The Best Wedding Giveaway Ideas for 2022

From touring venues to tasting cakes, ordering sample invitations, finalizing guest lists, and more, there is no shortage of prep work to be done before your big day! While the number of tasks at hand may feel overwhelming at times, it’s all for a worthwhile reason—celebrating your love and sharing it with your friends and family. 

When it comes to your guests, you want to be sure that everyone has a wonderful experience filled with memories to last a lifetime. You’ll want to ensure that there are menu options for a variety of diets and pay attention to venue accessibility for older relatives or those with physical impairments. Your table settings are meticulously constructed to add to the atmosphere of your big day, the flower arrangements and color schemes flawlessly composed… but what can you give your guests to carry with them when they leave to remind them of your perfect day for years to come? 

Wedding favors are a popular and often expected element to consider when planning your wedding—but some options are better than others. Small plastic gifts, mints, and bubbles are all popular ideas but will be quickly either used up, forgotten in a drawer, or thrown away. Wouldn’t it be best to consider items that are guaranteed to leave a lasting impression? Customized and useful wedding favors will both delight your guests and serve as a physical memento of your big day. 

In this article, we share a few examples of wedding giveaway ideas for 2022. Read on for creative and charming ideas that will keep the magic of your moment living on long after the cake has been cut! 

Bottle Openers 

Nothing says “celebration” quite like the popping of bottles! Champagne, beer, or pop—bubbles are a quintessential part of wedding festivities. Gifting your guests customized bottle openers will keep the good times flowing long after they’ve left. Every time they pull out their bottle opener to have a drink, they will be transported back to the joy of sharing your big day. 

Customized bottle openers come in a range of colors to suit your theme, and can be printed with your names, dates, or something more “you.” We love wedding favors with playful puns or inside jokes that remind guests of the bond they share with the happy couple. 

Bottle openers are also a perfect gift for a rustic, outdoor wedding and reception—we’ve already seen that the rustic wedding concept isn’t going away any time soon! Add charm and whimsy to your big day by pulling up wooden tubs filled with ice, craft beer, and old-timey sodas… with the twist of bringing them in classic glass bottles! Skip the smoked, hyper-garnished cocktails for instantly Insta-ready vintage bottles… and arm your guests with your favors to open them. 

For added utility, consider gifting everyone keychain bottle openers! These fun and useful favors do double duty: Never again will your wedding attendees find themselves unable to open a bottle at the barbecue, but they’ll have a token of you and your spouse wherever they go. When they inevitably find themselves in need at some point in the future, they’ll be all the more grateful for your thoughtfulness!

Coffee Mugs 

Baskets and bags and satchels… oh my! When it comes to packaging your wedding favors, there are no shortage of tiny, aesthetically-pleasing options to contain your trinkets. The main issue, however, is that these delightful packaging options often end up straight in the trash. It may seem a small price to pay, but with 300 million tons of plastic produced every year, it may be best to “opt out” of shimmery cellophane in favor of something your guests can actually use. 

The solution: Coffee mugs! Hardy, helpful, and able to be printed with anything from your names to a picture of your engagement party, custom ceramic mugs are a wonderful wedding favor—and can effectively hold your other favors with ease. With environmentally friendly options on everyone’s mind, these are one of the best wedding giveaway ideas for 2022. 

If you’re worried that your guests may already have plenty of mugs, worry not: Many people love collecting mugs from different places, different friends, and yes—different occasions. Take a quick look around any kitchen, and you’re likely to find a charming hodgepodge of different mugs. Having a cabinet filled with happy memories to choose from and reflect on is just one of the many features that elevates a house into a home, for many! 

Put some pep in your guests’ steps by letting them remember your wedding with their first morning sip of coffee.  

Reusable Bags & Backpacks

Whether you are going on a shopping trip, or organizing for an event, having bags on hand to help carry your items is very helpful. Personalizing bags for your wedding guests is a great way to offer a gift that will not only remind them of your special day, but that they will make use of as well. And since eco-friendly items are all the rage these days, reusable bags are also a great idea to consider.

A shopping tote like the one below is something that many people regularly use. With stylish personalized designs available, it can go beyond a gift, and become an item that accompanies your guests on shopping trips and other occasions. Big brands and grocery stores already give out their own personalized tote bags often, so offering ones to your guests that is personalized for your special day could make this common item even more relevant and meaningful.

Other than totes, you can also look at items like drawstring backpacks. These are very popular at smaller sporting events as a convenient way to carry your accessories. Speaking of sporting events, many large stadiums request clear bags to be used to carry any items you bring in. For this purpose, consider offering a personalized clear tote bag as a gift for your guests, and they’ll be sure to remember you on their next trip to the ballpark.

Hand Sanitizer 

After a long year of lockdowns, in-person weddings are finally back on in force. After a lapse due to global lockdown conditions, the classic large gathering most people envisioned for their big day is once again possible—but some guests may still have concerns about meeting up with so many from outside their household. 

Hand sanitizer may not be the most festive favor to spring to mind, but this functional and thoughtful favor may be the single best wedding giveaway idea for 2022. Ensuring that all members of your guest list are able to have clean hands in between hugs, dancing, and dinner shows courtesy and gratitude to those who have come to share this magical day with you and your spouse. 

While these favors are practical, they absolutely can be customized to blend beautifully with your other decor. Custom printed hand sanitizer bottles can say just about anything you like: From your names and special date to a gentle reminder to clean your hands before offering them to shake, this is one gift sure to make an impact with your attendees. As practical as it is useful, you can’t go wrong with individual, customized hand sanitizers. 

When to Order Wedding Giveaway Items 

While pondering the best wedding giveaway ideas for 2022 may revolve mostly around what gifts to pick, the most important question to ask is when to order! Given the current supply chain crisis sweeping the globe, figuring out when to order your wedding favors may seem like a daunting logistical nightmare for newly-weds-to-be. 

One element many couples forget: lead time on samples, in addition to custom products. Ordering samples of your prospective wedding favors is a crucial step to take—and one you won’t want to be scrambling over at the last minute. Work with your supplier to ensure that you receive your sample with plenty of lead time to make decisions or adjustments and avoid a crunch.

At Pen Factory, we want to make the personalization process as straightforward as possible, so we have designed our site to offer customers an easy browsing experience. This will help you find product styles you like easier, and our personalization tools can help make the design process faster.

Once samples are ordered, it’s advisable to order your favors about a month in advance to be safe—but anxious brides-to-be with storage space may find it helpful to check them off the list ASAP. Once you’ve approved your samples and decided on your final guest count, it may be worth your peace of mind to order straight away. On the subject of guest count, it may also be worth your stress to order a few backup favors! Having too many is always better than too few—especially if you have a lengthy guestlist or family with a liberal interpretation of the phrase, “plus one.” 

In the event of a dreaded last-minute crisis, we’ve got your back: Express orders and expedited shipping are doable! Visit our Delivery Info page for more information on how we can get you your gifts on time. 

Order Your First Sample with Pen Factory 

Wedding planning can be complicated—but ordering your wedding favors doesn’t have to be! You have enough on your plate, from cocktail sampling to gown fittings, bridal showers to honeymoon planning. Browse our easy to navigate site for more great ideas!

Here at Pen Factory, we have designed our site with ease and accessibility in mind! If you have any questions about your orders, you can contact us. Otherwise, information on applying artwork or excessively large orders can be found on individual product pages. Best of luck on your journey to creating unforgettable wedding gifts!