Wedding Planning|Wedding Planning & Wedding Advice

What’s Halloween without candy?

Some might argue that candy is the best part!

Last month we shared some sweet ideas for how candy can spice up your wedding in our article “Weddings Sweet as Candy”.

A Halloween themed wedding, or even just a wedding that takes place near October 31st, should definitely involve some sweet treats! Here are some ideas…

Treat Table

I know I already featured candy stations (a.k.a. candy buffets) in my candy feature last month, but since then I’ve discovered the candy station crackerjack of all time, Amy Atlas of Atlas Events. Here’s a sneak peek at a Halloween dessert table she created - visit the ‘eye candy’ section of her website for more tantalizing photos and be prepared to be blown away, they are the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Wedding Favors

Proof you can be eerie and elegant at the same time, Martha Stewart tells you how to make these Black and Orange Take-Away Truffles – they would make excellent wedding favors!

marthastewart.com

Another option: handcrafted personalized chocolates from Recchiuti – picture your names on one chocolate and a spooky image on the other…

recchiuti.com

Edible Seating Cards

Another sweet idea, use these cupcakes as placeholders for your seating cards! Place one cupcake at each table setting with a table card placed into the icing (or attached to a stick).

fancyflours.wordpress.com

You could print your guests’ names on card stock paper and then attach them to these bat picks with a dab from a glue gun.

shopbakersnook.com

Candy Cocktails

You might offer a sweet specialty drink at your reception to get the party going. Here is a photo of a chocolate martini, rimmed with a mixture of chocolate and sugar – the heart shaped strawberry garnish is a nice touch, but you could also use a candy of course!

chocolatezoom.com

Don’t forget to provide some delicious snacks to go with the drinks – perhaps some squishy spiders made from custard filled profiteroles and crunchy pretzel sticks…

ishouldbenapping.com

This is the second installment in a two part series about monogrammed items for weddings.

Last time we featured wedding cake toppers and provided you with some guidelines and etiquette for creating a monogram (Monograms Part 1: Let Me Spell It Out For You).

Today we feature everything else wedding-related you might want to monogram…

Wedding Invitations

Here is a wonderful example of modern monogramming on a wedding invitation, one of many amazing creations by Kate at weddinginvitationdesigner.com. (This is an example of one of my favorite wedding color schemes, too, by the way.)

weddinginvitationdesigner.com

Here is a another invitation that caught my eye – you can order it online and customize the colors to match your wedding theme. I have a weakness for cherry blossoms when it comes to weddings…

urbanitystudios.com

Cake Decorations

Monograms can be right on the cake rather than placed on the top layer as a wedding cake topper. Look closely at the cake below to see the monogram piped on to the second layer for an understated, yet personal touch.

ritzoflasvegas.com

Cookies, Cupcakes

Everyone knows I can’t resist a cookie, and these custom colored cake cookies are so cute I feel like getting married all over again.

beatricegiftservices.com

These cookies come individually wrapped in their own fancy box and can be ordered in various shapes and color. They look good enough to eat!

cookiesandcrumbs.com

The Cookie That Really Takes The Cake

Check out this lovely wedding cake and cookie combo by Melissa a blogger who also makes custom cakes and cookies (check out her site thegoodapple.blogspot.com – her work is right up there with those reality TV cake shows if you ask me!).

thegoodapple.blogspot.com

Cupcake Toppers

Here is another sweet idea – monogrammed cupcake toppers handmade by Etsy seller lilbooandco –  you get to pick all of the details for the design (monogram, color, circle, square, scallop, flower, etc).

etsy.com

Another option for wedding cupcakes: a monogrammed cupcake wrapper.

paperorchidstationery.com

I was recently in a candy store that had an old collection of PEZ dispensers on display and saw a PEZ version of a bride and groom, which I thought would make an excellent wedding cake topper for the couple with a sweet tooth.

Here is an example of a bride and groom PEZ couple.

Good luck getting this one on your cake, the original sells for about $3500 now according to an article at money.cnn.com.

You can get re-issues of this PEZ design – check ebay or pezcollectors.com – as of writing this article they both had a set available for around $20.00.

In fact an entire sweet theme, would be kind of – well, sweet.

