The right wedding favors can be difficult enough to find, seeing how they should reflect not only the occasion but the couple and all their guests, but for those in alternative~ lifestyles for example open marriages it can be highly challenging. On the one hand, traditional wedding favors don’t seem to honor the most unique aspect of this kind of a marriage – namely, that it’s open and the couple is not exactly shy about the fact – but on the other hand most individuals want to remember a marriage, not a social statement.

Of course, one may easily retort that marriage by definition is a social statement to begin with – but the institution is so frequent and nearly universal that it is no “statement” at all, not in the sense of a declaration beyond the obvious.

Wedding favors are also statements, in effect, a kind of message from the couple to their guests. They represent what the couple wishes the guest to remember of the wedding, and even how the guest should view the couple. So how to go about choosing the right takeway gift, the right momento?

Ultimately, it depends on the couple, of course. The overwhelming vast majority would no doubt prefer innocous ceremonies and by extension sourvenirs – even anonymous affairs that make the official proclamation of their marriage blend into the vast background of all marriages occurring in their culture. Hence the double difficulty encountered by individuals in alternative family arrangements where nothing seems to recognize, much less celebrate, their beliefs.

What to do, then? Fortunately, many such individuals, those who select and also proudly proclaim their unusual unions, are extremely creative and eminently capable of designing their own distinctive parting gifts for their guests. But as modern society becomes ever more permissive, it’s only a matter of time before enterprising individuals begin catering to this niche market with specific items that not only recognize their particular flavor of marriage but even honor it.