One of my favourite parts of a party (aside from the great company and fun) is the dessert table! Cakes, candy, cupcakes oh my….how can you ever go wrong? Aside from decor, it is one of the spots you can be creative and even incorporate your party colours of choice. There are so many options to choose from and you can really make it whatever you want. Over the past few years candy tables have really gotten popular (thank you Pinterest!) and many stores now carry various items to help in planning them. There are fun banners, signs, jars, labels etc. available to help with your vision.

The specific candy bar below was for our close friend’s grandma’s 100th birthday! Can you believe 100!? It’s hard to even imagine, especially in this fast paced moving world we live in. It was an honour to attend the party and help out for such a wonderful occasion!  The party decor colours were an elegant gold and white and we wanted the candy bar to reflect the same colours. Surprisingly there were plenty of gold and white options to choose from because sometimes the gold colour can be limiting. I had a chance to setup the candy bar at home and wanted to share some tips to help with your future candy bar setups. I still needed to add in labels, scoops and gold candy grab bags but the important items (the candy!) was there.

To first start with the setup, I went around my house and found any vases/jars that would work. I ended up having 3 that would work and the rest I found at my local Homesense. The vases I purchased were quite cheap in price (between $9.99 to $19.99) and can be re purposed for around the house decor.

JMS TIP: Don’t feel like you need to go out and purchase all new vases for a candy bar setup! Look around your house, ask your friends and neighbours or go to your local thrift shop for low cost options.

Once I had all my vases gathered, I cleaned them out and lined them up on the table ready to be filled. The one important item to remember about candy bars is to make the vases different heights and levels to keep things interesting. I took a step back and looked at what I had set up.

As you can tell from my original setup there was not enough height variety among the vases. I had three tall ones of the same height clumped together and smaller ones on the left. The setup was not balanced well. Since the vases are slightly different in heights I could move them around amongst themselves and still have the illusion of height levels.

JMS TIP: If all your vases are similar in height, I would suggest using some boxes/containers to bring in some height levels to the candy bar. These can be hidden underneath a tablecloth if needed.

I shifted the vases amongst themselves and gave the candy bar different height levels. This small difference balances the overall look of the candy bar and brings in some additional dimension with the overall look.

For the candy I was on the lookout for gold and white to match the party decor. I found some Werther’s Originals and Swiss Chocolate in gold wrappers at Costco and the price could not be beat! I ended up getting a few bags since they were so cheap compared to other places – I figured it would always be good to have additional! I then found the rest of the candy at Bulk Barn and it worked perfectly.

Tips on Filling Candy Vases 

This can be a little bit of a daunting task  – for some reason it never ever feels like you have enough candy when weighing it out at the store and you just never know how much to get in the end. I hope these tips can help you in the future!

1. Estimate about 1/4 –  1/2 pound of candy per guest.

2. For pricing – on average when doing the bar yourself you spend about $2 per person which is a lot cheaper than hiring out (places charge $4.99 and up!).

3. Average candy cost is $3.99 – $5.50 per pound. Anything cheaper is a deal and anything higher should be purchased in very small quantities because it will add up fast!

4. Lowest price candy to be placed in the largest jars – maximize your budget!

5. Look for coupons and flyers – if you are not picky about a specific colour you can get some great discounts.

6. Anticipate everyone eating/taking home candy with them. Even people who you think will never eat it always end up taking it for their kids, grand kids, friends etc.

7. Have a separate scoop for each jar – this not only encourages proper etiquette when getting the candy, it will also keep the area available for multiple people coming at the same time.

8. Bring a vase with you to the store as reference – since I purchased the Werther’s Originals ahead of time and the candy is average in size, I used them to be my reference candy when filling up the other jars. I took my smallest jar (the cylinder one that sits directly on the surface) and filled it with Werther’s Original candy. I then put that candy in tall jar #1 – it only filled up half the large jar therefore I repeated the process. It turned out that two filled cylinder jars equated to my #1 tall jar being full. Therefore when I went into the candy store I took my cylinder jar with me and made sure to fill it up twice to ensure I had enough candy for tall jar #1. I did this measurement for all my jars at home with the Werther’s Originals therefore I had a good idea of how much candy was needed per jar.

9. Ensure anything that can melt (chocolate, yogurt covered pretzels etc) has a wrapper on it. Since all these items will be placed in the same bag/container is it good to try to eliminate a mess before it happens. Gummies, gum, hard candy etc can stay unwrapped because they will not melt together.

10. Variety is key! This is your time to have fun with it – get your favourite childhood candy or things you have never tried before.

Overall planning a candy bar is meant to be fun therefore do not stress yourself out over it! Depending on how much you have purchased I would recommend having small bags (4×6) otherwise people will fill larger ones to the top. This also allows some candy to be eaten on site and be taken away in bags. Candy tables are always a bit hit at events therefore you cannot go wrong!

What are your favourite candies to have at a Candy Bar? List them below!