A beach wedding is a very special occasion. The sun, the surf and the sand all combine to make a beach wedding an unforgettable event. For such a special day, it is important to choose the perfect favor to give your guests.

Wedding favors are meant to show your appreciation of friends and family who enrich your life and took the time from their day to celebrate your special occasion with you. For many people, a beach wedding involves some travel and expense, so you want to make sure that those who are sharing the day with you understand how grateful you are for their presence. Fortunately, beach weddings provide many options for favors. There are many beautiful ideas for romantic and memorable wedding favors that will remind your guests of the time that they spent with you on your wedding day.

For a destination wedding, where all of the guests will travel to spend time at your wedding, celebrate like you would any vacation and give each guest a miniature photograph album. There are albums which are specifically themed for beach vacations, with seahorse, starfish or shell charm decorations. To add even more fun to the photograph album theme consider providing guests with disposable cameras, or leave some sitting on the tables at the reception. This is a great way to have candid and spontaneous photographs of the wedding party and guests.

If you like the idea of the photograph album, but want something a little different, consider some beach themed place card holders for the reception. You can find these holders accented with sand and sea shells to continue the beach theme. After the wedding, your guests can remove their name card and use it as a photo frame.

Another fun and unique idea for a beach wedding favor is place card holders which have small flip flops as the base, complementing once again the beach theme of the event. These are perfect for a casual beach wedding, and after the ceremony, your guests can take their holder home and use it to hold store lists or notes or just as a reminder of your special day.

If you decide to use a candle theme for your beach wedding favors, there are many available choices that allow you to carry the beach theme through to your favors. Tealight holders are an affordable choice, and are available decorated with sea shells and in neutral colors. Gel candles are another choice, and, packaged with a raffia bow and accented with sea shells, carry the beach theme.

Another way to continue the beach theme in an unexpected way is through blooming shells. These favors appear, at first glance, to be sea shells. On closer inspection, your guests will realize that they are compressed cotton with wildflower seeds inside of them. Your guests can take the attractive shells home and use them as a keepsake, or plant them and enjoy the blooms for months to come, another great reminder of your wedding day. These shells are available in larger sizes that can be personalized with an attached card, or, for a different look, small shells are available "planted" in a miniature pot.

There are many other nontraditional favor ideas for the beach wedding. If you are hosting a destination wedding, you may want to contact the visitor’s bureau in the area where you plan to stay. Inform them of the number of guests you expect, and they will undoubtedly help put together a package with maps, coupons and more to local areas of interest. For a destination beach wedding, it is a good idea to invest in some tote bags, perhaps personalized with your name or the wedding date, and place the pamphlets and other information from the visitor’s bureau in the tote bag for each guest.

A more traditional, but no less attractive wedding favor is coaster sets. Frosted glass drink coasters, etched with scallops, star fish or sea shells, are a practical favor that will find a home in each of your guests living rooms for years to come. Other traditional wedding favors that allow you to carry over the beach theme include cookie cutters, shaped like palm trees and bookmarks shaped like a conch shell.

Whether you decide to go with the traditional or the more unique, carrying over your beach themed wedding into the favors that you choose is a wonderful way to personalize your wedding and show your guests how much your presence means to you. It does not matter if your wedding is on a local beach, or on a tropical island, the beach theme wedding is fun and very popular, and there are many choices available for unique favors. Wherever the event is held, make sure that the wedding favors you choose reflect the love and appreciation that you have for your closest friends and family, who helped make your wedding day full of memories which will last a lifetime.