In my previous post, I gave you guys a little peek into my wedding reception and a little bit of what it’s like to be married to an Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL).
I received quite a lot of emails asking about my LEGO wedding favours or bombonieres, so I’ve decided to write a short tutorial on how you can make them if you’re ever planning a wedding or even a birthday party and want to give out some LEGO as gifts.
The idea for these wedding favours came from a Legoland and LEGO store hallmark, the Build-A-Minifigure Station.
Image from www.brickupdate.com
For those of you who haven’t visited a Legoland or an official LEGO store, there’s a small area in the shop filled with buckets of heads, torsos, legs and accessories that you can use to customize your very own LEGO minifigure as a neat little souvenir.
LEGO has their own 40165 Wedding Favor set (2016 version) for sale on their online store, but I felt it was kinda boring to give everyone the same set, and it’s kinda pricey at AU$12.99 ($10 in the US). That and it’s way more fun letting your guests experiment with hundreds of different possibilities and combinations.
Also, it works kind of better as a Cake Topper.
Time for some shopping
The most important thing is sourcing the parts. You may ask yourself, where on Earth am I going to find more than a hundred LEGO minifig heads, torsos and legs in varying styles?
The answer? www.bricklink.com
For the uninitiated, Bricklink is a LEGO fan’s dream shopping destination. It’s essentially a massive marketplace connecting thousands of sellers across the globe, many of which sell individual parts by the dozens or hundreds.
So if you ever needed 500 smiling LEGO minifig heads, Bricklink is where you head to. It was possible for me to source all the different parts I needed to have enough minifig heads, torsos, legs, hairpieces as well as the platforms the minifigure couple is placed on.
Components of your very own LEGO wedding favours
As you can see here, the idea was to let my wedding guests build minifigure versions of the bride and groom and place them on top of these basic white pedestals which they can then display at home. I mocked these up using some of the leftovers I had.
Here’s a checklist of what you’ll need. I’ve linked to the relevant Bricklink categories so you can just browse through them, select the ones you want, put in an order and wait for them to arrive. Do note that you may need to buy the parts from different sellers, depending on your needs.
- Male minifigure heads
- Female minifigure heads
- Male headgear/hair pieces
- Female headgear/hair pieces
- Male torsos
- Female torsos
- Legs (legs are fairly unisex)
- 2×6 white bricks
- 4×6 white plates
- 1×6 white tiles
- Optional: Transparent Sticker Labels (get these from your local office supplies store, eg. Officeworks)
- Optional: Handheld minifigure accessories such as weapons or utensils
Be sure to get a 50-50 split between male and female minifigure (unless it’s a same sex wedding, duh) parts for your party or wedding guests. It’s always helpful to allocate a bit more than your number of expected guests in case people choose to take home more!
If you shop smart and opt for common parts you should be able to get heads for ~$0.50 each, torsos for ~$0.50 each, legs for ~$0.30 each , headgear for ~$0.35 each, whole pedestals for ~$0.10.
This means you should be able to build a male and minifigure couple, complete with a pedestal for about $3.50! Do note that if you choose rarer parts, the price will go up accordingly.
Printed sticker labels
The printed labels are optional, but I highly recommend them as they’re a great way to commemorate your event or special day. Basically you print them on an A4 sticker label sheet using a laser printer. Inkjet printers usually don’t work as well as the text tends to smudge.
Here’s a template that you can download and edit via photo manipulation software such as Photoshop.
If you want to design your own labels, a 1×6 tile’s dimensions are approximately 4.75cm x o.75cm
Setting up your Build-A-Minifigure station
To display them, place the parts in bowls spread out on a small table, separated into male and female parts to make it easy for your guests to pick out the components they want. We went op-shopping and hit all our local Salvos to find these vintage glass bowls, which cost us less than $5 each.
Assemble the platforms and place them in bowls (or scatter them across the table) and leave it to your guests to rediscover their childhood memories as they assemble LEGO versions of the bride and groom.
You can also set up a few examples to display to give your guests some ideas! That’s pretty much all you need to know about making your very own LEGO wedding or party favours!
It’s a lot more fun (and cheaper!) to let your guests build their own minifigures, rather than paying $5 for the blind minifigure packs. Let me know in the comments or via email if you have any questions about getting all the components! If you’re planning on doing this, good luck!
My husband is a major Lego aficionado and for my daughter’s wedding, I made her father’s boutonniere out of a teal Lego separator so that his passion for Lego would be included. It’s really adorable and my daughter is very pleased as teal is one of the colors she has chosen in her wedding.
Hi I’m from the uk and would love to do this at my wedding but I’m not finding the site easy to work 🙁 can you help make it easier at all? I’m looking for bride & groom, two bridesmaid, Pageboy and usher if possible
Hi there, you can try and buy this set: https://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Wedding-Favour-Set-2016-40165
If you’re in the UK, I also recommend going into your nearby LEGO store if you have one. They have build a minifigure stations where you can customise your own minifigs. That might be an easy way to get a set of bridesmaids, pageboy and usher.
