It's only candy...but why is it stressful?!

We've been planning since about the beginning to do a candy buffet as our favor. I've been approaching it with mixed feelings these days. For starters, candy is expensive. I'm really, truly trying to push that thought from my mind until I have to worry about it this summer. But beyond the cost, I've found that it's hard to do a candy buffet and make it look great! If you don't give a lot of thought to texture, colors, containers and varied height, your buffet will undoubtedly fall flat.

Fortunately Flickr has a Candy Buffet Photo Pool, so you can search through example after example with ease. To make the execution of this favor even more accessible, I've decided to break it off piece by piece. Let's start with signage, take away containers and texture.

Candy Buffet Take Away Containers
I've seen different boxes and bags for guests to fill up with candy. Chinese-style takeout boxes are popular, but I have no desire to have a stack of these just asking to be knocked over! The most functional (and affordable) option I've seen are bags that coffee is normally stored in, complete with the twist tie top.

Source: Flickr.com

I've found bags similar to these on a site called N State Packaging that come in black or white and are $19.35 for a package of 100 - brilliant! Slap a custom sticker on there and you're done.

Signage

I think you really need something that leaps out at your guests. Since my black, white and green color scheme is all about high contrast, I love the white on black signs that this bride created. Doing reverse text like this (as long as you do it well - using legible font and large font size) draws the eye right to it! The labels placed on the jars are genious as well, I want to dig in!

Source: Flickr.com

Changing Up the Texture

It seems like so many of the candy buffet pictures are just rows of clear glass containers filled with different colors of M&M's and jelly beans. I like the idea of using different containers and different types of candy to give the table different texture and height.

Photo from Rebecca Thuss

The above picture would be so easy to do and I think would be incredibly easy to reproduce in a variety of ways.

Source: Jamali Garden

I love the Jamali Garden web site because they have such great, modern products at really affordable prices! This 16 x 3 x 5 Kiri Wood Vase is only $12! How easy would it be to put a block of foam in it, cover that black rocks or something, and then stick in a bunch of different suckers at varied heights? So fun!

So now I've got an easy way to start the favor project...buying the bags then designing the labels and the signs. Easy, easy! I'd welcome anyone's suggestions out there for not only great places to buy bulk candy from (anything local in Chicago?) as well as how you decided on the right quantities...this would greatly easy my candy buffet anxiety!