Candy Buffet - is it worth it?

You can get glass jars for pretty cheap, if you shop around and use coupons. Michaels and Hobby Lobby have some great stuff, just get them when they are on sale, or grab one of their 40-50% coupons and buy them one at a time (you can only use one coupon per day, etc). Also Wal-mart has some great glass containers that are already pretty low priced.

As for the candy, around where we live there aren't any good bulk candy stores. Your best bet might be to just get the large bags of candies at Wal-mart. You can get big bags of M&M's for like $8 and such...depending on the candy you want. You can also check the dollar stores. We wanted to have after dinner mints at the tables at our reception, and the ones at the Dollar Tree were cheaper than everywhere else we looked, even the internet.

Good Luck!

Do you have like a Marshalls/TJ Maxx? They always have many shaped/sized glasses there for cheap. And also for the candy- like the party stores had the solid colored M&Ms, or if you have any candy buffets etc. I just attended a wedding a couple weeks ago and the candy bar WAS A HIT!! I was going to do it for my wedding but didn't really want to spend the extra money and I'm not a sweet person but now I wish I did The wedding I went to her theme was purple so she had purple gummy bears, purple tootsie rolls, purple lolipops, purple m&ms, purple licorice ... etc. (just to give you a little idea for brainstorming) It was very cute and people had their little bags full!!! haha

Since your venue is charging you 150 just to set up I don't see how it will be cost effective. I got all my jars, bags and labels for under 100. Can they wave it if you have someone set it up?

I am not sure, I have to ask that question when I speak to them next. It is kind of ridiculous, isn't it??

The $150 set-up fee is what kills your #. For me, I got jars from Home Goods and Michael's. Most of them were under $6 - for some really nice jars... I was buying one jar a week, though, with the Michael's coupons. I got really good bulk candy from candy warehouse and one more site... I have to check for the name. Overall, for jars and candy, I spent just about $200 - $250. Definitely not more than $250. We did a black white and red theme. It's so easy to find red candy - twizzlers, jolly ranchers, etc. White was hard, but I just did mints and marshmallows (which were so freakin cheap). I could not, in good faith, buy licorice just for the sake of having black candy. We did have some non-pareils, though.

However, back to your original post... if there were a fee of $150, that would have made my numbers screwy. Will they not let you set up your own buffet?

Yes I agree it's messed up! It's very easy to set up. Only if they waive that will it be cost effective.

That's what I was thinking, ladies! I am DEFINITELY not paying the $600-800 for their candy buffet....I really need to ask if we can set it up. Otherwise, I'm afraid, like you are all saying, it will not be worth it

Then...it's back to the drawing board!

I would ask if they would allow someone to set it up for you. Don't even say a friend or something....tell them you have a vendor....lol.

A lot of what I had to say was already said, but I just wanted to add that I'm budgeting $300-$350. I already bought most of my jars for $10 each and I'm getting my candy from my local grocery stores that have a bulk department and ordering online. To save on shipping I'm gonna order what I can while it's still cold out so they don't charge me a ridiculous amount on shipping.

The charge of $6-8 per person is RIDICULOUS!! I would definitely ask if they let you set it up!

Thanks for this thread girls. I have been toying with the idea of a candy buffet--would love to collect interesting jars from antique stores and thrift shops through the coming months to give it an ecclectic look. I have thought about DIYing some of the treats that I have made over the years for holidays and that are family favorites. Was wondering from you gals that have done it, how do you distribute the candy? Do you put your bags/cones on the dining tables or at the buffet itself. Have you had a monitor so that little kids don't sneak over and eat so much they throw up??? Just wondering. Don't know if FH would even be interested in doing this. --One more question--did you do the buffet instead of or in addition to other favors? Thanks!!

@ Jessica - I hate to say it, but it sounds like the candy buffet isn't worth the $$. I hate that some venues (usually hotels or venues w/ in-house caterers) charge you extra to bring your own.

@ Julie - we're doing a candy buffet in lieu of a groom's cake and as our favors. FH is a bit of a candy fanatic so when he heard about candy buffets he jumped on it. It'll be all self-serve - parents will have to monitor their own kiddos' consumption. I'm not the one that'll have to deal w/ a sick or hyper kid, so I figure they'll keep on top of it themselves.

We're using small cellophane bags that you'd find at a party store. My venue's owner actually suggests either not doing favors, or only doing 50-75% of your attendance to save some money. She said more often than not, many guests will leave them behind.

