Do It Yourself Project #7: Candy Buffet

After looking at pictures of weddings online, I quickly fell in love with the idea of a candy bar, or candy buffet. They're fun, nostalgic and remind me of Willy Wonka, E's favorite movie as a child. It totally fits our personality and even though it's been done before it still feels unique and like us. Unlike most wedding candy bars, ours won't be color coordinated or themed in any manner other than deliciousness. I have to say the idea of all blue candy or all white candy kinda creeps me out and I'd hate to cut out some favorites just because they don't fit our theme. I know I can find all blue gummy bears but really, who'd want to eat them?


Since our wedding is on a snug budget, we're making the candy bar ourselves and I had to buy all the pieces separately. I've been meaning to write this post for months but somehow never found the time to take photos of all our jars. I acquired them mostly from Ross stores all over Southern California but also from target and Micheals. We bought stainless steel scoops and tongs online.

Here are 9 out of our 15 candy jars. The others have been bubble packed so you'll have to wait until the actual wedding set up to see them! We ended up adding some extremely large jars to help make the candy bar feel more substantial. 

The actual candy for the candy bar was a little bit tougher to come by. We wanted a lot of chocolate and as you might know, chocolate can be really, really expensive. Especially if it's a brand name chocolate like snickers which just so happens to be my favorite. E's too but he can't really eat them since he's allergic to peanuts so he'll stick with starburst. We purchased our candy from candy.com, Costco, Smart & Final and surprisingly the 99 cents store. We had positive experiences with all places though candy.com discontinued E's beloved starbursts and sent some gross candy in their place. We're working with them now to get E his starburst fix. 

Some of our candy laid out on the table while we package it all up. 

Do It Yourself: Candy Bar

Company: Jars - Ross, Target, Michaels
Coupon: 40% off coupon for Michaels (the most expensive) - check your local paper,
Cost: $71.20 - this was a MAJOR sale-stalking score

Company: Candy - Candy.com, 99 cents, Smart & Final, Costco
Coupon: check for candy.com
Cost: $600-700

Company: Favor Bags - Papermart
Coupon: None
Cost: $26.46

Company: Scoops & Tongs - eBay
Coupon: None
Cost: $60.22

Total Cost: $757.88-857.88

In the end, the candy list looks like this:

1. Fun sized Snickers

2. Fun sized Crunch

3. Fun sized Butterfinger

4. Fun sized 3 Musketeers 

5. Fun sized Baby Ruth

6. Fun sized Twix

7. Peanut M&M's

8. Plain M&M's

9. Cherry Gummy Hearts

10. Gummy Bears

11. Jelly Beans

12. Peppermint Kisses

13. Fun sized Peppermint Patties

14. Starbursts

15. Juju drops

And here are a few snapshots of how it all turned out! 

Photos from our wonderful photographers, Ohana Photographers