OMG I forgot to mention my cookie table!! I can't wait for the cookies, but unfortunately, ours will be purchased from a bakery. My grandma was the one to make all of the cookies and she is in a nursing home. The coordinator at our venue told us a story about how when she first started working there 20 years ago, she had never heard of a cookie table. They had all of these boxes of cookies under a table to put out after dinner. She started putting them out one box at a time, rather than spreading out the various types of cookies, and she was nearly attacked by little old ladies wondering why she didn't think there cookies weren't "good enough." She said she learned to take out a few cookies from each box! LOL

Cookie table evangelism is go!

I could live on cheese straws. Yum.

We were married in Las Vegas and had decks of cards done with our names and wedding date on them. They were done in our wedding colors and were a huge hit

I've never heard of that. What's the tradition?

As described above:

Cookie tables are amazing! We had everyone making cookies for ours...family, friends, friends of friends. My mom and I had them dropped off or we picked up all the cookies and put them on trays the morning we had to take everything to the reception hall. We had 22 trays of cookies which has AT LEAST 100 cookies on each tray. Plus we had cookies left over! I think we had at least 100 dozen cookies made. Here is a picture of what our cookie table looked like: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a313/andreadg9/Our%20Wedding%20-%20August%202007/andrea0033.jpg

Maybe they didn't want you dreaming about who you were going to marry when you were only 4? Maybe my family made up that story totally so we didn't break our teeth on them! Maybe your family realized that making "getting married" the be all end all goal of your life was silly? Or, maybe it's just a Sicilian thing? I don't know! My family could've duped me for all I know! LOL

ETA: They also told us we were supposed to put the cake under our pillow to dream about who we would marry. I always ate mine though. Maybe that's why I'm divorced??? I screwed up!

Although my family came to Detroit from PA (not quite Pittsburgh... Uniontown), the cookie table thing didn't follow. There was always a dessert table and when we were younger, the desserts were homemade by the elder generation of women.. cannoli, pizelle, pinolata, etc. I was never big into the Italian desserts though so I stuck with cake. As we got older, the dessert table ended up catered because that generation was too old to do it and everybody else was too busy.

Now I want cookies and mac and cheese! Will someone just post pictures of yummy fruit! I'm trying to lose weight here! :)

That cookie table idea is cool. I'll have to pass it on to the next person I know who is getting married.

We did fortune cookies with fortunes we had personalized. They were REALLY cheap (we ordered 1000 cookies). We put them in Chinese take-out boxes with our picture on them and had 3 cookies per box. They went over really well, and when everyone was REALLY drunk later that night, apparently they feasted on fortune cookies. My mom decided she needed to make origami cranes to go on the boxes since it meant good luck, so she spent weeks making them. They looked awesome when displayed. I need to find a picture.

I'm thinking the idea of a cookie table would be neat for a shower - get the cookies and the recipes . . . .

I have been told that my marriage didn't work because I didn't have a cookie table! My Southern mother couldn't handle the concept at the time. :rolleyes: She is now 100% sold on them!

I'll admit, though, the last local wedding I went used purple and black as their colors (Scottish wedding, the kilts & sashes were in the clan colors). Seeing black and purple filling in a mini-ladylock didn't look very attractive. I found the whole Susanna Martinsen article, quoted here on Greek Chat:

The Legend of the Cookie Table

"An excerpt from "The Cookie Table: A Pittsburgh Tradition"

by Suzanne Martinson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Food Editor

You can have a designer wedding gown and tuxedo or hand-me-downs. You can have an "A-copy" guest list or just the closest of kissing kin. You can receive your guests at the fanciest restaurant or at a potluck at the firehall. But you aren't truly a Pittsburgher unless you have The Cookie Table.
When we first moved here and a bride-to-be mentioned The Cookie Table, I was puzzled. "What do you need cookies for?" I asked. "At a wedding, you eat cake."

Little did I know. The Cookie Table is as much a part of Pittsburgh as the Pirates and the Steelers and the Penguins. We may bleed black and gold, but at any event worth writing home about, we have cookies.
And most of these cookies are homemade by the mother of the bride, sisters, aunts, cousins and grandmothers. Sometimes both sides of the extended family get involved. Friends are also called into the fray. Happy to do it, in fact. The Cookie Table is, indeed, the gift of love.

Nobody knows the exact origin of the tradition, which has been exported to other parts of Pennsylvania, other states, too. It may be Italian or Slovak or Polish or Croatian or Greek. The Scandinavians may get involved, and the Indians, too. The Germans do cookies, and so do the Irish. If we've left anybody out (like the English), add them to the cookie equation. There may be no greater tribute to cross-cultural friends and marriages than The Cookie Table. It's what makes America great; a medley of cultures taking the best from each. The best, in this case, being favorite family cookie recipes. When we researched the topic for the premier edition of the Food Section in 1996, we talked with more than 150 people. The cookies that emerged most often as the "must haves" on the table were: Pizzelles; Biscotti; Italian Anise Drops; Baklava; Cherry Cheesecakes; Thumbprints; Pecan Tassies; Apricot, Poppyseed, and Nut Rolls. And two indicators that Americans never stop innovating: Buckeyes and Hershey Kiss Cookies...

Remember, in Pittsburgh, people don't wonder, "How was the wedding?" They ask, "Were the cookies good?"

Can I come to your wedding? I gave tins of MS Cheese Straws to my co-workers for Christmas this year. YUM! I could eat them for breakfast.

Just wondering if anyone read Miss Manners yesterday? (An alternate site for the column.)

The second letter was about wedding favors.

Excellent column on the whole "favors" issue. Seriously, when did we turn weddings into children's birthday parties?? I love Miss Manners.