DIY Bottle Openers Wedding Favors

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These DIY Personalized Bottle Opener Favors were the perfect addition to our wedding! Like every other couple planning their wedding, we wanted our party favors to be useful! We also wanted them to be custom and have meaning. After searching around a bit, we decided we wanted to design bottle opener favors. Rather than going with a metal bottle opener, we decided to use tobacco sticks and make our own!

If you aren’t familiar with tobacco sticks, these are used in farming the tobacco plant. Tobacco was the principal crop in Maryland for many years and my dad actually worked on a tobacco farm when he was a kid. Not only do these sticks look cool, but they also have a very real connection to the State of Maryland. We were super excited to incorporate them into our personalized wedding gifts.

Step 1: Cut the Tobacco Sticks

Standard tobacco sticks are 6-8 feet long. We wanted our bottle open wedding favors to be about 6 inches long, not including the actual opener. I marked every 6 inches along the sticks and cut the stick with my chop saw.

TIP: If you do not have access to tobacco sticks, or just don’t want to use them, you can easily substitute with a 1″x36″ Dowel from Home Depot. The great thing with the tobacco sticks is the wood already has a really cool look to it, so there isn’t a need to finish the wood. When using a 1×36 instead, you will need to add a finish. However, this allows you the flexibility to add whatever finish you like! I recommend finishing the wood after you cut your 6-inch openers.

Step 2: Personalize the Tobacco Stick

I knew I wanted our favors personalized. I had originally intended to burn “A&R” into the sticks as I did with my DIY Wood Rounds. However, the amount of wedding DIYs I had taken on were starting to add up! We have a family friend who owns a laser engraver and she offered to engrave “A+R” for us. While it pained me to pass off a step of this process, she could accomplish this in an hour, and it would likely have taken me a full day of wood burning to knock out 150+ of these!

The wood burner does work and is a great option if you have the time! The picture to the left shows the wood burner (top) versus the wood engraver (bottom).

Step 3: Drill the Holes

The bottle openers I purchased were a corkscrew. Of course, we needed to drill a pilot hole before we could screw them into place. We used a drill press instead of a drill as it was easier to ensure the hole we drilled was straight. We made a block system to have a straight edge to hold the tobacco stick against. I did not trust myself to hold the stick perfectly straight while also drilling into it! We also added a piece of tape onto the 5/16″ drill bit so we knew how far down to drill into the stick. The prep work allowed us to have a make shift assembly line and knock out the 160 holes in about 1.5 hours!

NOTE: A drill could be used for the holes if you do not have a drill press. I recommend using clamps to hold the wood in place to ensure the hole is perfectly straight.

Step 4: Screw in the Bottle Opener

With the pilot holes drilled, it was time to screw in the openers! We wanted to really ensure the openers were firmly in place, so we decided to use epoxy in addition to just screwing in the opener. We squeezed out the epoxy onto a piece of cardboard and used a dowel to mix it up. Using the dowel we put a small amount onto the corkscrew. Then, we twisted it into the pilot hole.

Make sure you do not put too much epoxy on the corkscrew as it will squeeze out the top when you twist it into the wood.

TIP: We used epoxy with a 15-24 hour cure time to give us as much time as possible before the pile would start to harden.

Note: I searched high and low for these bottle openers and the ones linked below are the best price per unit. You will have to order at least a month before you need them, as it took about 20 business days for me to receive mine. I am always hesitant to order things from China due to shipping delays however the shop does their very best to send frequent updates and these openers are really a great quality! They also offer a gold bottle opener option if that is more your style. Shipping cost about $7 which certainly isn’t the free shipping I’m used to with Amazon, but it wasn’t too bad! The shop also doesn’t allow you to use a credit card (PayPal only) but again, the price and quality is hard to beat!

Step 5: Add the Metal Pin (optional)

This step is totally optional! To give the bottle openers a more finished look, we decided to add a copper pin. First we measured down on the sticks to were the hole in the corkscrew should be. There was no way to be 100% accurate with this, so we used a drill bit that could drill through metal just in case we didn’t hit the hole perfectly. With our approximate holes marked, we drilled through! Next, we bent one edge of the 14-gauge copper wire and slid it through the hole.

Finally, we cut off the excess, leaving a small amount to bend over. Then we hammered both sides flat.

We are planning to have the bottle opener wedding favors double as place card holders! I haven’t made my tags just yet but once I do, I will post a how to on designed place card luggage tags!

Several people tried to talk me out of giving out a favor/gift, but I just couldn’t help it! Once we had a plan to use tobacco sticks, I was in love with the idea. Since we are getting married in Southern Maryland, it was such a perfect fit and I really do think our guests will actually use these favors (says every bride, I know !).