This is PERFECT for our wedding..
However, I am finding BrickLink a bit confusing to work out (probably user error). I have followed the links in this article, but still am unsure how to find a plain yellow smiling face?
Or quantities of more than one per shop?
Any handy hints??
Thank you. We are using this idea for our daughter’s up coming wedding.
Awesome, hope the wedding planning goes well!
Hi Jay,
We too are huge Lego fans and are getting married in November this year and having a Lego Superhero theme including Lego cake, Lego centrepieces and would love to do these for our wedding favours.
Just a question on purchasing from the bricklink website, do you pay postage on every purchase or is it one postage amount on the whole order?
Many thanks,
Louise ?
Hey Louise! First up, congratulations! You guys must be so excited!
With Bricklink, think of it as a hub of LEGO sellers. Each Bricklink store is completely unique, so each would have their own shipping terms and postage costs. My advice would be to buy from as fewer stores as possible, so save on shipping. And also to buy from stores within/near your country as international postage can sometimes add up.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!
OMG, I love this idea! Will use on my wedding too! Haha
Good luck!
Hi Jay,
I have just stumbled across this excellent piece of information and I am wowed! I have recently got engaged and am now in the painstaking process of organising my wedding. we have already chosen our cake which is a lego cake with an emphasis on the lego marvel figures and I wanted to tie in the favours with this theme so this is perfect!
I just have to sell it to my fiance now, but I can’t see that being an issue!
Many thanks
Hey Samantha
That sounds wonderful, congratulations! The cake with the Marvel minifigures sounds awesome, I wasn’t allowed any superheroes near mine!
Good luck getting your fiance over the line. If all else fails, just pull a bridezilla till you get your way 😛
Holy crap, this is so perfect! I’m getting married next April, and we’ve trying to figure out how to perfectly incorporate mini-figs as a wedding favor. (My fiancé is a huge Lego fan and we collect mini-figs together.) This is such a great blueprint. Thank you!!!!
Nice, I’m glad I could help! Congratulations on your wedding and I love that you’ll be incorporating LEGO into it!
Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can be of any help!
Thank you so much ! This is so perfect for my Son. He was always going to be an architect when he grew up so he could work at Lego Land !! He got into music and IT instead but he still loves Lego !!!!
You’re welcome, Jill! It’s really fun and easy to do. I’m sure LEGO are always in need of an IT person, heh! There’s always hope working there!
Hi Jay,
Thank you so much for this helpful guide. My fiance and I are getting married in 11 days, and we are having a LEGO favor station just like this, inspired by your blog post. I know it’s going to be a hit with our guests, and I can’t wait to send you a picture!! We are also asking our guests to Instagram their creations, so if you want to follow along, we’ll be using the hashtag #NewBarkTown.
Hey Caitlin
Congratulations! Hope your wedding goes well and you have a beautiful day!
I am so honoured to have inspired you guys. Would love to see the pics after your special day (and maybe feature some of them if you don’t mind!).
Great hashtag, is that a reference to Pokemon as well??
Yes, it is! We had a supremely nerdy wedding. Here’s the link to our photographer’s blog entry about us. She included a great set of Lego photos, as well as a link to the Instagram photos 🙂
Thanks again – our guests loved it!
http://jenosojnicki.com/blog/2015/07/camp-kiwanee-wedding-caitlin-james/
https://instagram.com/explore/tags/newbarktown/
Hi Caitlin
Wow, just had a look at your wedding photos and they’re amazing! Looks like you guys had a really fun day. Congratulations once again!
I’m very happy to have been able to help out with the LEGO minifig station 🙂 Would you mind if I shared your photographer’s blog entry on my Facebook page?
Hi Jay,
Feel free to share the blog post, and thanks again!
-Caitlin
I came across your blog and had a few questions I wanted to ask. A year from now I will be getting married, and my fiance suggested we have a Lego theme to satisfy me, while she gets her vintage theme. I have looked and found a few good ideas that I would like to do for our guests.
1. Want to do your idea about build a figure for all guests, I was just wondering with bricklink, how do I know what type of item I will be getting, if I pick some Yellow Minifig, Head (Plain) – Solid Stud, for example, how will I know what the “face” will be? Or will it be just 25 assorted yellow heads?
2. Also, I wanted to have bricks on the table for the guests to build items with, I just didn’t know how much to get. I have been on ebay and amazon, and have found lots ranging from 1 lbs – 100 lbs. Just didn’t know how much to get, was going to be around 100 guests.
Hi Kirk
I just responded to your email! Sorry it took so long – it had somehow ended up in my spam folder!
Im having difficulty on the brickland website and in general just trying to find an assortment of mini figurine pieces to build your own! Please any assistance!
