Best Treats for a Candy Buffet

When throwing a party I love to feature a candy buffet for the guests to select their own treats.  Not only does it go over well with the party attendees but it also makes a fabulous spread to compliment the party decorations.  When Party City sent me some gumballs in the coordinating colors for T’s Sweet 16 to review, I was pleasantly surprised.  I shop at Party City a lot for all our party needs.  I also shop there for our Halloween costumes.  However, I had never purchased their solid colored candy for parties before.

When putting together a candy buffet it’s important to make sure the candy colors match your party theme.  Luckily the Alice in Wonderland theme has many colors so we had multiple options to choose between.  I gathered various sizes of glass vases and candy dishes to display the treats in.  When it was time for me to start buying candy I visited two local candy shops and even called around to compare prices.  The going rate was anywhere between $11 and $13 per pound depending on type of candy you wanted.  In case you haven’t weighed rock candy or suckers lately, they are heavy and therefore the price adds up quick!  I was shocked when I realized it was going to cost me over $20 to fill one vase with rock candy.  For a party of 50 people I would have spent several hundred dollars just on candy alone.

If it would not have been for Party City offering us the review items I would have never thought to purchase our solid color candy from them for the candy buffet.  Their candy was half the price and tasted perfect.  When I went to the Party City store to purchase more candy we selected gummy bears (which they had on sale at the time), two different kinds of suckers, rock candy sticks, regular candy sticks and sixlets (which went extremely fast).  They even had color coordinating candy scoops that I purchased for each dish.  The scoops were less than a dollar each.  I was impressed.

T wanted a chocolate fountain at her party so while I was at Party City I decided to purchase one from them.  The sales associate told me about their coupons they offer on their website.  I was able to pull up the coupon from my iPhone and use $30 off a $100 purchase.  To do so you just visit their website on Safari, PartyCity.com, and click on the top right corner of the menu bar where it says Store Coupon.  Their website is mobile friendly and displays the bar-code on your screen so the cashier can scan it.

Since I knew we were going to have tons of chocolate flowing from a fountain I wanted the individual candy to be mostly non-chocolate to offer a variety.  For the chocolate fountain we offered items that were both salty and sweet along with fresh fruit for dipping.  We had marshmallows, pretzels, strawberries, apple slices, bananas and rice krispie treats.

Since the candy buffet was setup on one table with multiple candy dishes and vases I wanted the dishes in the back to be raised slightly so they could be easily reached.  I placed bricks under the table cloth to give some height to those dishes without anyone being able to see what they were sitting on.  Plus bricks are extremely stable so I didn’t have to worry about them slipping off.  To add some decoration to the table I used feather boas in the theme colors.

For the treat bags I had a hard time finding Alice in Wonderland theme so we made them.  I purchased a stamp and ink pad at Hobby Lobby with the teapot design.  Stamping all the brown bags was pretty simple, the part that took the most time was putting all the strings on for handles.  When the bags were setup on the candy buffet we placed markers in front of them so the guests could write their name on their bag.

The candy buffet turned out deliciously.  We had very little candy left at the end of the night and the chocolate fountain was a huge hit.  Noah is already requesting it at his parties.

What is your favorite thing to serve at a party?  What is your favorite candy or treat?

Full Disclosure: I received the gumballs along with some other items from Party City for my review.  The other items mentioned in this post I purchased on my own because of my love for Party City.  All opinions are 100% mine.  No other compensation was received.