USASEAN - 30TH Anniversary Gala Dinner

Nadège created custom dessert centerpieces.

Send a few favorite photos to Texas-based Manjar (Spanish for “delicacy”) and the bakery can turn them into edible Instagram posts for you, as well as create sugar cookies frosted to look like the popular social media company’s camera icon. There is no minimum order, and clients can send in as many different photos as they’d like. For larger orders, call at least two weeks in advance. Also on Manjar’s hipster-approved cookie menu are sweets shaped and frosted to look like Wayfarer sunglasses, mustaches, Polaroid photos, and vintage cameras.

Cotton candy gets a sophisticated makeover in the hands of Sugar & Spun. The company uses all-natural and artisanal ingredients, including organic raw sugar and dried toppings and powders, to create unconventional flavors such as black sesame, spiced mango, salted chocolate almond, and latte. The spun sugar comes in 32-ounce tubs for $4.50 each, or 16-ounce tubs for $3 each (additional sizes are available on request). There is a 20-count minimum; pickup at one of the company’s locations along the San Francisco Peninsula is free, and delivery within San Francisco costs $20. Allow three days' advance notice.

Gourmet flavors take a simple-sounding treat—chocolate-covered pretzel rods—to another level at Fatty Sundays: think pumpkin spice, peanut butter and jelly, banana cream, peppermint crunch, berry granola, and more. Bonus: The colorful, dipped pretzels would look especially eye-catching on display at a candy station. Custom labels, flavors, and color combos can be created for events and favors, with a minimum of 20 boxes of two or five pretzels. The treats can be shipped throughout the United States.

Boston’s Wicked Good Cupcakes puts a new spin on the classic dessert with its Wicked Good to Go cupcake-in-a-jar treats. Each glass jar holds the equivalent of two cupcakes, and there are 15 flavor options, including vanilla birthday cake, sea-salted caramel, and red velvet. For corporate orders, the jars can include custom labels or colored sprinkles and fondant toppers. Custom Wicked Good to Gos start from $8.50 for an eight-ounce jar; shipping is available nationwide.

New York-based Stick & Pop has whipped up its cake pops and bonbons for brands including Swarovski, Tory Burch, Valentino, Joie, and Patrón. In addition to the company’s original menu of cake-ball flavors such as Griswald (vanilla graham cake with a marshmallow center and chocolate chips dipped in dark chocolate) or Nutty Bunny (carrot cake dipped in white chocolate with walnuts), it also specializes in custom-designed packaging, as well as custom flavors, colors, and toppings. Place orders five business days in advance for 100 or more.

It’s obvious Robyn Frank, owner of Thumbs Cookies, makes her tiny shortbread cookies by hand—her thumbprint is pressed into each one. A mixed batch of 60 cookies costs $30 and includes signature flavors such as ginger clove, apricot with pistachio and cardamom, candied pecan with rosemary, and original cinnamon-sugar topped with a chunk of Mast Brothers chocolate. Frank also makes Thumb Pies (pictured), miniature cookie sandwiches bonded together with colored frosting or chocolate hazelnut filling. The cookies can be customized with tiny edible letters and can be packaged as favors or gifts. Large orders of 500 or more must be placed two weeks in advance, and price breaks are available for large quantities.

For unique candies that will get guests talking, check out online sweets shop Sugarfina. The California-based company travels the world in search of gourmet candies and chocolates (think Belgian ale gummies, absinthe chocolate cordials, and matcha green tea caramels). The treats can be ordered for candy buffets in five-pound boxes ranging from $65 to $80, and consultants can be called upon to recommend a mix of candies for certain themes. Also available: stylishly packaged corporate gift options.

For events in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens, Heartbreaker Baker offers its chewy, heart-shaped bar cookies. The treats come in 10 main cheekily named flavors, including Stuck on Yous (chocolate with gooey caramel and sea salt) and Fig It About Hers (oatmeal fig with an orange glaze). The mini versions go for $1.25 each, while the regular size costs $2.50, with a minimum order of 40 minis or 20 regulars. The cookies can come on platters or come individually wrapped with custom labels. Three days' advance notice is required, or five days' notice for custom labels; delivery is $15.

More stylish than your average Blow Pop: Designer Lollipop peddles spherical sweets that contain edible images—everything from fireworks and vintage lace, to world flags and the Aurora Borealis. Owner Priscilla Briggs can also create custom corporate logo lollipops. The handmade, individually wrapped treats start from $14 for six and can be shipped worldwide. There is a discount for orders of more than 120; large orders of from 600 to 1,000 take between 10 and 13 weeks to process.

