honey, I've known people whose "church ladies" have happily made cookies for cookie tables. I know that's probably tougher since you're not going to be in your town, but perhaps MIL2B knows some such ladies?
Also, maybe a sort of compromise - I wanted a cookie table, but my sister had already volunteered to make my cake and I hated to ask her to do more. She volunteered to make cookies as favors instead - so there was a little place of 3-4 cookies at each place.
(I think she actually did more work doing that in the long run - because they were sugar cutout cookies and she iced and hand-decorated each one!)
ETA: Here's the plate from our table!
