With budgets tight for many couples at the moment, many brides are looking for cheap wedding favors and inexpensive wedding favor ideas for their special day.

If you are having a large wedding, with say, more than 200 guests, the cost of your wedding favors can quickly mount up. Many brides fail to include the cost of packaging, decorations, tags and labels, as well as shipping costs and taxes which may be applicable.

But there are a number of inexpensive wedding favors available to you and with a little creative thinking and some savvy shopping you can come up with perfect favors for your wedding on the cheap

Firstly you need to set a budget. You should have included a figure for your wedding favors in your original wedding budget which you did at the start of your planning. Now is the time to go back to figure and work out if it is still realistic and more importantly if you can still afford it

Putting together cheap wedding favors for $1 each is not impossible but will require some creative input from yourself and possibly some compromise.

When it comes to shopping for your wedding favors there are a number of places to look. Start online with the favor stores. Many compete with each other on price and will hold pretty much the same stock so you should be able to easily compare prices. Where they can differ is on the offers and discounts they have. Some will offer discounts on the total price over a certain amount (usually $150) whilst others will offer free shipping over a certain amount and others will run regular discounts or offers throughout the year.

Even if you are certain you would not be able to afford these stores they are great places for wedding favor ideas and can give you lots of inspiration. Many will also have a section for discount wedding favors or closeout stock which is always worth keeping an eye on as you can get some great bargains here.

Next you should look for wholesalers, not just those who specialize in wedding favors but also those who provide wholesale food items as edible favors are one of the cheapest and most popular favors around. Food wholesalers can offer you great prices on bulk purchases of candies or chocolates for instance, allowing you to easily create favors with a selection of treats inside for relatively little expense.

Supermarkets are also great places to look for wedding favors. A packet of gourmet coffee from the supermarket will cost you just a few dollars but you can split it into many favors for a fraction of the cost of the sachets offered by specialist favor stores.

Other wedding favor ideas which can be found in supermarkets include candles such as votives or tea lights, chocolates, candies and plain cupcakes which you could decorate yourself at home.

In terms of packaging you can find good deals on wholesale favor boxes online, check out sites like Ebay for bulk quantities of boxes, voile bags and decorative items like ribbons and embellishments like flowers and stickers.