“Brides are steering away from the typical standards of the past,” says Jennifer Orsini of Pampered Bride Weddings in Springfield (973-912-8099; pamperedbrideweddings.com). “Long gone are the days of simple candles with a ‘thank you’ tag and tiny silver picture frames. Brides are thinking outside the box and want their favors to reflect their personality and truly be appreciated, as opposed to being put in a drawer with a dozen other favors.”

So what are the hot favors right now? “Currently, personalization is huge,” says Winnie Ying of Beaucoup Wedding Favors, an online favor resource (beau-coup.com) that offers dress sachets, monogrammed eyeglass cases, starfish candles, and monogrammed wedding cake cookies, in addition to dozens of other unique ideas you won’t find everywhere else. “Couples want to infuse their personalities into their favors.” Orsini agrees that personalization is big. “Trends that reflect the couple’s personality are very popular. If the couple loves country music, we’ll do music CDs with their favorite country hits. For garden weddings, we’re going beyond seed packets and opting for actual potted plants or enrolling each couple in a small plant-of-the-month club. And one of my all-time favorites was a Western-themed wedding where the bride and groom gave each guest a cowboy hat as a souvenir. The guests wore them on the dance floor and had them on even as they walked out at the end of the evening.”

Some brides spare no expense when it comes to favors. “One of my current clients is going for the ‘Wow’ factor and wants her favors to reflect that,” says Orsini. She is making care packages to be handed out to each couple as they leave. Each personalized “thank you” box will be filled with goodies for the next morning, including a personalized mug, coffee, tea, a mini wedding cake that is the exact replica of the actual wedding cake, as well as a copy of the next day’s newspaper with a front-page headline reading “Jane and John Get Married.” “Their guests will still be talking about the wedding when they’re eating breakfast the next day,” says Orsini.

Donations to your favorite charity are popular as well. “They reflect the couple’s interest in helping organizations and specific causes that are important to the couple,” says Orsini. This was a perfect idea for one recent bride, an occupational therapist from Morristown. Liz Boccella and her husband to be, Sean McNamee, chose a piece of equipment from the wish list at the Children’s Specialized Hospital Foundation in Mountainside (forchildrens.org) to purchase as part of their wedding celebration. A card was placed at each guest’s seat noting the donation. “In her line of work, Liz knew how the necessary equipment can make all the difference for a child with special needs,” says Theresa Leinker, director of marketing and events for the hospital. “Wedding guests were touched to see that she had thought of our patients in their honor.”