I've never heard of this and for a short time I tested my wedding planning skills by being a wedding consultant and director. I did several weddings and have attended many, many more as a guest. Great idea though! Thanks for sharing.

This brought tears to my eyes. I am from NW Pennsylvania and have attended weddings in the Boston area, D. C. area and several places in Florida and never encountered a cookie table. It is such a wonderful idea: warm, intimate and inviting.

I am from SW Ohio and have never heard of a cookie table!

I have never heard of it, but I love the idea! I'm a cookie girl!

I have never seen a cookie table, but at the last wedding, doughnuts were served because the first date was at a doughnut shop. I've attended weddings in NW PA, FL, CA, WA, CT, and never a cookie table. The idea is wonderful!!

I also live in Trumbull County where I have been to weddings with the cookie table. Also, Erie County, PA attended two weddings ( same family) and they had the cookie table. Yum!!! (Of course, Erie Co, PA and Trumbull Co, OH are side by side along Lake Erie).

I've never heard of a cookie table. A candy table sound interesting, too!

well, maybe a few cookie tables will be popping up at weddings in different part of the country now! Merry Christmas to all!!!!

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

I failed to add that our family Italian cookie recipes all start with 5 pounds of flour. We used to mix the batch in a plastic wash tub. Shortly after my mother died, I was only 22, my dad and I broke down the recipes to start with only 3 cups of flour, so we could make smaller batches. He loved to cook but 5 pounds of flour made enormous batches and are overwhelming.

Now, I need those large recipes, but years ago, when my dad remarried, the witch he married, threw out his recipe box, knowing how much he enjoyed cooking, while he was in the hospital dealing with colon cancer. She said that he wasn't coming back home anyway because she wasn't going to take care of him. I'm going to have to go to my aunt's house one day and snap pictures of her recipes, so I have them for the wedding.

When my girls were little, we went to a wedding on my husband's side, remember he is not Italian. It was a church wedding and the reception was in the church basement. They served cake, punch, and mints. It was short and sweet. On the way home, my 6 years old daughter said, "When I have my wedding, I want to really get married."

I said, "They did get married. We witnessed the wedding ceremony in church."

My daughter said, "No way, Mom. There was no cookies, food, wine, music, or dancing, and it was too short."

My husband got this worried look on his face and said, "Oh God, we have got to start saving for that one's wedding. It is going to cost us a fortune."

Guess which one is getting married in October. LOL

Over the years, I have seen Italian wedding that cost $40,000 to $50,000. I find that to be ridiculous and that won't be happening at our house. I have a beautiful wedding 28 years ago with over 600 people at my reception with food, cookies, alcohol, etc. and didn't spend 10% of that.