Sweet tables are guaranteed to be a hit at any wedding! I decided to incorporate the fact that my hubby is Canadian and I’m British as a theme in our sweet table.
Hiring a sweet table wasn't in our budget. However making our own turned out to be even more fun. We made sure from our recent west coast trip to Canada/USA we picked up some local sweets such as Tootsie Rolls and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and mixed them with some traditional UK sweets. We chose the retro space saucers, jelly babies, white mice and a whole lot more! We also added some handmade popcakes, which were made by the lovely Sweet Crunch (www.sweetcrunch.co.uk). The popcake's were also themed, with handmade maple leafs on some and a selection decorated with English flowers made of popping candy and dried strawberry flakes.
One idea I unfortunately didn’t see until after the wedding was personalised marshmallows. There is a fairly new company called Boomf (www.boomf.co.uk) who print pictures from your Instagram account onto marshmallows – this would most certainly have made it onto our sweetie table had I known about it!
Now we had all the contents, the next step was to focus on how to make it look chic. My first reaction was to hunt through my kitchen cupboards for anything I thought would be suitable. I came across some beautiful handmade bowls from Chinatown in Vancouver we had purchased a few months earlier. I also found a bunch of old candle jars which I cleaned out. I then went to the local charity shops where I found the ultimate deals. I wanted to place a selection of the sweets in glassware so I searched for different types of crystal bowls, plates etc. I managed to find a variety which cost from £2.50-£4.50 each! Definitely a bargain and I’m able to keep and use again and again. Another great idea is to use wine glasses and afternoon tea stands for the popcakes, maple cookies and shortbread we had on the table. The wine glasses for example were filled with sugar and some dried strawberry flakes with the popcakes standing up. This was a way to present the sweets on different levels too so the table looked even more exciting!
We wanted to have some kind of signage on the sweet table so people knew what they were eating. As our venue had minimal lighting mini signs/tags wouldn't work. This is when my hubby came in useful, he came across a site: www.wordle.net which we used to create attractive Word Clouds. It randomises naturally so you have to keep clicking until you find one that takes your fancy. Having found a design I liked, I printed onto card. Lastly I put the card into a frame I found at Wilkinson (www.wilko.co.uk).
Finally, to decorate the table I recycled two clear wine bottles I had left over from Christmas, soaked off the labels, (piping hot water in the bath works best) and placed battery LED lights inside. A handy tip is to use double sided tape to stick the battery to the back of the bottle on the outside. This by far is a cost effective way to make anything look extra special.
Helpful tips to creating your own sweet table:
- Wilkinson – for picture frames & LED lights
- Tescos, Wilkinson, Pound stores & The Range – for sweets
- Local Charity shops - for bowls, plates & containers
- Search around the house for empty jars, wine bottles & anything you can use to contribute to your sweet table.
- www.sweetcrunch.co.uk – for popcakes and cookies
- www.boomf.co.uk – for personalised marshmallows
