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 people in alternative~ lifestyles such as open marriages it can be extremely 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 isn’t 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 typical 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, as well as how the guest should view the couple. So how to go about selecting the right takeway gift, the right momento?
In the end, it depends on the couple, of course. The overwhelming vast majority would no doubt prefer innocous ceremonies and by extension sourvenirs – even private 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 people, people who choose and even proudly proclaim their unusual unions, are extremely creative and eminently capable of designing their own unique 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.