Wedding Blog
After sugaring up yesterday with mounds of Halloween candy, I remembered that I never blogged about our awesome candy buffet.
People have asked me, “Did anyone actually EAT the candy at your wedding?” The answer is YES. There was actually none left. And I bought A LOT of candy. Guess my family and friends are sugar hounds too!
So, here is what I did.
CANDY
I would say 75% of our candy came from bulkfoods.com. The Website is kind of a pain to navigate, but they hands down have the best prices and there is some cool stuff in there. For instance, the jumbo jawbreakers, featured above, were from there. They looked great in a tall bowl and everyone adored them. Also, the rock candy glittered and looked very pretty! I even used them for my hostess gifts by buying bulk lindt truffles to go in the bags. I heart you bulk foods.
The rest of the candy came from drugstores at holidays (on sale!). I was going for a seagreen theme so it was mostly X-mas candy with a little easter stuff mixed in. True, the candy was not “brand new,” but seriously, that stuff has a long shelf life and tasted fine to me. Really, I tasted it all before I put it out. No dying here.
I also bought cookies from the grocery bakery. In Arizona they have something called Mexican wedding cookies that have powdered sugar on them (covering the whole thing) — not only pretty, but delicious. I got a bunch and put them on a cake stand. I also got white chocolate covered oreos and put those on a stand. I dream of them. They were soooooo good.
SCOOPS
I bought the candy scoops at a coffee store in Manhattan. I spent a lot on the scoops because I didn’t want the flimsy kind and I bought a ton of them. It was like $5 for the small scoops and $6.50 for the big ones.
I’ve been meaning to sell a few leftover things from the wedding, so I’ll be posting them in the classifieds shortly.
CANDY JARS
Someone at the wedding actually called my Mom and bought most of the jars so there are just a few left to sell. Will post these later if y’all are interested. At any rate, I was a sale hound for these. Crate and Barrel outlet has some good buys. Like the bella hurricane for $14.95 (below). Items with a wide top work best!
Also, if you have a Home Goods Store by you — great deals there. Michaels too! They do coupons online every week so print one before you go. Lastly, Tuesday Morning can have good finds! Oh, and I got one good one at Big Lots. Keep in mind that it looks best when you have a variety of heights and shapes.
Lastly, the candy bags! I got ours from Nashville Wraps — clear with silver polka dots. Too cute! I bought lots of bags and silver twist ties for them. I also got fancy gift bags from them for my hostess gifts…
If you do a candy table, have fun with it. And no sugar comas, please!
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I have a question for you candy buffet gals out there…is this your favor, or are you giving seperate favors in addition to the candy buffet?
And miss Lily, your candy buffet is GORGEOUS! the shapes of the jars and the colors are really yummy!
Our favor was candy bins that already had candy in them… it was sort of coordinated, but the buffet was an extra 
Even the non-pro pic is beautiful. The colors and layout looks like it belongs in a magazine. (would love to see how your photographer captured this) Great job!
We have those too, except my mom calls them Russian Tea Cakes. I look forward to them every year at Christmas.
Ooooh, that is a TON of candy!!! How many guests did you have and was all the candy gone by the end of the night?
190 guests and yep, it was all gone — just a few mints left!!!!
Can you post where to find the online michael’s coupon? On their site they say that they don’t have printable online coupons, but I would definitely use them if I could get some.
THANK YOU for the Nashville Wraps link. Cheaper–way cheaper–than Oriental Trading Company’s food bags, and tons more designs. We’ll definitely be shopping there for the Christmas goody bags this year!
LOVE IT, thank you, I am wanting a candy bar and you have given me some great ideas. For the bags what size did you use? Just curious since I have not started planning it yet, still have until June 08!
I’ve been going back and forth between if I am going to have a candy buffet or not.
How many pounds of candy did you end up buying? What would you guess the end price per person was? (Not including scoops and containers?)
I just am not sure if I’m going to have one or not yet.
every wedding that i’ve been to that has had a candy buffet, there wasn’t a single candy left!
I’m having a whole candy-themed wedding. I think I’m more excited about the candy than the actual wedding. We are even renting a cotton candy machine!!! I want a picture of me in my dress making cotton candy. Our centrepieces are actually going to be candy jars with REAL candy in them. I’m so psyched for this.
