Monongahela sets record for largest wedding cookie table
The wedding cookie table in Chess Park featured a wide assortment of cookies and creative displays.
Jon Andreassi
The Carnegie Science Center contributed 1,900 cookies to the table, and had a distinct scientific theme for their display.
A large crowd turned out with cookies in hand to help set the record for the largest wedding cookie table in Monongahela.
Wedding bells chimed in Monongahela Sunday as couples tied the knot in Chess Park alongside a record-setting wedding cookie table.
The park was filled with thousands of cookies as people poured in to set the record for the largest wedding cookie table on the final day of the city鈥檚 250th birthday celebration.
Christina Conlon, an adjudicator with Guinness World Records, was on hand to tabulate the total amount of cookies and make the record official.
The largest wedding cookie table is a new category for Guinness, Conlon said, and they set the number to beat at 18,000 cookies.
They based that number off of a Wall Street Journal article about a cookie table at a wedding in Youngstown, Ohio, that was published in July 2017.
By 2:30 p.m., Conlon said they had already reached 18,000, with several hours of counting left to go.
The idea for the wedding cookie table came from Laura Magone, president of Monongahela Area Historical Society, which organized the weekend鈥檚 events.
With the large crowd that gathered to set up their cookie displays, Magone said they were 鈥渙verwhelmed鈥� with the response.
鈥淎 wedding cookie table is a celebration of our ethnic heritage and our blue collar roots,鈥� Magone said. 鈥淚鈥檝e wanted to hold an event like this for years, but it all came together whenever Monongahela celebrated its 250th.鈥�
Magone also runs a Facebook page, The Wedding Cookie Table Community, which has grown to more than 23,000 members. Members of that group helped Sunday鈥檚 event grow to the size that it did.
Among the numerous groups bringing cookies to Chess Park on Sunday was the Carnegie Science Center, whose team contributed 1,900 cookies.
鈥淲e had a co-worker that found out about this, and we thought, 鈥極h, we鈥檝e got to get on board with this,'鈥� said Maila Jill Rible, a science educator with the center.
The group that came is part of the science center鈥檚 Demonstration Theaters.
鈥淲e actually use baking and cooking in some of our programs to help teach people about science. So this was a natural fit, and we really like to bake,鈥� Rible said.
The group representing the science center used the event as an opportunity to educate others about the science and chemistry of baking.
However, Rible said the science is not all in the baking, and that the way you set up your own wedding cookie table is a science all its own.
Most important, she says, is knowing your audience.
鈥淎re there family recipes that people really want to see? You鈥檙e going to want to make sure that those look great, because we don鈥檛 just taste with our tongues. We taste with our sense of smell, and we taste with our eyes,鈥� Rible said.
A short ceremony at the park鈥檚 gazebo featured a group of three couples who got married all at once, and the weekend of festivities ended with a free concert by Jakob鈥檚 Ferry Stragglers.
鈥淭his is my hometown, and this is something that鈥檚 important to me so that everybody can see what a great community this is,鈥� Magone said.