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The candles are ready. You’ve seen them in the photos, you’ve said "that’s fine", and they’ve gone into the box. From that moment, between them and the wedding day there are a few hundred kilometres, a conveyor belt and at least two people who have no way of knowing what’s inside.
When wedding candles are shipped, the risk isn’t only that they snap in two. Far more often they chip at the edge and the decoration gets scratched, and that happens when they have room to move in the box. The packaging deals with movement and knocks. Heat we keep in check through the recipe, and the day you open the parcel is down to you.
Below: what actually gets damaged on the way, how a parcel leaves the workshop, what you do on the day it arrives and what the guarantee covers when something has happened anyway. Plus the part almost everyone forgets: where you keep the candles in the weeks before the wedding.
I’m Sînziana. I’ll say from the start what I don’t like about this story: of the whole journey, I have half an hour in my hands, the half hour in which the box is made. The rest is a van, a belt and a person in a hurry. That’s why I write here both what we do and what stays with you, including the five minutes on delivery day that decide whether a damaged candle is replaced simply or with complications.
What actually gets damaged when wedding candles are shipped?
The edge chips and the decoration gets scratched. Wax isn’t elastic: it doesn’t bend and spring back, so with a knock the energy goes to the most exposed point, and on a candle that point is the top edge, the corner, not the middle of the body.
Packaging comes up more than a hundred times in the reviews we’ve received, which says on its own how big this worry is. One of the reviews from 2025 says, word for word: "it arrived whole and unharmed, thank you for that" (translated from Romanian). It isn’t a sentence about cardboard. It’s the sentence of someone who was worried until they opened the box.
| What happens to the candle | Where it comes from | What stops it |
|---|---|---|
| Chipped edge | a knock taken on the corner, with the candle loose in the box | a box made to size, with protective packing peanuts all round |
| Scratched or crushed decoration | the pieces rub against each other on the way | a separate wrap for each candle |
| Slightly bent candle | heat, not a knock | the summer recipe, then the place where they’re kept |
Read the table down the third column. The first two rows are solved in the workshop, at packing, and no longer depend on you. The third has no packaging solution: we keep it in check through the recipe, and the rest depends on where the candles are kept once they’ve reached you.
Why do candles chip at the corner?
Because the edge is where the material has the least support. When a candle falls on its corner, all the force goes into a small surface, and the wax gives way locally, with a splinter, instead of deforming.
That explains something that seems unfair at first sight: the parcel looks perfect on the outside, with no sign of a knock, and the candle inside has a chipped corner. The box took the impact and passed it on, exactly as a box that’s too big does with a glass inside it.
A typical case is a pair placed side by side, with nothing between them: it arrives with a single splinter at one corner. You can’t see it from the other end of the room, but you can see it in close-up photos, where the candle is at eye level.
What happens to candles if they move in the box?
They rub against each other and spoil their surface. They don’t break, but they arrive with the decoration dulled or with shiny marks where the wax has been polished by the rubbing.
It’s the defect that upsets people most, because the candle is whole and yet it’s no longer the one in the photos. On models with names and a date, the area that gets rubbed can be the very area you ordered it for.
That’s why movement is stopped from two directions: each piece in its own wrap, so it doesn’t touch its neighbour directly, and filling all round, so the whole set doesn’t slide around the box every time the van brakes.
What no packaging can do
Packaging doesn’t hold back temperature. No candle is indifferent to heat, and one left in direct sun or in a car in summer will deform, however well it was packed. The rule is also written on our FAQ page.
We keep this part in check through the recipe, not the box. The hot summers since 2010 have taught us that in summer we increase the dose of stearin and paraffin in our wedding candle recipes, so they hold their shape at temperatures at which a winter recipe would soften on the way. You can’t see the difference with the naked eye. You see it in the fact that nothing happened.
What stays with you is the other half: the recipe holds up to the heat of a journey, not to a car boot where the candles sit in the sun for an afternoon. Keep this in mind especially on delivery day. If you collect the parcel from a pick-up point and leave it in the boot until evening, you’ve taken yourself the step that packaging can’t make up for.
Nobody puts this on their list, because it doesn’t sound like a decision, it sounds like a detail of logistics. It stays a detail until the day a tall candle has a curve that everyone in the front rows can see.
How we pack the candles before the parcel leaves
Each piece goes into its own wrap, protective packing peanuts go between the pieces, and everything goes into a box made to the size of the order. Three things, in this order, and each one solves something different.
- A separate wrap on each candle, so two candles don’t touch directly.
- Protective packing peanuts all round, so the set has nowhere to move.
- A box made to the size of the order, from five-layer cardboard, sized for each candle size, not a big box with small candles inside.
- A check against the light before packing, so a decoration that’s already been touched doesn’t leave the workshop.
The order isn’t decorative. The wrap solves the rubbing, the peanuts solve the movement, the box solves the knock, and the check beforehand solves the thing no packaging can repair once the box has been closed.
Why packing peanuts and not newspaper?
