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Favor Ideas for a Geeky Wedding?
Rachel Grey asks: "I'm getting married in September to a fellow geek (in the MIT chapel, no less), and we're trying to find geeky wedding favors to give at the reception. Ideally these would cost $4 or less and would provide some instant fun for the guests, so that it doesn't matter if they actually take them home. Some good ideas we've had so far are tangrams (available in bulk for a little under $1/set) and micro Hoberman spheres ($4 apiece). Any more ideas?"
Why not do something in the spirit of OS, such as having one big "thing" and everyone having a "piece" this would involve everyone and could be fun. I'm sure that someone out there has an idea on what this "thing could be"
So how geeky is this going to be? Did you propose on slashdot? Is the wedding going to be webcast?
Carpe meam simiam!
I've been watching too much Futurama lately...
Mini 2x2x2 versions are $5 or mini original 3x3x3 keychain versions are also $5...little more than you said it should cost but they would be entertaining for sure.
Just buy a bunch of lego type building blocks in bulk (real ones will cost more), and dump piles on each table. People can build things, and trade pieces, etc. Lots of fun.
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
How about different colors of silly putty? You can buy bulk quantities of putty from Crazy Aaron's Puttyworld, http://www.puttyworld.com/index.html. You could then give everyone a portion, and they could play with color mixing and other fun uses for putty.
--burn the wedding pics and small vid clips right there at the wedding / reception and give out copies on cds. You can get the blank labels printed up now in advance so they are semi pro looking.
and had my father's memorial service there... Its a beutiful place, and I hope you have the wedding during good daylight so the light comes in through the moat nicely, its very pretty. Goodluck
Sleep is for the weak.
If you look around in wholesale surplus places you can often find the little calculator-style multi-meter in black plastic folding case for less than five bucks. Have a printing shop foil stamp the plastic cover. Duct tape is good, too...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
A good browse on American Science and Surplus should find you geeky and weird things for low-cost.
Does anyone else find it kind of telling that an article on X-Box posted at 02:47 has 106 replies whereas one about weddings posted three hours earlier only has 22?????
We geeks need to do more procreating or we'll just die out!!!
G4 Hackintosh
When my friends go married a couple of years ago they had sticks of rock with their names written in it, just like "Blackpool Rock".
"Watch the skies, keep watching the skies"
How about the Kinder eggs. You know the chocolate egg with a small capsule inside with a toy you can build. http://www.kindersurprise.com/ Guaranteed to keep people entertained for moments.
Another option is the Rubik's cube. You can buy a mini cube or a 2x2x2 cube for pretty cheap at www.hessport.com. Just remember to make a small initial purchase to get 10% off all subsequent purchases.
Congratulations and good luck!
Lasers Controlled Games!
I would humbly suggest that, unless your families are geeks as well, you take it easy on the geek themed stuff. Hell, my family IS geek heavy (3 civil engineers, 2 electrical, 2 mechanical, 1 ceramic, 3 nurses, 2 physical therapists, geologist, and environmental science) and we gave traditional favors - Italian, to be exact.
Remember that favors are NOT gifts from the couple to the guests. They are tokens and remembrances. They should trigger fond memories when viewed in the future, not provide a distraction for the attention span challenged during the toast.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
My wife and I did bookmarks. Sure, its not terribley geeky, but perhaps you could do something in theme. We had a couple bible verses. You could try doing something similar, but use something like the GPL on it or something. :-)
:-)
Another idea is to use a love letter or something you sent him/her on the book mark. In retrospect I could have used the first email I asked my wife out on a date with. It went something like this:
int ask_for_date(char *me, char *you) {
if (boyfriend(you) == true)
return APOLOGY;
if (!free_friday(you)) {
rain_check(me, you);
} else {
return wanna_head_out(me, you);
}
}
But if you have anything similar to that, like a love letter or something that you both share and put it onto/into a bookmark I think its pretty cool.
(btw, that all compiled down into the wrong byte code when it ran, she did have a boyfriend, but I still got a rain check.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Anyway, sometime yesterday we also got the idea of slinkies. They provide a nice range of nerdiness depending on the user... to some they're just something fun to flip from hand to hand, but you can get as deep into the physics of the things as you want. And if people get sozzled enough they can run slinky races down the stairs at the hotel.
nah, the little key chain ones aren't that expensive...i've seen the 3x3x3 key chain rubik's cubes sold in dollar stores...they'd be fun...until everyone gets frustrated and starts hurling them across the room...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
wedding customized condoms...you know, condom's where the package says "Dave & Rachels Wedding, January 24th, 2002", or whatever is applicable...
Ideally these would cost $4 or less and would provide some instant fun for the guests, so that it doesn't matter if they actually take them home.
i'm sure you could get these for under $4 a piece...and hey, the reception could definetly become "instant fun" if people start using them!
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
How about saving money on geeky favours and buying the universal party favour: Alcohol. Lots of alcohol. It wouldn't hurt to invite as many women as possible. This will only help the chances of the other geeks at the party. What do MIT geeks really want? Drunken women or geeky flashlight keychains?
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
What we did was buy some $9 2000 piece lego crates and dump them on the tables. They were colorful enough for the non-geeks to appreciate, and kept the geeks/nerds and kids busy while those who were more "sophisticated" could talk. Our reception had the fewest kids crying at it that I've ever heard of for 100 people -- and people stayed later than average, too.
If you're sponsoring an open bar, don't do the legos.
Hopefully, Mike will forgive me. You can see a few pics of our reception here.
Sorry, couldn't resist that.
Seriously, though, I thought of those little XXX In a Box things that they sell at the checkout registers in bookstores. Like Zen Garden in a Box, and so on. I'm not sure if you could get them for your target price, but they would make cool favors. You could pick one that you like, or get a variety. They might be cheaper if you could get them in bulk.
You could try these:
Desk Toys
Mini Kits - this appears to be the original source for the kits.
Congratulations and good luck with your wedding!
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Archie McPhee. And if not, you'll have fun shopping.
My husband and I gave out slightly geeky favors when we got married 13 years ago. A candy-making store searched their catalogs and found a floppy disk mold (5.25 inch, and thicker than the real thing) for us. We ordered floppy disks in dark chocolate with crispies, peanuts, and plain. The candy store shrink-wrapped each one. We created labels for 5.25" floppies on a dot matrix printer - with puns about combining our last names, and cute and humorous filenames on the 'disk'. The candy store attached the labels for us, and delivered the 'favor disks' to the reception place, which put them in the fridge for us.
We handed these out 1.5 hours into the reception, and geek and non-geek friends made lots of puns about them, and had fun with the idea.
We made enough extra to bring to workplaces for people whom we hadn't invited to the wedding.
Kinky!
I'm sorry dear, I didn't realise what my geek friends would do with that much duct tape. We can try apologising to your brides maids again, can't we? I know those photos didn't make it too far on the internet, the link just got posted to a little visited site called slashdot. I'm sure those photos will never again surface to embarass your best friend. But you have to admit, they were right about being able to duct tape your father to the ceiling and the sticky would hold him in place. Honey, please tell me you are going to use that carving knife to cut me loose from all this duct tape, right? Please!
Some day we'll all look back on this wedding, laugh nervously and change the subject.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
... give one to every client ... customer ... entrant ... whatever! and tell them to pelt the bride when the minister says "You may now kiss the bride".
I myself had one in my pocket and gave it to my bride. Definitely confused her.
Infuriate left and right
You could decorate the entire hall with them and I'm sure you could get thousands and thousands of them for free!