Wedding favors are basically gifts or keepsakes given by the wedding couple to guests as a form of appreciation. There are many interesting wedding favors that can be presented in myriad ways so that all those involved always carry fond memories of the occasion. Personalizing the wedding favors adds a touch of intimacy to the special occasion and further strengthens the relationship between the wedding couple and the guests.

Candy, chocolates, cakes, and other edible items are easy to personalize and are always well-received by guests. They lend themselves to several modes of packaging and presentation and gel well with many themes. Candy can be presented in wrappers that have been personalized and carry the couple’s names and wedding details. Bubblegum bride and groom statuettes are another idea. Chocolates are popular wedding favor gifts as they can be sculptured into a variety of shapes and sizes; they are almost universally liked and are thus a safe choice as well. Chocolates shaped as flowers, mini-hearts, keys, or purses can be packaged in personalized wrappers.

Other customized items are growing in popularity as well. Personalized photo albums are available in a range of designs and are a sophisticated memento with utilitarian value for the guests. The same is true for bath and soap wedding favors that include soaps, bath confetti, and bath salts. The favors can be presented in a personalized package or the favors themselves can be personalized. Personalized tags that can be attached to wedding favors add charm to personalized gifts. They are available in a range of design and color combinations.

As themed weddings continue to enjoy popularity, so do wedding favors that complement the theme for the wedding increase the sense of romance associated with the occasion. Wedding themes can be inspired from animals, flowers, history, hobbies, culture, and seasons. They can also be celestial, romantic, or sporty.  A celestial theme, for example, could have the bridesmaids dressing up as angels. Angel ornaments, angel-shaped sugar cookies and chocolate cherubs would be ideal favors for this theme. Irish wedding rings such as Spirals, Triskeles, and Shield Knots are popular favors for weddings that have an Irish theme. The rings can be presented in personalized boxes. Smooth beach pebbles that can be used as paperweights and conches are wedding favors that go well with a beach or seaside themed wedding.  

Finally, wedding cameras continue to be popular at weddings because these cameras placed on the guests’ tables allow the guests to take shots of the receptions that a professional photographer may miss. The cameras keep the guests entertained and the pictures serve as memoirs of a special occasion. There is an increasing trend to offer wedding cameras as favors; the camera can be decorated in many ways so as to complement the event and reflect the taste of the bride and groom.

It contains one of the highest flights of the Vedanta. When the Vyadha finished his teaching, the Sannyasin felt astonished. He said, "Why are you in that body? With such knowledge as yours why are you in a Vyadha's body, and doing such filthy, ugly work?" "My son," replied the Vyadha, "no duty is ugly, no duty is impure. My birth placed me in these circumstances and environments. In my boyhood I learnt the trade;I am unattached, and I try to do my duty well. I try to do my duty as a householder, and I try to do all I can to make my father and mother happy. I neither know your Yoga, nor have I become a Sannyasin, nor did I go out of the world into a forest; nevertheless, all that you have heard and seen has come to me through the unattached doing of the duty which belongs to my position."

There is a sage in India, a great Yogi, one of the most wonderful men I have ever seen in my life. He is a peculiar man, he will not teach any one; if you ask him a question he will not answer. It is too much for him to take up the position of a teacher, he will not do it. If you ask a question, and wait for some days, in the course of conversation he will bring up the subject, and wonderful light will he throw on it. He told me once the secret of work, "Let the end and the means be joined into one." When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole life to it for the time being. Thus, in the story, the Vyadha and the woman did their duty with cheerfulness and whole - heartedness; and the result was that they become illuminated, clearly showing that the right performance of the duties of any station in life, without attachment to results, leads us to the highest realisation of the perfection of the soul.

It is the worker who is attached to results that grumbles about the nature of the duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all duties are equally good, and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured. We are all apt to think too highly of ourselves. Our duties are determined by our deserts to a much larger extent than we are willing to grant. Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart. To the grumbler all duties are distasteful; nothing will ever satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure. Let us work on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!

How can this be done? We see that the impression of any action, to which we attach ourselves, remains. I may meet hundred of persons during the day, and among them meet also one whom I love; and when I retire at night, I may try to think of all the faces I saw, but only that face comes before the mind -- the face which I met perhaps only for one minute,and which I loved; all the others have vanished. My attachment to this particular person caused a deeper impression on my mind than all the other faces. Physiologically the impressions have all been the same; every one of the faces that I saw pictured itself on the retina, and the brain took the pictures in, and yet there was no similarity of effect upon the mind.

