DIY Irish Wedding Favors

Miniature Irish flags give context to Irish wedding favors.

Creating homemade wedding favors can save you money and gives you the opportunity to add your unique personality to the wedding. For brides and grooms with Irish heritage, wedding favors are a chance to showcase traditional Irish hospitality. When creating Irish wedding favors, consider how you might infuse elements of Irish culture into classic wedding favor ideas.

Instructions

Mini Brown Soda Bread Loaves

1. Bake mini loaves of homemade Irish brown soda bread in the week leading up to the wedding. Use a recipe that you think is the best, most authentic representation of what is such a traditional Irish recipe.

2. Wrap each loaf in foil and freeze to keep fresh. Pull the loaves out of the freezer the day before the wedding so they have time to defrost. Unwrap them from the foil and re-wrap them in clear plastic cling wrap.

3. Tie bows around each loaf using ribbon that matches your wedding colors or using green, orange and white ribbon to symbolize Ireland. Tie a recipe cards with the bread recipe to the bows for an added touch. To further emphasize the Irish theme, slide miniature Irish flags underneath the ribbons.

Shamrock Soaps

1. Melt down chunks of glycerin soap in the microwave or on the stove top as instructed by a standard glycerin soap recipe of your choice. Melt the soap completely so there are no remaining chunks.

2. Add green soap dye to the melted glycerin soap. This will turn the entire mixture green, which is the color of shamrocks. Aim for a grass-green color. Squeeze only a few droplets of dye into the mixture and stir. Very carefully, add more dye little by little until you reach the desired color.

3. Pour the mixture into shamrock-shaped cookie cutters that you have laid out on a sheet pan. Allow the liquid to cool and harden for around two hours. According to the Martha Stewart website and Kaboose, freezing the soaps for about 10 minutes after they have cooled will help you pop them out of the cookie cutter molds easier.

4. Place each shamrock soap in a small, clear bag. Tie the bag off with ribbon that matches your wedding color motif or with ribbon that matches the orange, green and white of the Irish flag. Slide miniature Irish flags underneath the tied ribbon to further emphasize the Irish theme.

References

• "The New York Times"; Grammy's Irish Brown Bread; Annemarie Conte
• Martha Stewart: Heart-Shaped Soap
• "Kaboose"; Easy Homemade Soap Making; Amanda Formaro