I take gift giving seriously. I feel that if you’re giving someone a gift, it should matter; it should mean something. It should, at the very least, be worth both the time and money spent pursuing it and whatever amount of excitement the gift receiver is expected to have. How does this work when you’re giving a gift to 250ish people?
Wedding favors are our gift to our guests, and are therefore high up there in level of gift giving importance. And, I would think, given the amount of talking, writing and broadcasting we’ve done about our wedding, we can expect the excitement level to be somewhat high, as wedding favors go. But do economies of scale work with these kind of gift giving standards?
Michigan’s own Better Made Chips, how I love thee. Let me count the flavors…
The short answer is, “no.” I learned this when my first idea was to give each table of guests a different delightful Michigan product. Each table would be themed by that product, and guests could find their seats at the “Better Made Table” or the “American Spoon Table.” Delightful, yes? Innovative? Fun? Totally impossible to manage 35 vendors for one idea? “Yes” to all of the above.
After talking to three possible vendors I realized very quickly that I didn’t want organizing favors to be my fulltime job for the next three months. Oh, and guess what? Ordering eight things from 30 different vendors doesn’t work out to a bulk rate. Besides being impossibly time consuming and ridiculously expensive though, it was a great idea, right?
So we had to pick one. Could there be one vendor of Michigan snack foods delightful, fun and innovative enough to match both my expectations for our favors and my excitement over the first idea?
So many amazing flavors, only one mouth.
If you’re from Lansing, you already know where I’m going with this: Cravings Popcorn, duh. Cravings is something over and above a hometown favorite. People have it delivered to them at work. They have Cravings cater events. With popcorn. It’s kind of like magic masquerading as popcorn. In fact, it shouldn’t really even be called popcorn. Wait – no – all other popcorn should just call itself something else. From Buffalo Cheddar to Apple Cider Cinnamon to (my personal favorite) Dill Pickle, the variety of Cravings Popcorn flavors is almost the best thing about it. But obviously, tasting awesome holds that title.
Chad didn’t even bat an eye when I asked him if my secret popcorn favor idea was possible. I can see how spending every day surrounded by popcorn can make you feel capable of anything.
And then there’s Chad, the owner of Cravings Popcorn, who runs his business with all of the energy and ideas you’ll recall from playing store when you were little. He’s built a business that simply exudes fun. He is also kind enough to be receptive to my harebrained ideas of exactly what we’ll do with the popcorn, which is something guests will just have to show up to find out. Everything about the place is – exactly as prescribed by my wedding favor standards – absolutely delightful.
As mentioned, we’re not revealing all of the secrets of our wedding favors here, so go ahead and get your expectations right on up there. As anyone who’s had Cravings Popcorn before will tell you, that’s right where they belong.
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