Hi Kristine, could you drop me an email at jaysbrickblog@gmail.com? Let me know exactly what you’re trying to look for and I’ll try and point you in the right direction 🙂
Hi Hay,
First of all, thanks for the blog post. It’s been very useful.
I was looking to find a bride and groom legoto use as party favours but this idea might be even better. I looked around bricklink but it proved a little difficult. I would prefer to buy in bulk, instead of adding 2 of these, 5 of that etc. Any ideas?
I searched a bit on ebay also, with little luck. I found some grab bags but men figures only, and mostly workers, policemen etc. It’s not bad, but maybe you know about some sellers or stores that have more diverse offerings.
Thanks in advance,
Antonio.
Hi Jay, not Hay – sorry for the mistype.
Hi Antonio
Glad you found the blog post useful! Well my advice on Bricklink is to try and shop from stores which have a massive inventory. If a shop has more than 2000 feedback, it’s usually a good indicator that they move a lot of LEGO and have a massive selection.
It all depends on how selective you want to be with the different variants of body parts/heads and hairpieces.
Also, the Bricklink stores from Germany & Netherlands usually are my favourite.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions! Feel free to drop me an email at jaysbrickblog@gmail.com if you’d like to discuss further 🙂
Thank you for your response.
I’ll investigate and come back to you if need be. Thanks again!
As a fun part of my wedding reception, i was looking into making 15 mini versions of me and my future husband and then leaving props they could use to make us into fun situations with wedding advice notes alongside. Topped off with a disposable camera to capture these thoughts! I wanted our figures to be us in our wedding gear, him in a kilt and me in a red wedding dress, the red part seems to be the tricky bit, then play with props for individuality. I’ve looked into making mini versions of us and i cant seem to find anything thats going to cost anywhere near a reasonable amount. Do you have any suggestions on what i could do?
Hi Heather
First of all, congratulations on your wedding! Sounds like you have some pretty fun ideas, especially with the digital camera.
If you’re looking for a kilt, the most cost effective way would be to buy your own fabric and cut it so that it can be attached to the groom’s legs. You can use this as a reference for the shape: https://jaysbrickblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/kilt.jpg
For the red wedding dress, that gets a little trickier as there aren’t that many red LEGO dresses. Here are your options
1) Red Flamenco Dress (http://imgur.com/4Bq40G7) – has dots and frills, but shouldn’t be too pricey.
Top – http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=973pb1023c01
Sloped dress – http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3678bpb040
2) Queen Dress (http://imgur.com/dKJgQ5G)
Top – http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?pg=1&colorID=5&itemID=96028&sz=10&searchSort=P
Sloped Dress – http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?pg=1&colorID=5&itemID=96031&sz=10&searchSort=P
3) Plain Red Dress
Torso – http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?pg=1&colorID=5&itemID=85764&sz=10&searchSort=P OR http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?pg=1&colorID=5&itemID=39773&sz=10&searchSort=P
Sloped Dress – http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?pg=1&colorID=5&itemID=47821&sz=10&searchSort=P
Not sure what you want it to look like, but if you were looking to do something simple, I’d recommend Option 3. It shouldn’t be as expensive too.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi Jay,
Great article and definitely in keeping with my love for all things Lego! I have a wedding to plan and I would love to do this but I am having a little trouble in navigating bricklink – how do I go about ordering 150 random heads, torsos, legs etc?
It looks as if though I’d have to select each style individually rather than just ordering each body part in bulk with emphasis on random designs rather than all the same.
Your help would be greatly appreciated as I’d love to be able to have Lego at wedding in some shape or form!
James
Hey James
Thanks for the kind words. Congratulations on your wedding! If you were after random heads, torsos and legs, I would recommend buying bulk minifigure lots on ebay. The thing about Bricklink like you mentioned is that you have the option to pick exactly what you want.
It might be a little painstaking but you can just pick from stores which have a massive range and just browse through and pick a few of everything into your cart.
If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me an email at jaysbrickblog@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to help out whenever I can.
Cheers
Jay
Hi Jay thanks for your reply via Pinterest! So you don’t sell it? I am currently located in Singapore. Wonder if they ship to Singapore?
Hi Ling, no I don’t sell LEGO, but if you go on Bricklink, you can see if a seller ships to you. Most of them would most likely ship to Singapore I reckon. I used to live in Malaysia and didn’t have any issues ordering stuff off there!
Let me know if you have any other questions!
This is such a great idea. Thanks for sharing, Jay! For the past couple of months, I have been searching for lego wedding ideas and was wondering if anyone did minifigures as party favors. I called my local Lego store (in the US) to see if they rented out their build your own minifigure booth or sold parts in bulk. I even reached out to corporate with the idea, but no luck.
Thank you for the tips and sharing your ideas. I hope to incorporate this into my own wedding.
H Tran
Hey there, thanks for the kinds words! Glad I could be of some help and it’s really awesome that you’re going to incorporate some LEGO into your wedding. If you have any questions or would like any help navigating Bricklink, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll be very happy to help!