Set up a candy station

You can select candies that match your wedding colors and let guests fill up their own goodie bags as tasty wedding favors!

Visit ohnuts.com for great tips for how to set up your own candy station.

ohnuts.com

Personalized Sweets

An Australian company will make you personalized candy (the candy below says Ben ‘hearts’ Renee).

sticky.com.au

Or use candy as the centerpieces for your tables instead of flowers

www.wanderfuls.com

Check out this candy wedding cake

The perfect foundation for a sweet wedding cake topper, from the very talented people at Cakelava. Check out their blog for a taste of all the great cakes they make!

Favor everyone with a kiss

Another wedding favor idea – a large Hershey’s Kiss at each place setting. At under 30 dollars for eighteen kisses, this is a very affordable wedding favor.

candywarehouse.com

Another option from Hershey’s…

wrappedhersheys.com

Gifts for the wedding party

Dylan’s Candy Bar has yummy jewelry at their online store. Here are just two examples to whet your appetite.

dylanscandybar.com

dylanscandybar.com

Other Takes on the Wedding Cake

Before I actually began planning my wedding I had all sorts of exciting ideas for wedding cakes (or substitutes thereof). However, when it came down to it I decided to go with a traditional tiered cake – a decision based on my plans to only get married once so I figured it would be my only chance to do it the traditional way. Should things not work out, here are some of the options I had considered and might go with the next time around (just kidding, honey!).

These  cake alternatives would also be wonderful for an engagement party, bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, or stag/stagette.

For the Hostess With the Mostest

I love this idea – it’s cute, it’s fun and it’s made up of some of my favorite treats! The cake pictured below was crafted by Phil Delaplane, an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America (and, incidentally, also the groom!).

hostesscakes.com

This type of cake would also work well with a cartoonish or funny cake topper. Here are two that I think would work very well, both from weddingstar.com.

weddingstar.com

A Cheeky Topper

"The Love Pinch" weddingstar.com

The Cupcake Cake

This choice is actually becoming very popular. It’s great because it’s self-serve!

Some couples have both – a traditional cake as well as a tiered cupcake tower.

affordableutahweddings.com

Flowers are a great wedding cake topper for a cupcake wedding cake. I also like this option from topperswithglitz.com.

Modern Monogram from topperswithglitz.com

The cupcakes can also double as wedding favors as well if you supply something to take the cake home in, like this large gold frosted to go box – the perfect size for a single cupcake.

alloccasionsgiftware.com

And if you’re wondering where the saying that something “takes the cake” comes from, check out this explanation from phrases.org.uk:

As early as the 5th century BC the Greeks used ‘take the cake’ as symbolic of a prize for a victory. In 420 BC the Greek Aristophanes wrote ‘The Knights’, which was a criticism of the powerful Athenian politician Cleon:  ”If you surpass him in impudence the cake is ours.”

The same site also talks about the American tradition of:

…cake-walk strutting competitions [where] couples would be judged on their style in the ‘cake-walk’. The winners were said to have ‘taken the cake’, which was often the prize.

If you’re a huge fan of Cinderella, and your “Prince Charming” is willing to play along with your fantasy – there are a lot of great options out there for fairy tale theme weddings – from the elegant royal event to the over-the-top fairy tale extravaganza!

Last week we featured the extreme end of ‘happily ever after’ in our post “Extremely Happily Ever After: Fairy Tale Weddings Part 1″.

This week we will take a look at the subtler side of all things Cinderella.

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Royal Favors

Card Boxes

Since my last post I have discovered an online store dedicated to making ?your wedding fairytale dreams come true: it’s called weddingfairytaledreams.com (surprise surprise). ?They specialize in fairy tale theme cake toppers and unity candles, but they also sell unique card boxes that every princess bride should own! Guests can deposit their wedding cards here. Traditionally, guests might bring monetary gifts to the wedding reception. Today, many guests who would otherwise buy a gift from your registry choose to buy a gift card instead. Also, some guests bring a card with well wishes to the event and then deliver their gift later (perhaps the gift is large or they haven’t purchased it yet; etiquette allows one year of shopping from the wedding date).

weddingfairytaledreams.com

Ring Bearer Pillow

packageperfect.net

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