How many scoops do you have? I’ll buy them! I’ve been searching for scoops and have had no luck. Did all the candy last until the wedding? No problems with it going stale?
i was thinking of having a candy buffet too, but it seemed expensive, do you mind me asking how much it cost for the whole station?
Oh, fantastic link for the bags! WOo!
Since my wedding is on Halloween the candy is kind of a given–but I would like a number on a pounds/guest ratio…right now I’m just looking at having a ton.
And I’m planning on that being my only favor…it’s a little greener to give out edible favors than something that might be left on the table or thrown out the next day.
I love candy bars at weddings and yours looks fantastic! Glad to hear it was such a hit. I’m thinking about doing one at mine and nixing any table favors, because I don’t think they’re necessary.
I love the candy bars and want to do one myself. My biggest dilemma is how much candy and jars I will need for a reception of 300 people. If anyone knows or has ideas about this, please let me know more!
So many of you want to know how much candy I used per person and how much the whole thing cost. Sadly, I don’t have a clue. I knew how big the table I could use was so I just collected jars until I had enough for the table to look good. Then I guesstimated how much of each candy went in each jar. I filled them with different things to try and work it out. Somehow it came together. I had a little extra of one or two things.
Also, none of the candy went stale. I think the trick is not to open any of the bags. I also put everything in ziploc freezer bags. I only opened the bags the week before the wedding!
Lani — E-mail me directly to talk about the scoops!
Great pics Mrs Lily! For everyone who wants the exact numbers of how much candy to buy - Mrs Pumpkin did a comprehensive breakdown of her candy buffet a few months back. That’s what I used to estimate how much candy I needed for my 100 person wedding.
For those of you thinking of doing a candy buffet, I would say buy more candy than you think you need. In order to make it visually appealing, you sort of want it to look like the table is “overflowing” with candy, and totally decadent. Since I only had 100 ppl at my wedding, if I had gotten the exact amount of candy needed, it would have looked skimpy and like we were being cheap. In total, I spent $500 on all the containers, scoops, bags, and candy. And yes, once I realized how much $ I spent, it was also my favor. But seriously, people were NUTS about it. The kids were literally in awe - “I can have as much as I want? For free?” I’m really glad we did it.
Thank you thank you thank you sooo much for the Nashville Wraps link! Great stuff at a great cost! I found excatly what i’ve been searching for. Awesome!
This may be random - but where did you get the little sign your “instructions” were clipped into? I’m trying to find one for my favor table and my “advice table” and can’t find one anywhere! Please advise!!
And thanks for sharing - i wish i had seen this post before i made up my mind about favors. You make it much less intimidating!
Hi Kelly — I actually bought them. They are the same ones I used for the table numbers. I went digging in my e-mail and can’t remember where I bought them, but these are them:
http://www.amazon.com/Wedding-Favors-Holder-Table-Number/dp/B000LILQ5O
Pretty sure I got them a lot cheaper though!
I had a hard time finding scoops for my candy buffet. Our colors were brown/hot pink and could only find aluminum or white scoops. We thought of using the clear scoops but wanted something unique. We finally found a “plastic shovel” in hot pink no less! The candy buffet was a hit at our reception and everyone loved the shovel scoops. We found them at scoops-scoops.com and they are so cute! Oh, we purchased 1/4 pound of candy per person and not too much was left over. The new Mrs. Ricky Thompson
How many different kinds of candy did you choose to use. Do you have any idea of the amts of pounds that you used for the different kinds of candy.
Thanks for your help, I love your buffet.
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Miss Lily, New York/Tucson
Age and Occupation in 06: 30, Public Health Researcher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Art/Web Stuff
Engagement Date: February 11, 2006
Wedding Date: April, 2007
Venue: Tuscon, Arizona
About Me: Here are some things I love?�‚�? painting, drawing, knitting and all other crafty things (including glueing popsicle sticks together); burritos (must be from Arizona); indie/70s rock; whiskey; dogs (if only my tiny apt could support one!); bad TV; and reading. I'm also crazy indecisive so fingers crossed wedding planning doesn't kill me.
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