Here's what you need for a successful candy buffet:
- Candy: Duh. It's a buffet of candy.
- Candy vessels. You can buy cute apothecary jars, use whatever your venue has, scour flea markets and thrift stores, glue candle sticks to dollar store containers, or some combination of these. I did a mockup months ago, but I've since added a few more containers to my arsenal:
Personal pic - Scoops: These are surprisingly cheap. We ordered ours from a website called Scoops-Scoops.com for about a dollar each!
- Candy bags: You can use paper bags, cellophane bags, Chinese take-out boxes, etc. Anything for your guests to collect candy in works! I showed you our polka dot bags with love quote labels already.
- Decorations (optional): I'm making tablecloths out of the same fabric I used to make my engagement pics dress. We're also using those adorable mini frames from Michaels to label each candy, and we'll be adding some cupcake liner poof balls on candle sticks for added pizzazz.
Image via Kara's Party Ideas - Backdrop (optional): Confession time--half the reason I wanted to do a candy buffet was so I could do a cool backdrop like these.
After finding a bunch of different bulk candy sources online, deciding what types of candy I wanted to get, and pricing them out at each supplier, I came up with this handy spreadsheet that I wanted to share with you all. Note: These prices are all approximate and will most likely change at some point, but it gives you an idea of the price range of each website and each type of candy.
Click to enlarge
The highlighted candy is the stuff I ended up buying (except the chocolate hearts. I'm so mad I somehow forgot to order those). I first figured out which store had the cheapest price for each candy. Then I quickly realized that shipping costs for 100 lbs of candy were going to be astronomical. Bulk Candy Store offers a flat shipping rate of $9.95, and they also had the best prices on many of the types of candy. For the candy that they didn't have the best price for, they were still cheaper to use when you took shipping into account. I ended up using Candy Warehouse as well for some candies that Bulk Candy Store didn't offer.
Screenshot from Bulk Candy Store
Screenshot from Candy Warehouse
And to save money, I signed up for their newsletters and liked them on Facebook. I ended up saving about $50 in coupon codes. Sweet. Literally.
We're not allowed to open the bags of candy before the wedding, because then it becomes a liability for the venue to serve it, so unfortunately I'm not going to be able to play around with deciding which candy will go in which container and figuring out the layout of the containers on the table. At this point in the game, I'm not sure I even care. Maybe I'll just leave it in the venue's hands and tell them to have fun with it. We'll see how the buffet ends up looking!
Are you having a candy buffet at your wedding? What candy would you love to see most at a candy buffet?
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