Handmade, in small batches, Crack Caramel creates its addictive caramel bites using only brown sugar, sweet cream butter, organic heavy cream, Madagascar vanilla, and pink Himalayan salt. Individually wrapped two-bite caramels can be purchased by the quarter, half, or full batch (a full batch costs $45 for 40). Or opt for the Crack Pops: paper-wrapped caramel lollipops on wooden sticks. Order at least two weeks in advance.

The Beverly Hills Brownie Company offers—yup, you guessed it—brownies. With 23 unconventional flavors, including new arrivals s’mores and no-gluten classic buttercream, the brownie boutique makes the rich treats individually, so each one has a crisp-edged crust and moist center. For events in the Los Angeles area, there is a brownie bar service that includes a full display setup and uniformed servers, and it typically involves a 10-dozen minimum order (but owner Bobbie Greenfield says there is flexibility). The company also offers custom brownie flavor and logo options, and gift packages can include custom parchment inlays and tags. Signature brownies are $39 for a dozen, with special pricing available for volume orders.

An ornate piece of chocolate sat in the center of each dessert centerpiece.

Textured fabrics, all in shades of orange, decorated the stage.

At the 125th anniversary gala for the National Geographic Society in June, the “Land, Sea, and Sky” theme inspired an array of custom tables and toppers, including glacier ice sculptures. Select Lucite tables were not topped with any decorations, but instead held water and plant life, or natural objects like seashells.

The “Facing Center” iPad centerpieces from Keep Interacting allow organizers to incorporate photos and other information into an event’s table decor. Launched earlier this year, the iPads display a slideshow of photos, product images, sponsor information, or other content provided by the event’s host ahead of time. Then, at the event, the company provides a photographer to take photos that are instantly added to the display. Using the touch screens, guests can also share the images on social media, send them via email, and order printed copies to pick up from a kiosk on site.

At a 50th anniversary party for Dior Nails, 2013 BizBash Innovator Garin Baura created a performance-art-style centerpiece inspired by artist Holten Rower’s layered, colorful poured paintings: As various courses came out, staffers also served platters of brightly hued flowers which were scattered onto the all-white table. “People were taking flowers and throwing them around—it loosened things up and made the dinner experience more playful,” Baura said.

The 13th annual Friends of the High Line benefit, held at New York’s Pier 57 in May, centered on photographs of the High Line taken through the years. In lieu of the event’s usual foliage-heavy centerpieces, printed photographs were scattered atop raised Lucite platforms, which were eventually also used to hold the night's family-style dinner platters.

In Miami, the dinner tables at a Star Trek-theme vintner dinner—one of 17 celebrity chef-helmed events at private homes held as part of the 13th annual Naples Winter Wine Festival in January—offered centerpieces with iPads embedded on the sides that displayed the evening’s menu, updating as each course was served.

At the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's Butterfly Ball in Chicago in May, the gala had a farm-like atmosphere. Tables were decked with miniature gardens potted with tomatoes, colorful peppers, asparagus, and kale; around the centerpieces, fairy lights in miniature Mason jars added to the elegant yard-party vibe.

Instead of centerpieces, David Stark Design created lazy Susans rimmed in white LED lights that made sharing the antipasto easier at New York’s Robin Hood Foundation benefit in May.

Fifteen fashion and interior designers each designed their own table at the Partnership With Children’s Gala in April. Interior design firm Paul and Martha L.L.C. created an attention-grabbing tabletop by using a $90,000 sculpture of pink roses as a centerpiece. Created by artist Will Ryman, the oversize flowers were made of materials including plaster, paint, and aluminum mesh.

The Starlight Children's Foundation hosted its Starlight Gala, sponsored by Toys "R" Us, at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel in April. The event’s circus-inspired ideas included dinner tables topped with miniature Ferris wheels that held cupcakes with colorful frosting.

Centerpieces were appropriately made of glowing, vintage photo slides at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Snap Gala in October, which benefitted the Photography Gala Fund.

Centerpieces at the Whitney Museum of American Art gala, held in October, encouraged playful interaction, featuring silver paint cans holding breadsticks and also Sharpie markers that guests could use to draw on the canvas tablecloths.

In March, guests at the California Science Center’s Discovery Ball dined under the wings of NASA’s retired Endeavour space shuttle. In keeping with the space exploration theme, illuminated tables were topped with celestial decor elements like mini solar systems in glass bowls.

Russell Simmons’s Art for Life benefit, held in the Hamptons in July, featured an idyllic theme—“Field of Dreams”—that came to life in the whimsical centerpieces. Floating kites suspended over each table and anchored to wheatgrass flats had colorful signs on their tails that held the names of artistic vocations such as “dancer” and “poet.”

Held in April, the Catalina Island Conservancy Ball’s campfire theme was reflected in the decor, which included centerpieces of illuminated apothecary jars filled with the makings of a classic campsite snack: s’mores.