Wedding Blog

In my recent post about the Candy Buffet at our wedding there were some comments asking about what quantities I had purchased and for how many guests. I had been putting off posting the answers because I was hoping that our professional pics would have some better shots of the candy buffet set-up so that you could see better what I was talking about. Unfortunately (but fortunately for her!) our photographer has been very busy and we haven’t received our professional shots back yet. Here’s a nonpro pic:

I didn’t want to wait much longer in case some of you who were wondering need to start ordering your candy soon so here is the information:

We had 155 people at the wedding, including the wedding party, but I really didn’t try to have enough of every one thing for everyone. I was really only concerned with filling the jars that I had once, and I was fine if certain things ran out.

For example, I only ordered 1 pound each of the raspberry and hazelnut Lindor Truffles from Bulk Foods, and I wish that I had ordered twice that much. 1 pound barely filled the small apothecary jars that we had each of them them in and they went really fast.

On the other hand, I also ordered barber pole candy sticks from Bulk Foods and the 20 sticks of each that I ordered was the perfect amount as we had about 3 of each flavour left afterwards.

During Breast Cancer month (October, I think) I purchased 6 large bags of light and dark pink M&M’s at Walmart and we filled two cone shaped jars with them. We had a few in the bottom of each jar left over at the end but we probably guessed that one right as well.

I purchased 3 kinds of Jelly Belly jelly beans (Bubble Gum, Root Beer & Cotton Candy) from Gale’s Wholesale in Regina and we had 2 lbs of each kind in 3 different bowls. These were finished off early so if we’d had some more, and someone re-filling the bowls, we likely could have used at least another 50% (so 3 lbs of each = 9 lbs total).

I bought 3 kinds of Rock Candy sticks (20 each of Rootbeer, Cherry and Natural) from an ebay seller and we had quite a few white (natural) sticks left over. We did not label the candy and so I am guessing that people were not sure if they would like it so they left it. I would still buy the same amount because the presentation was important to me, and to fill the jars I needed to buy as much as I did.

I bought these lollipops from Favors and Flowers. I purchased 34 of both the bubble gum and the root beer flavours and these also went quickly. I suppose I should have seen these as our official favor (because they had the personalized ribbon on them as well) and bought enough for everyone, but I am okay with the way that it went. They were quite expensive and so I did not want to be left with many after the wedding.

We bought 1 bucket of cola bottles from Costco and that filled one large bowl. Those went quickly as well and again, we probably could have had twice that many but we chose to underestimate rather than have a lot of candy left over.

The most disappointing candy purchase was our custom mix from Translucent Chocolates. I had called them to place an order, and while doing so mentioned that our wedding colours were light pink, bright pink and brown. The woman I talked to said that they could make me a custom mix with those colours. So, I chose light pink sesame seeds, bright pink chocolate almonds and brown toffee balls. Granted, they didn’t have any colours to match the order to, so I can’t complain that the order didn’t match my colours specifically but that really isn’t my problem. My problem is that the colour combination they used wouldn’t have looked good for ANYONE! The bright pink was almost Pepto pink whereas the light pink was a really nice soft pastel colour. I have no idea why they thought that this would be a good combo to sell to someone and I was really disappointed because I have bought some of their pre-made mixes before in stores and they are always such lovely colour combos.

Anyhow, no biggie. What we ended up doing was taking out all of the bright pink almonds and then just adding a bag of chocolate almonds from Costco to them and putting them in a separate jar. We kept the toffee balls and the light sesame seeds together in another bowl and it all worked out. In terms of quantity, if the colour combo had been fine as is, then 4 lbs would have been plenty for one large sized candy jar. When we split the order into two and added another large bag of almonds we ended up with two full large candy dishes. We did not have any of either left over at the end of the night but I think we judged that candy perfectly and if I were to do it again I would order the same quantity.

The most fun I had with the candy buffet was watching Mr. Pumpkin sit in front of the candy machines at the mall with 2 rolls of quarters and a ziplock bag buying Chews! Mr. Pumpkin LOVES Chews. Every time we go somewhere and the candy machine has them he always asks me for a quarter so we knew we had to have them in the candy buffet. Most people do not remember them but they are small circular sour gum that comes in 3 flavours, cherry, orange and grape. When we were kids you could buy them by the flavour but now they only come as a mix. We looked everywhere to buy them in bulk but couldn’t find anyone to sell them to us so a couple of days before the wedding Mr. Pumpkin went down to the mall and sat on the floor in front of the candy machine and plugged in quarters. I am kicking myself now for not taking a picture because it was a pretty funny moment. Once he bought $20 worth we had to go home and separate out the pink ones so that our colour scheme would remain intact. Mr.Pumpkin didn’t mind the humiliation of sitting in front of the candy machine once he got to eat all of the left over Chews! Anyhow, so we only ended up with a small square jar full of pink Chews and we had quite a few left over, but it was all worth it because it meant something to Mr. Pumpkin.

Here is a breakdown of amounts and costs of the candy:

Lindor Truffles - 2 lbs = 22.98
Barber pole sticks - 40 sticks = 12.50
Pink M&M’s - 6 lrg bags = 11.35
Jelly Belly jelly beans - 6 lbs = 24.75
Rock Candy sticks - 60 = 35.00
Lollipops - 68 = 190.40
Cola Bottles - lrg box = 9.98
Translucent Chocolates Mix - 4 lbs = 39.00
Chocolate Almonds - lrg bag = 14.00
Chews gum - 1/4 lb ? = 20.00

Grand total = $379.96

Please keep in mind that this total does not include taxes or shipping, the cost of the jars, clear bags for the candy, scoops/spoons/tongs, personalized ribbon for the lollipops or personalized labels for the candy bags. If you were to add all of that in the total would be close to $500.

You should also keep in mind that we had the candy out all day so if you put it out later in the evening you might not need as much as we had. Hopefully I will have some better pictures to show you once out professional pics come back, although, I am running out of Candy themed songs to use for the post titles so hopefully this will be the last one!

* Stone Temple Pilots