A Most Unusual Wedding Favor, How About a Sarong?

When a customer called wanting a dozen brightly colored sarongs, it didn’t seem that out of the ordinary. She said she was going to use them as table coverings at her outdoor wedding. That’s a terrific idea, one that other customers have come up with, too.

When the same customer, Lisa, called back the next day wanting 50 sarongs, I couldn’t help asking what she planned to do with them. Turns out her original plan were this: at the end of the wedding meal, when all the dishes were cleared, she’d have a drawing.  The winner at each table would take home the colorful sarong covering that table.

As soon as Lisa ran this idea by her friends, she ran into a mutiny. “You can’t have just one person per table take home the sarong,” they told her adamantly. “This is not a vase of flowers or even a personalized glass. This is so unusual that everyone will want one. Never mind want. Everyone will demand one. They’ll never forgive you.”

It’s possible that this lovely young bride has a group of very pushy friends, or it’s possible that sarongs are just so irresistible and enchanting that the lucky winners would be mobbed by their fellow guests. In any case, Lisa didn’t want her wedding to descend into chaos. She decided to let her friends guide her, and came back to buy enough sarongs so that each guest could take one home.

“Lucky thing I’m having a small wedding,” she told me. “Imagine if I had to buy sarongs for 200 guests!”

Sounds pretty good to me.

PS. Lisa emailed me when she got back from her honeymoon. The sarongs were a huge hit. All the women and most of the men immediately draped the sarongs around themselves and started dancing. The band, a group of good sports, shifted into Polynesian music, and the guests danced in their sarongs for the next two hours.

Lisa also told me to expect a call from one of her bridesmaids, Allana, who had another unusual idea for her own upcoming wedding in the fall. Stay tuned.