Candy Buffet = Delicious, Sweet, Fun!

Wedding Candy Buffet:

We had an elaborate candy buffet at our wedding reception and it was a HUGE hit! I have seen plenty of wedding blogs, pictures and websites boasting about candy buffets and I thought it would be fun to do one as well. I thought some people would think it was cute and others would bring good bags full of delightful retro candies home to their kids. Never in a million years did I think the Candy Buffet would be such a hit! Our guests raved about it and thought it was the neatest thing, so we were happy with the outcome! If you are thinking about having a candy buffet at your wedding - here are a few helpful hints. . . (all pics by Lisa Kae)

Build your Vision: Make sure you start with a vision of what you want your Candy Buffet to look like and what the overall outcome is going to be? Will it serve as a "favor" for your guests or simply as a fun activity throughout the reception? What will your color vision be? Do you want all jars to be the same height? Do you want the jars to be on various levels? Do you want to label the jars? Do you want to use the same color scheme as your wedding, or switch it up? How many people will partake in your candy buffet? Will you give them bags, boxes, or simply hope that they nibble on these goodies throughout the reception? All things to start to think about when planning a candy buffet!

Choose a Theme: I think it is important to decide on the theme for your candy buffet. Our theme simply matched our wedding colors - so we used mainly bright colored candies that related to our green, coral, and navy theme. I've seen some candy buffets that are retro themed - where they only use retro candies. Often times the theme revolves around one color - maybe you choose all red candies - so every candy is a different shade of red. Maybe your theme is simply in the ribbons you tie around the jars? Or how about a play on words theme - this was a cute one where the bride and groom did a play on words with the names of the various candy (ie - red hots = wedding, love, etc.)

Establish a Budget: After shopping around for jars, candy, packaging, and the labeling materials you can easily see that having a Candy Buffet is simply not pocket change. I think its important to establish a budget and stay within it.

Buy the Jars: We purchased the majority of our apothecary jars at Michaels. They have a huge selection of various jars and they consistently place them on sale! Usually once every two weeks Michaels runs a coupon for 50% off of one item, so you spend $15 per jar instead of $30, etc. We had a fairly large candy buffet, so we utilized these coupons every single time they came out! (In fact, just to stay within budget (ha! as if we did! ha!) we would often times buy multiple Sunday papers so we could all go buy these lovely jars at half price - crazy I know!)

- Michaels - Great Craft store that carries a large selection of glass apothecary jars

Pick your Candy: Let the fun begin! We ordered the majority of our candy online through various websites. Some are listed below - we had great success with all of them. In an effort to work within the budget, I googled for coupon codes for each site, most of them have great coupon offers out there - its just a matter of finding them! How much candy do you need? I used the knot and google to find out how much candy to use, I polled other brides and then went with the amounts that others had said worked for them! For me, it worked out very well.

- Candy Warehouse - They were fabulous to work with!

- Metro Candy - This was my personal favorite - they offer 10% off your first order too!

- Oh Nuts - This is where we ordered our Jordan almonds from - delicious!

- Candy Favorites.com - This is where we ordered our fun colored big lollipops!

Labeling: We chose to label our candy buffet items with small silver frames. In these frames we simply typed the names of the candy we offered and each had our little a & b logo to tie them all in. I've seen plenty of cute ways to label the candy buffet items - search online for various ideas and then let your creative juices flow!

Scoops: We hunted high and low to find the perfect scoops for our candy bar. We ended up ordering a bunch from a restaurant equipment company, they then shipped them to us. We also found a number of small ladle type scoops at Crate & Barrel. We tied some of the larger scoops with ribbon (to make them look prettier of course!) and then we placed the scoops in each of the jars to make sure they fit prior to the big day! (You'll be surprised some will not fit inside your narrow jars - so make sure to check them out prior!)

- Central Restaurant Supply - This is where we ordered most of our metal scoops.

- Crate & Barrel - We ordered our small scoops from crate & Barrel

Packaging: We choose to use small white paper wax bags. We ordered them online and they cost us next to nothing! We then printed our a & b logo on each bag. The bags then were placed in a low glass container that coordinated with the clear glass jars. The bags were easy and we printed them ourselves on our home printer! I've seen so many cute ideas with the takeout food boxes, small clear plastic cylinders, etc. Shop around - there are plenty of cute ideas out there!

- Papermart - We ordered our small white paper wax bags from papermart.

Arrangement: Make sure you picture how you will have your candy buffet set up. We had ours on a serpentine table (It's an 'S' shape table) we created various height levels with boxes under the table cloths and fabric and we tied ribbon around each glass jar to help tie it back to our color scheme. Make sure you let your friends, family, wedding planner, caterers, etc know what your vision is - we had ours drawn out for our set up crew! Thankfully we had two sets of FANTASTIC Master & Mistress of ceremonies as well as a few other family and friends helping - who all are just as perfectionstic as we are - so it worked out perfectly!

Behind the Scenes: We did a practice Candy Buffet at home in our dining room about three weeks prior to the wedding! We opened all the candies and placed enough in each jar so we had everything measured out perfectly. We then placed the measured amount of candy into a ziploc bag and labeled it. We also then labeled the coordinating jar - making it very easy the day of the wedding for set up! We were also able to sample each of our candies prior to the wedding then too! (This was great as we didn't even touch it on the wedding day because we were so busy mingling!) We set it all up so we could see how we wanted it to look and then we also realized we wanted a bit more height - so we went and bought large pixie stix too. Great idea if you have the time!

Last but not least, make sure to ask your photographer to take a ton of lovely pictures of your candy buffet - because it truly will be something you will remember for ever! I had such a wonderful photographer, I didn't even have to ask her to take the pictures - she just did it!!

More than anything else, make sure you have fun with this. . . having a candy buffet is a great way to showcase your creativity! One last bit of advice, make sure you take the time to walk over and see your candy buffet during your reception - would you believe that I never even made it over to the candy buffet during mine - the first time I saw it was in the pictures! CRAZY!!