies—and it’s from one of our favorite cookie makers, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week (read the full review). Four tiers of cookies with sugar flowers are almost too pretty to eat. We’re certain that some art collectors will save them as little sculptures.
$8.00 apiece includes box and ribbon; minimum order 25 boxes. Call 1.312.850.1051, ChocolateGourmet.com.
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DeBrand Chocolate:
Chocolate Truffle Wedding Cake
If you prefer your wedding cake favor to be a chocolate truffle, DeBrand will oblige with a three-tier “cake” in dark, milk or white chocolate, with a creamy truffle center. Choose a rosette and ribbon that match your decor color.
$3.50 each (25 piece minimum) includes custom hang tag and rosette in your choice of color. At DeBrand.com.
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The Hampton Popcorn Company:
Chocolate-Covered Popcorn
Chocolate popcorn from The Hampton Popcorn Company is a hit in each of the six chocolate-and two non-chocolate flavors; but White Chocolate Popcorn might be just right for wedding favors. The caramel corn topped with white chocolate will disappear quickly, and the wedding tin is re-usable for coffee, tea...or more popcorn.
A one-quart tin is $9.00 for chocolate flavors, $7.20 for non-chocolate. Eight-ounce bags are $6.00 for chocolate, $4.80 non-chocolate (volume discount available). Twelve-piece minimum for custom labels.
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Photo below shows two flavors of
chocolate popcorn plus kettle corn;
quart size has one flavor.
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Harbor Sweets:
Butter Crunch Sloops
If you’re a sailor, a beach bunny, or planning a wedding near the ocean, Harbor Sweets’ Sweet Sloops (sailboat shaped almond butter crunch, with a white chocolate mainsail) are a creative substitute for the traditional truffle. You can also add molded dark chocolate seashells filled with orange crunch and sand dollars (molded dark chocolate filled with pecan halves in caramel).
Two sloops in a gold or white box, $3.30/box. |
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L.A. Burdick:
White Chocolate Mice
For the couple with a sense of whimsy as well as a gourmet palate, Larry Burdick’s hand-dipped and decorated white chocolate mice with silk tails have centers of dark chocolate ganache tinged with cinnamon. (There are also dark chocolate and milk chocolate mice, but the white ones are more “bridal.”) If your wedding is formal, your sense of whimsy may extend to the chocolate penguins, dipped in dark and milk chocolate with white chocolate “vests.” Read our full review of Burdick Chocolate.
Mice or penguins, $2.50 each. |
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Lake Champlain Chocolates:
Foil-Wrapped Hearts
To express classic love and provide some sparkle, Lake Champlain Chocolates sells its delicious Belgian chocolate Valentine hearts all-year-round in bulk, for wedding and shower favors. In red (dark chocolate), gold (peppermint crunch chocolate) and fuchsia (milk chocolate) foil, these chocolates are also certified kosher by Star-D. Read our full review of Lake Champlain candies.
Hearts, 128 pieces, one flavor, $55.00. |
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Marich:
Classic Candies
For romantic retro, Marich makes Holland Mints plus Mellowcream Hearts in vanilla, cherry and strawberry. You can buy in bulk and fill up your own favor boxes; or give Marich’s pre-mixed bag and attach your own label. The hearts are made for Valentine’s Day but the company makes classic candies in color themes for every season. If you want hearts but are getting married in April or November, just plan ahead: candy is manufactured to be shipped to retailers three months earlier, and doesn’t go stale. Order what you need and keep it in a dry, cool place. Read another review of Marich. Marich candies are certification kosher by KOF-K (pareve).
Eight ounce bag, $4.50. Contact manufacturer for bulk pricing. |
Mellowcream Hearts, above, and
Holland Mints, below, left. Directly
below, pre-mixed bag.
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Recchiuti Confections:
Truffles
Michael Recchiuti, one of the country’s finest chocolatiers, can personalize your name, initials, family crest, even silhouettes on the tops of his superb chocolates. The chocolate connoisseurs on your guest list will be impressed. Read our full review of Recchiuti Confections.
Image shown by artist Sherry Olsen; envision your own. Truffle fillings enrobed in pure bittersweet chocolate include Recchiuti’s signature Burnt Caramel (dark, smoky caramel blended with extra-bitter chocolate ganache; Force Noir (silky 70% extra-bitter chocolate ganache infused with whole vanilla bean; or Columbian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan varietals. Image shown by artist Sherry Olsen; envision your own. Truffle fillings enrobed in pure bittersweet chocolate include Recchiuti’s signature Burnt Caramel (dark, smoky caramel blended with extra-bitter chocolate ganache; Force Noir (silky 70% extra-bitter chocolate ganache infused with whole vanilla bean; or Columbian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan varietals. |
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$4.50-$5.50 depending on packaging,
plus set-up costs for custom
personalization.
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Rick’s Picks
An award-winning artisanal line of pickled vegetables produced on the Lower East Side of New York City (remember the movie Crossing Delancey?), Rick’s Picks might not be the most obvious choice for a wedding favor. But they’re fun, decidedly different, and delicious. And after all of that rich food, they’re extremely low in calories! With a large enough order, Rick might customize a label in honor of the wedding couple. Read our full review of Rick’s Picks.
Instead of five jordan almonds with their message about life, how about sliced dill pickles? Windy City Wasabeans (not shown), a green bean in a soy-wasabi brine, is one of the most popular items. $10.95 retail, the price is less for quantity orders. |
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Rolling Pin Productions:
Sugar
Cookies
Rolling Pin Productions has 4" square cookies with your monogram or flowers, with or without a hand-tied ribbon. For a truly custom luxury, the bride can be immortalized in a portrait cookie including her gown full-length gown (detail at right, larger photo top left).
Wedding cake, 4" square $6.50, $7 with ribbon, monogram inscribed in any font. 12" tall full-length custom portrait of bride cookie/cake topper at top left of page (shown partial view), $40; custom portrait of bride face/bust only, $8-$10. Boxed bride and groom cookies at right, $9.50. |
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Ruby et Violette:
Marshmallow Sticks
Gold and silver dusted, “pearlized” marshmallow sticks from Ruby et Violette are elegant, artistic, whimsical, and the very antithesis of those rock-hard sugared almonds. You can present them in a favor bucket, as shown; set them out individually wrapped; or unwrapped on the dessert buffet. Read our full review of Ruby et Violette.
Centerpiece pail with 6 marshmallow sticks,
$19, 12 sticks $37, individual sticks $2.50
wrapped, $2.15 loose. |
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Sweet Dreams Baking Company
Sugar Cookies
Whatever your dreams, The Sweet Dreams Baking Company will translate them into a hand-decorated sugar cookie. Cookie shapes and designs can be customized to your specifications. The opposite of the Jordan almond, these cookies are pliant and chewy.
Wedding cake cookies, bride and groom hearts,
$3.50 each, ring box $4. Cookies are packaged
in individual cellophane bags tied with ribbons.
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Xocoatl Chocolate:
Chocolate Hearts
In addition to the white chocolate raspberry heart at the left, Xocoatl* makes the solid chocolate heart (at right) out of El Rey chocolate, a couverture made from the finest Venezuelan criollo cacao. They’ll wrap them individually or in pairs and tie them with your choice of ribbon.
*Pronounced cho-KWA-tel, the Aztec word for chocolate. The word is also spelled Xocolatl.
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