Most of the faces, perhaps,were entirely new faces, about which I had never thought before,but that one face of which I got only a glimpse found associations inside. Perhaps I had pictured him in my mind for years,knew hundreds of things about him, and this one new vision of him awakened hundreds of sleeping memories in my mind; and this one impression having been repeated perhaps a hundred times more than those of the different faces together, will produce a great effect on the mind.

Therefore, be "unattached"; let things work; let brain centres work; work incessantly, but let not a ripple conquer the mind. Work as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner; work incessantly, but do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible. This world is not our habitation,it is only one of the many stages through which we are passing. Remember that great saying of the Sankhya, "The whole of nature is for the soul, not the soul for nature." The very reason of nature's existence is for the education of the soul; it has no other meaning; it is there because the soul must have knowledge, and through knowledge free itself.

It was an old custom in India for princesses to choose husbands in this way. Each princess had certain ideas of the sort of man she wanted for a husband. Some would have the handsomest man, others would have only the most learned, others again the richest, and so on. All the princes of the neighbourhood put on their bravest attire and presented themselves before her. Sometimes they too had their own criers to enumerate their advantages and the reasons why they hoped the princess would choose them. The princess was taken round on a throne, in the most splendid array, and looked at and heard about them. If she was not pleased with what she saw and heard, she said to her bearers, "Move on," and no more notice was taken of the rejected suitors. If, however, the princess was pleased with any one of them, she threw a garland of flowers over him and he became her husband.

The princess of the country to which our king and the Sannyasin had come was having one of these interesting ceremonies. She was the most beautiful princess in the world, and the husband of the princess would be ruler of the kingdom after her father's death. The idea of this princess was to marry the handsomest man, but she could not find the right one to please her. Several times these meetings had taken place, but the princess could not select a husband. This meeting was the most splendid of all; more people than ever had come it it. The princess came in on a throne, and the bearers carried her from place to place. She did not seem to care for any one, and every one became disappointed that this meeting also was going to be a failure.

Just then came a young man, a Sannyasin, handsome as if the sun had come down to the earth, and stood in one corner of the assembly, watching what was going on. The throne with the princess came near him, and as soon as she saw the beautiful Sannyasin, she stopped and threw the garland over him. The young Sannyasin seized the garland and threw it off, exclaiming, "What nonsense is this? I am a Sannyasin. What is marriage to me?" The king of that country thought that perhaps this man was poor and so dared not marry the princess, and said to him, "With my daughter goes half my kingdom now, and the whole kingdom after my death!" and put the garland again on the Sannyasin. The young man threw it off once more, saying, "Nonsense! I do not want to marry," and walked quickly away from the assembly.

“Well, I tell you what,” he said. “Let me at least drop off a gift for you. What harm can there be in that?”

“Why don’t you mail it?” I asked. “There’s no need to waste your time bringing it. I can assure you that I won’t be buying a set. My children have all the encyclopedias they will ever need.”

“Your address is ... ,” and he rattled off my address. I assumed that he had gotten it from some mailing list. There was an annoying persistence about him as he continued. “It will only take a few minutes. Please, let me drop it off. Company policy, you see.”

“Well, what harm can there be? Only a few minutes you say?”

“Yes, I promise that I won’t impose on you. This evening around 7:00 p.m. Will that be fine?”

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” I said and hung up the phone. There was a vague familiarity in this conversation, a kind of déjà vu. It seemed as if I’d heard every word he said in another conversation, years earlier. Well,this time would be different; no one was going to sell me something I didn’t want! There is an old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I knew there was no danger that I would become the owner of three sets of encyclopedias; in fact, I was thinking of having some fun with this situation.

Returning home from work, I checked the mailbox at the end of my driveway. Just the normal stuff except for a large,unstamped envelope which appeared to contain a book. I greeted the children and sat down to examine the contents of the envelope. I didn’t recall ordering any books as I tore the mailer apart and pulled out a leather- bound volume titled The Ancient Light Within. There was a yellow note stuck on the cover that read, “This is your gift. I’m sorry I have to cancel our appointment for this evening, but I’ll be in touch with you soon.” It was signed, “Your Encyclopedia Salesman.”