Variety
Candies vary in shapes, flavors, color shades and sizes. Variety not only makes candy buffets and dessert tables visually attractive, it also appeals to the differing tastes and preferences of your guests.
Vertical Composition
Just like great landscaping or flower arranging, an aesthetically pleasing candy buffet or dessert table will present items at a variety of height levels. Not every jar and container will be the same height as another. You can even have a few tall containers presented as visual displays or centerpieces and then have many jars of the same height and size for actual sampling purposes. Of course, you could purchase containers in different heights to achieve this effect, but with a little creativity you can use one of our suggested techniques. To create different levels, find a few objects (e.g. dishware, books, paperweights, anything that is heavy and flat to provide a solid platform) that vary in height, and place them underneath your tablecloth using them as stands for your candy containers. If you aren’t using a tablecloth you can opt to purchase clear acrylic risers from any arts and crafts store to create height differentials. Or, you can get creative and employ interesting and artistic objects as risers and incorporate them into your candy buffet theme. The different ways you can present a candy buffet are limitless, but creating some height differentials will make it more interesting.
Establish a Color Scheme
Although color is great, too many can detract from creating an artistic impression. In general, we suggest that you stick to two to three main colors that complement each other and present your guests with at least three to four different candies of the same color. Slightly varying shades of these colors are fine, and can be visually appealing! This way, your color scheme and overall color message comes through in the presentation.
However, if you want to use more than our suggested two to three color combination, try to keep them to the same color family (e.g. not mixing pastels with primary colors). One example of keeping a multitude of colors within the same family is our
Rainbow Candy Buffet. By sticking with only primary and complementary colors from the color wheel, the extremely color-filled buffet achieves a bold, circus-like feel without creating a sense of discord (which can happen when too many colors of varying hues clash and are displayed together).
Our advice, keep your focus on one of the following groups: cheery primary colors, heroic complementary colors, reckless neons, or muted pastels. Or, go monochromatic and showcase a number of eye catching hues of a single color!