Ditch it. Too much money for something that's getting passe. Love the coffee bar idea; love cotton candy too.

We did a candy bar at our wedding and it was a huge hit! We had about 100 people, and we didn't spend nearly that amount of money. You can also buy bulk candy online and alot offer if you have over a certain $ amount, it's free shipping. I think what the venue is trying to charge you is a tad steep. Maybe negotiate? We also bought a alot of our vases from Goodwill. They were great after we washed them and sterlized them. We did have some chocalate, but also large pixie stix, suckers, wrapped candy. The unwrapped candy we did buy new jars for. Just a thought. We left with maybe a ziplock full of candy, that was it. I thought it was definately worth it IMO.

Well the question is

With doing it yourself, will it cost a noticeable difference less than the $600 including the $150 set up charge?

by my calculation if you only want to pay $500 instead of the venue's $600, you will have $350 to buy the candies the bowls scoops and ribbons and such.

I plan on giving everyone a tin of pink candies as their favor mixing it up a bit though so that people can trade if they want.

this will only cost for the ribbons, the tins i already have and the candy, a lot less.

I'm not doing one..not worth it IMO. I've been to several weddings, and if they had one, I never saw people like lining up at it or anything..I think your money is better off spent with something like a cookie table instead..a lot of venues, at least in my area let you bring them in for free. I think it all depends on what your budget allows, as well as your crowd, if you think they'd like that sort of thing.

Keep in mind that there are companies out there that provide this service, as well as other treat bars, for less than what your venue is charging you.

Not everyone may like candy, but you can mix in salty/savory items, go for a gourmet popcorn set up or even a mini-dessert bar.

If you go the route of a coffee bar, be sure to add teas and hot chocolates for the people that don't like coffee.

I thought of hiring a professional candy buffet person, they were going to charge about $5/person and were going to allot 1/4 lb of candy per person, so for $20/lb I went on my own. (These are also Canadian prices) but I'm saying that to say that you can do it cheaper, find the jars used and buy candy on sale, you can make it as big or small as you want.... I "accidently" went overboard and bought 1 lb of candy per person, but it was the same price as the professional.... so it was about $600 after the candy and the jars.. even if they had a $150 additional fee, I could've bought a little less candy (I came home with about 15 lbs)... but, the guests took a bag home for kids that didn't come to the wedding and stuff.. overall they loved it! and it was a great decoration, so it served two purposes!

We have been to a lot of weddings that had way too much candy and had a lot left over. A couple of weddings sprinkled matching color kisses around the table, it added color and you don't have to pay $150 to the venue for nothing.

We had a candy/popcorn buffet and we hired an outside source to provide everything. We spent about $4.00 a person but we included quite a bit of chocolate into it and specialized candy (we also incorporated it into the dessert buffet so it wasn't it's own table) but spread out with all the other goodies. The set up fee for the candy store was $50.00. For me it was worth it because I didn't want anyone to have to be responsible for it.

I do agree that if you don't want to spend the money, use that money you were going to spend into something else (like a dessert buffet, cotton candy, etc).

I think you need to find out what types of candy is included in that price. If it's high end chocolates and fancier candies, I totally think it's worth it but if it's just hard candies and M&Ms and such, it's too much money.

Ladies, it's very time consuming to go around collecting all the jars that may or may not be on sale plus searching for deals on bulk candies. Driving around wasting gas or paying for shipping cost of the weight of the candies will add up a lot too. To make your buffet table inthe theme color and making labels and signs to dress up the table is also time consuming. If it is a wedding, you want it to look elegant and beautiful and not like a kids birthday party so it takes alot of work. Why am I saying this is what I went through do it myself at my wedding. Getting help from bridesmaids or friends and family will also waste their as well. With all the planning to put together a wedding is a difficult job already, you dont want to load on more stress and time into a candy buffet. It will work out to be almost the same price, the only difference is you have a professional taking care of packaging and setting up/take down and do all the run around and designin for you. They have the creativity to make your table look amazing. Trust me, I got really sick right after the wedding trying handle it all and couldnt go on honeymoon. Now I ask you was it worth doing it yourself or have friends help out? If I could start all over I would have hired most vendors to do it for me instead. Its not worth getting sick over. Bottom line you would still pay almost the same amount. I hope this give future brides a little of an idea what to expect. It is totally up to the brides what she wants to do, this was just from my experince. Good luck everyone.