Wedding favours
Wedding favour coasters: a UK maker's honest guide
Wedding favours are the bit of the day couples agonise over and guests forget within an hour. Personalised coasters are one of the few favours that survive the journey home and earn a permanent spot on a kitchen table. Here's everything you need to know before you order.
A favour guests keep
Sugared almonds get binned. A coaster with the couple's names and the date sits on a desk or kitchen table for years — a tiny, useful reminder of your day.
Honest cost
Personalised cork coasters land at roughly £2.50–£3.10 each in wedding-favour quantities — comparable to printed napkins or matchboxes, but far more durable.
Comfortable lead time
Allow 3–4 weeks from approved artwork to delivery. Order earlier in May–September; it's peak wedding season for UK makers.
How many to order
One per guest is the rule of thumb. For a 100-guest wedding that's 100 coasters, plus 5–10% spare for table-setting decisions on the day and for guests who quietly take a second. If you're doing one coaster per couple rather than per head, halve it — but we'd always lean to one each. They're light, they post flat, and the extras make lovely thank-you cards for suppliers afterwards.
Design ideas that actually work
The favours guests keep are the ones with a small piece of useful information on them — not just a monogram. A few directions that work well as wedding-favour coasters:
- Monogram + date — clean, timeless, works at any venue.
- Venue illustration — a line drawing of the church, barn or hotel where you married.
- Map dot — a stylised map of the town or postcode where you met or married.
- Table number / place setting — one coaster per guest, doubles as a name card.
- Order of the day — print the day's timeline on the back; useful and a keepsake.
- A line from your vows or first dance — small text on a corner, the rest a pattern.
Lead time and the timeline that won't stress you out
A sensible UK wedding-coaster timeline: brief your maker 8–10 weeks before the wedding; approve artwork 4–5 weeks before; receive coasters 2–3 weeks before. That gives you time to set up the table plan with coasters already in hand and a comfortable buffer if anything needs reprinting.
Avoid ordering inside three weeks of the wedding unless your maker explicitly offers a rush service in writing — most small UK studios are booked out across summer.
Cost, plainly
Premium cork coasters with full-colour personalised print sit at £2.50–£3.10 each in wedding quantities (100+), plus a one-off artwork fee of around £45 for a bespoke design. For 100 coasters you're looking at roughly £295–£355 all in — comparable to a printed table-plan or a round of fizz, with the difference that every guest takes one home.
Plan a wedding-favour coaster set
We design and print personalised cork wedding-favour coasters from our Cornwall studio. Two free rounds of artwork revisions, digital proof before printing, and we'll hold the artwork on file in case you want a matching anniversary set later.