Originally Posted by
redquilter
I'm from an Italian family. We always have a cake and there's ALWAYS a tray of cookies brought to each table. Sometimes even little pastries as well. For many years, there has been the custom of a "Viennese" table set up with an array of desserts. Sometimes an enormous display, sometimes not so big. Depends on how much money the bride wants to spend and also depends on the catering hall. There is still always the cake. I think the idea of a cookie table with goodies made by family is a wonderful custom and I would venture to say it's local.
I'm also from an Italian family from Brooklyn and the big Viennese table was usually included in recent weddings in NYCity. sometimes instead there would be cookie and mini pastries on each table. Up until the early 1950's the weddings I went to were 'football weddings"; entire family was invivted, no dinner but a tray of premade sandwichs was on each table, no open bar a bottle of rye or scotch on each table and an open soda bar for the kids. When coffee was served the groomsmen carried huge trays of cookies and mini cream puffs to each table. My mother would put a big paper bag in her purse to stuff some sandwichs and cookies in to take home. Wedding rememberance was a small box with candied almonds with the couples name and wedding date. Mid 1950's saw beginning of the 'catered' weddings for our families, children weren't invited to the formal dinner, a slice of wedding cake with coffee and a little trinket to take home instead of a bag of sandwiches and cookies. (Oh, they were called football weddings because people sometimes shared sandwiches between tables by tossing the sandwiches to each other like footballs, "Hey, any one want a salami in exhange for a ham?")
First time I heard of the cookie table was about 15 years ago when a friend's DD was marrying a man from the Pittsburg area. My friend wanted to have a dish of Italian cookies on each table in rememberance of her father who always brought a dish of those cookies whenever he visited anyone. Groom's family wanted a cookie table which my friend had never heard of but the wedding planner settle the problem with a plate of cookies on each table and 2 big tables of cookies made by the groom's mother and aunts. Everyone was satisfied and all the people at the wedding enjoyed wedding cake and cookies at the reception and took home cookies from both families. I think that's a much better way to do things instead of the giant Viennese displays of today which mostly goes to waste.
May in Jersey