We've had three weddings so far in our family, and have two daughters left to go! Both of our married daughters had traditional wedding cakes for their big day, but when our son and daughter-in-law were married in July 2015, they preferred a pie over a wedding cake. An aunt made the wedding pie, but it certainly wasn't going to feed 200 people! I suggested mini pies-in-a-jar, and mini cheesecakes, and was appointed to make them.
I ended up purchasing 16 dozen 4 oz. jars. Approximately half of them I made mini pies, as shown above. First I rolled out pie crust dough, and then cut circles that would just fit into the jars; one for the bottom, and one, as shown above, for the top. The top one had a fluted edge and a tiny heart cut in the middle. I baked them on cookie sheets ahead of time, and froze them for pie-jar-preparation day.
Two days before the wedding, I cooked and thickened pie filling for blueberry, raspberry, and marionberry pies. I also made filling for apple, strawberry/rhubarb, and cherry crisp. For the mini pies, I simply placed a pie disk into the bottom of half of the jars, spooned in cooked pie filling, and topped with a pie disk with a heart in the middle. I placed the lids on the jars, then a kraft paper cupcake liner, followed by the jar ring. The cupcake liner made the jars look a little more decorative. I made cute labels showing what kind of pie was inside, but don't have any photos of the labels.
For the crisps, I placed thickened pie filling in the jars, and then topped with an apple crisp topping and baked them right in the jars. I transported all of these to the wedding in the boxes the jars came in, but the crisps were opened up once we were at the venue, I piped in whipping cream frosting, and they were refrigerated. The caterers placed them out on my dessert display right before the reception. I poked some little flags I'd made into the crisps to show what flavors they were.
I also made some shortbread cookies using a cookie stamp that I found here, and cut out around the stamp using fluted circle cookie cutters, here. These can be made ahead and easily frozen. I used a recipe I found online here.
It's been a lot of fun preparing for three of our kid's weddings! Right around the time of this wedding, Emily and I created Lottie Elizabeth to continue working on weddings for other people! It's a lot of fun, and we'll be all set when another Johnson sister pops up engaged!
Be sure to visit our wedding photographer's website, Karen J. Hawley. She's the best!
Stay tuned for what we did with all those mini pie jars at our next wedding a year later, and more photos from our son and daughter-in-law's beautiful wedding!