This concept is inspired from the door gift that is often found in traditional Malay weddings. When I was young, my mom brought us to various kenduri kahwin (Malay wedding hosted in homes) and we would get different door gift for each wedding. Nowadays there are lots of ready made door gifts and container packs available.
When my brother got married, my creative sister-in-law thought of giving each person a nice door gift. For those who came for the Chinese dinner, they bought a mixture of nice steel boxes and paper boxes. We decided to fill the boxes up with candies.
No doubt, usually the restaurant does provide a door gift but we also wanted to give a simple gift as a sign of appreciation that they can take back.
Quantity of boxes to buy:
They bought the steel boxes (known as Cinderella heart shaped boxes) for those who came for the wedding dinner as door gift. The quantity matches the total number of guests that are invited to the wedding dinner.
They also bought paper boxes to give out to guests who came for meals at our respective homes. The paper boxes have the Chinese wedding word and a cartoon picture of the bride and groom:
Where the boxes were sourced from: The wedding steel boxes and paper were sourced from Reknown Gift (located at Platinum Walk, Kuala Lumpur. Website: https://www.renowngift.com.my/). If possible I do suggest that you go there personally to see the items as they really have a huge selection:
Items to fill up in the box:
We decided to use a combination of chocolates and sweets to fill up the gift boxes. The sweets and chocolates were bought from Econsave as well as my regular snack supplier. Alternatively you may obtain sweets/chocolates being sold in bulk from Makro and EconSave.
How to assemble the door gift for the heart shaped boxes:
First, I determined the quantity of sweets/chocolates to be included in each box. I took out some plastic containers to put in each and every type of sweets.
Note: Try to get sweets that comes in individual air tight packaging like the ones you see above. This is to avoid any possibility of ants infestation on your door gifts- resulting a huge mess and possibly door gift that could not be given out. You would most probably prepare these door gift in advance and put in your home. Or your guests may take the door gifts back and may not eat all the sweets immediately- so you do not want ants to get into the boxes as well.
As the heart shaped boxes are irregular in shape- I took note of how the steel boxes were arranged in the original cardbox box that it came in. Then I took out the boxes about 8 or more at a time and first pasted a wedding sticker at the back cover. After pasting all the stickers, I then proceeded to put the chocolates and sweets into each box:
As I am arranging, I placed all the boxes into a large plastic holder:
Once I finished, I took them and arranged them back nicely in the cardboard box where the boxes came in. I then placed back the boxes into one of my dining chairs. Even though I used fully sealed sweets and chocolates, to be on the safe side, I place a plastic disposable container on each of the 4 legs of my chair and fill it with baking soda.
Few days before the wedding dinner, the boxes were delivered to the restaurant and the staff help us place on the tables when they are setting it up.
During the wedding dinner, the guests had thought that the heart shaped boxes were prepared by the restaurant. Literally all of them took back the heart shaped steel boxes because they like it- as it is not common seeing these boxes in stores and even if they are, the boxes can be quite expensive.
