Updated on: Feb 11, 2024
A traditional wedding consists of a traditional wedding cake table. Are you looking for something unique to switch up your wedding? Instead of a wedding cake, try providing a wedding dessert table for you and your guests to enjoy. Here are some ideas and suggestions for wedding tables so that you can please the sweet tooth of all of your guests.
Wedding Dessert Table - Tips and Ideas
Theme and Design Ideas
Whether your wedding venue is a rustic country ranch or an elegant ballroom, a dessert table has become a must-have. To maintain a consistent theme, you want to make sure your display pairs seamlessly with the rest of your wedding decorations. Incorporate a complementary color scheme or accent your table with light-colored flowers and wooden serving platters to give it a natural and soft feel. We’ve gathered up some of the best table designs and wedding ideas to enhance your desired wedding aesthetic.
1. Modern Country Chic
Incorporate earthy tones and materials such as flowers, foliage, and tree trunk serving platters to give your dessert table a cozy, rustic feel. You can even place larger props such as old wooden crates alongside your main table to showcase your desserts at different levels and make your display pop.
2. Dessert Shelves
Tight on space? Consider dessert shelves or cabinets. Allow your guests to choose from numerous sweet treats conveniently displayed in a simplistic yet enticing manner.
3. Bohemian
Give your dessert table a boho 70’s look with macrame table runners and other bohemian-inspired props like hanging feather displays and dream catchers.
4. Color-Coordinated
A color-coordinated array of sweet treats creates a clean and aesthetically pleasing look. Talk to your bakers about frosting your mini desserts to match your wedding cake and color scheme.
5. Vintage
For all those old souls out there seeking a more vintage look for their wedding, look no further. Incorporate gold, brass, and crystal elements such as platters and candle holders to give your table a timeless and elegant feel.
6. French Inspired
Create a French Inspired dessert table with a tower of macaroons. Macaroons are that sweet French cookie sandwich that everyone loves. A giant tower or a few smaller towers of these colorful cookies would be a fantastic wedding centerpieces for your dessert table. You can also scatter around other popular French desserts like lemon tarts, chocolate croissants, and crème brûlée to recreate a Paris pastry shop. Accent your table with light color tones and golden adornments to tie the theme together.
7. Pastel
For spring or summertime weddings, pastel tones pair perfectly with any outdoor venue. With lightly frosted desserts piled high and dainty flowers flowing across the table, it will recreate a romantic French tea party display that embodies an era of elegance and luxury.
8. Fall Themed
If your wedding is in the fall, an apple cider and donut display would be perfect. You can even spike the cider for an added twist. Have cider donuts, cinnamon sugar, powdered donuts, and glazed so your guests can choose from a variety of options. Accent the table with red and orange autumn foliage and use burlap table runners to create that rustic fall feel.
Wedding Dessert Ideas
Now it's time to think about what kind of dessert you want on your wedding. The beauty of a dessert table is that you can include anything and everything you want! There are endless sweet treats to choose from, like cookies, cupcakes, pies, pastries, and various fruit desserts. If you want to be really unique, scratch the table idea altogether and set up a doughnut wall!
It's also important to have a dessert selection that everyone will enjoy, so consider taking a quick poll of your wedding party's favorite sweet treats. To make things easier, we've gathered up 10 dessert table ideas that are known to be crowd favorites!
9. Customized Cookies
Customizable cookies are great for a wedding. They are personal and sweet! Some options for customization: you can put the date of your wedding or your initials on the cookies. This is a unique idea and adds a nice touch to the desert table!
10. Wedding Cupcakes
Serving wedding cupcakes instead of a cake is a no-brainer. It is quick, easy, and doesn't require as much planning or stress. Unlike a single cake, with cupcakes, you can serve so many different flavors and frostings. Your wedding guests will have no problem finding something they love.
11. Candy Bar
While this looks like a kid's dream (and a parent's nightmare), all of your guests will go crazy over a candy bar. Offer gummy candy, sour candy, hard candy, chocolate, and more! You can also buy candy in a customizable color to fit your theme. A candy bar also doubles as party favors. Leave goodie bags by the table for guests to fill up and take home at the end of the night.
12. Go Back to Your Roots
If you or your spouse are entwined with your ethnic backgrounds, incorporate that into your dessert table! For example, Italians are known for their cookies. You can have biscotti out on the table along with almond-paste cookies and more! Ask your local bakery if it can make specific traditional recipes for your big day.
13. Couple Cake
If you have a dessert table, you don't necessarily need to have a big wedding cake as well. However, you can have your local bakery whip up a small, customized fondant cake for the married couple. You can still participate in the traditional cutting of the cake ceremony while having other fun dessert options for guests.
14. Pies-Only
If you want to be really unique, scratch the traditional wedding cake for a pies-only dessert table. From cherry to chocolate chess, you can display an endless selection of full-sized or mini pies to appease any of your guests. It’s as easy as pie (pun intended)!
15. Chocolate Fountain
A chocolate fountain is a very unique choice for a dessert table. For this, you can offer dark chocolate, white chocolate, and milk chocolate. Make sure you have fantastic dippers too! Offer fruit like strawberries, mangos, and apples. Have other dunk-able treats like marshmallows, brownies, cookies, and rice crispy treats. You can't go wrong with a chocolate fountain.
16. Doughnut Wall
Hop on the latest wedding dessert trend with a whimsical wall of doughnuts. Not only are donuts an affordable wedding dessert alternative, but they are also delicious and easy for guests to snag! Include a variety of glazes and flavors to appease any picky guest. The doughnut wall doubles as a colorful and enticing decoration that nobody can ignore or resist.
17. Make Your Own
A make-your-own dessert table doubles as a dessert and a fun activity for guests. This is great around Christmas time. This can be accomplished by providing gingerbread men or sugar cookie cut-outs and ample amounts of frosting and sprinkles! Your guests can grab a plate and make their own!
18. Tiered Cake and Dessert Bar
Why set your heart on one dessert when you can have it all?! Stack up your favorite treats, whether it’s doughnuts, cookies, or mini pies on each tier, but don’t forget to leave room for your beautiful cake on top. Once you’ve organized the display to your liking, attach some handwritten labels telling your guests what each treat is. To give your presentation a more elegant feel, consider adding a few floral arrangements and greenery throughout the tiers to catch the eye of every guest who passes by!
Things to Consider for Your Wedding Dessert Table
Make sure to taste test everything that you’re going to be setting out on your table. If you don’t like something, chances are your guests won’t like it either (unless you’re just not a fan of chocolate).
Try to include an option for people with allergies. Label these desserts as gluten-friendly, nut-friendly, etc. You want everyone to be able to enjoy your day and have a variety of desserts they can try.
Supply goodie bags for guests on the table if you want people to take the extras home so you aren’t stuck with large amounts of sweets!
Most importantly, be creative! There are endless ways to design your dessert table. Use unexpected furniture items and props, or include bold visual elements such as brightly colored flowers or trendy signage.
Wedding Dessert Table: Conclusion
These are just a few options to consider if you want to do something a little less traditional for your wedding desserts. Either way, you’ll be sure to enjoy the desserts you’ve chosen! We hope you enjoyed these dessert table ideas and wish you the best on your wedding day! For more wedding-related content, you can browse through our idea, checklist, and budget blogs. You can also check out our blogs on health-conscious desserts, creative sweets and cookies, and cakes and desserts.