Satisfying our Sweet Tooth - Favors

When I first started planning, I hadn't decided on whether or not to do favors. There didn't seem to be a consensus on whether or not they were worth it - some people think they're a necessity, and some people see them as a complete waste of time and money. After all, who needs yet another picture frame?

After viewing a few planning bios and reading several posts on the topic, I finally decided that favors would be a nice touch, but that they had to be edible - this immediately knocked jordan almonds out of the running. ;)I eventually settled on the idea of truffles for favors - an especially budget-friendly move as my mother used to be a professional chocolatier and offered to make them for us. Recently, however, she has expressed concern that she won't have the time/skill to make great truffles, so I've started researching companies to order from.

I was intrigued by Marble Hill Chocolatier's in Cincinnati because I thought using a local company would be a nice touch, and they had very chic looking chocolates:

Unfortunately, however, I recently learned that they have closed their doors (boo!), so the search continued.

I've had Godiva truffles before, and they were okay, but I've heard a lot of people consider them pretty waxy, and I kind of felt the same, so I kept looking.

And then a fellow knottie recommended Vosges in Chicago.

Oh. My. God. These truffles look AMAZING! Here are just a few:
They even have cool names for each one - clockwise from the top left: Fire (mexican ancho & chipotle chillies, ceylon cinnamon, and dark chocolate), Ambrosia (macadamia nuts + Cointreau + white chocolate), Viola (milk chocolate + candied violet flower), and Black Pearl (ginger + wasabi + dark chocolate + black sesame seeds). YUM!!!

I would LOVE to be able to put one "normal," boring plain chocolate truffle (for our guests with less adventurous palates) together w/ one exotic truffle in a box for each guest. In the alternative, I'd love to order a couple hundred to have displayed for guests during the cocktail hour a la knottie KaraMGM.

Either way, I need to move things around in the budget so we can afford these.

And now I'm off to order an "exotic" gift box so I can sample them all. :) Just don't tell my personal trainer! ;)

Edit: Ooh ooh ooh. I almost forgot to mention - they use organic and fair trade cocao in a lot of their products. I think the human rights activist in me just swooned a little bit. ;)

Yum!

So I'm totally stealing this idea from my awesome wedding coordinator (I really hope she doesn't mind...) but I just had to share these super cute mini fruit icecream/sorbet treats from St. Clair Ice Cream in CT.

I'm thinking of ordering 3 or so for each guest to serve as an intermezzo course. Imagine one each of these little fruits -- strawberry w/ strawberry sorbet, pear w/ lemon sorbet, and a peach w/ passion fruit sorbet -- served in an old-school champagne glass on top of mint leaves. Something like this:

Nifty, yeah? Now if I can just find a couple of brides willing to offer the same course during their meals, we can save a TON by ordering in bulk. Interested?

UPDATE TO THIS POST: I just contacted this company and the gentleman who answered the phone was quite possibly the rudest sales associate I have ever had the displeasure of talking to. So unless someone else is willing to work with them so that I never had to speak with them again, it looks like I won't be having their treats anywhere near our wedding.