Because crumpled paper settles. The first time the parcel is thrown down in a depot, the newspaper flattens, and the candle is left loose in a box that now has empty space inside. The peanuts keep their volume and go on holding the pieces in place for the whole journey.
It’s a difference you don’t see at packing, but after the parcel has been picked up, put down and moved a few times. A parcel of candles isn’t packed like a book, because a book has no corners that chip and no surface that matters.
The peanuts are biodegradable, and you’ll also see that icon in our shop, next to the products. At home, with the children, we did an experiment that says more than the icon: a glass of lukewarm water, cold water works too, a few peanuts dropped in, a stick and a few seconds of stirring. Poof, the peanuts dissolved. The filling you throw away after unpacking disappears in a glass of water; it doesn’t sit in a landfill for a hundred years.
What happens to a personalised order before packing?
Before packing you get photos on WhatsApp, and the candles don’t leave until you say "that’s fine". Before that there’s an even earlier stop: we call you when you order, to settle the exact text, with the diacritics.
The step with the photos isn’t courtesy, it’s the last window in which something can still be changed. Once the names and the date are written on the candle, the product counts as made for you and can no longer be returned, under Article 16 of Romanian Government Emergency Ordinance 34/2014. What can be written, what can’t, and how long it takes to be ready, we’ve written about at length in the article on personalised wedding candles.
A name that can be spelt two ways is caught on the phone, not on the wax. A photo placed crooked is caught in the WhatsApp photo, not at the church.
The box is chosen to fit the candle
The box is chosen for the order, not for whatever is to hand on the shelf. A box that’s too big isn’t safer, it’s more dangerous: it gives the candle room to pick up speed before it stops against the wall.
That’s why we’ve had boxes made to fit each candle size, from five-layer cardboard. They cost more than an ordinary courier box, but we pay the difference for two things: the candle has nowhere to move, and the wall doesn’t bend at the first knock in the depot.
The test is simple and you can do it yourself, if you move the candles to the venue on the wedding day. You close the box, shake it gently and listen. If you feel something sliding around inside, you add more filling. If nothing moves, the box is good.
What do you do on the day the parcel arrives?
You open the box on the day it arrives, even if the wedding is a month away, and you look at every candle from every side. The day you receive it is the day a problem is solved simply.
The reason is mechanical, not bureaucratic: couriers have short deadlines for transport claims, and the parcel is the evidence. The sooner it’s reported, the easier it is to solve, and that’s exactly what our returns policy says too.
Can you still check the parcel in front of the courier?
No. The service of checking the parcel on delivery no longer exists with the couriers we work with, and in July 2026 we removed from our returns policy the clause that mentioned it, precisely because it protected an impossible scenario.
The practical consequence is that the check happens after you’ve signed, at home, not on the doorstep. You’re no less protected because of it, as long as you open the parcel the same day and photograph whatever isn’t right. The photos can also be taken after you’ve taken the candles out of the box: we file the claim with the courier, with your photos, not you on the doorstep, with the courier in a hurry beside you.
Here you also have a question you can ask anyone who sells you candles online, not just us: what do I do if it arrives damaged, and how long do I have to report it? If the answer begins with "you check the parcel in front of the courier", the answer is out of date and doesn’t protect you from anything.
What do you do if the candles arrive broken?
You report it on the day you receive it, with photos, and you don’t throw away the packaging. Five steps, in this order:
- Don’t throw anything away. The box, the wrap and the peanuts stay with you until it’s sorted.
- Photograph the parcel with the courier label visible. This works even after you’ve taken the candles out, as long as you’ve kept the box.
- Photograph the damaged candle, once whole and once in close-up on the affected area.
- Call or write to us on WhatsApp at +40 726 162 810 (we answer in English) on the day you receive it, with the photos attached. From there, the claim with the courier is our job.
- You get the replacement parcel, and the damaged parcel is handed over in exchange when the new one arrives.
Steps 2 and 3 are the ones skipped most often, because the first reflex is to call, not to take photos. We file the claim with the courier, but we file it with your photos. Without them, we only have our word against a parcel that, on paper, "left fine".
What the guarantee covers and what it doesn’t
The Nu-i Bai guarantee covers finished products damaged in transport or handling, including candles written with your names and the date. It doesn’t cover the result of a recipe you pour in your own workshop, where we’re on the phone with you, not sending a replacement parcel.
There are three different situations that often get mixed up, so I’ll put them side by side:
| The situation | What applies | What you pay |
|---|---|---|
| The product arrived damaged in transport | the guarantee, with replacement | nothing for transport |
| You’ve changed your mind, the product isn’t personalised | withdrawal within 14 days, on the terms in the returns policy | the return shipping |
| You’ve changed your mind, the product has the names and the date | withdrawal doesn’t apply, by law | not applicable |
The first row is the only one solved without a form. It isn’t a withdrawal from the contract, so the 14-day period doesn’t run and you don’t pay for transport. The third row is the very reason the step with the photos before packing exists.
Where you start
You start with the order date, not with the model. A damaged parcel can only be replaced if there’s still time for us to make other candles and for them to reach you, and that time can’t be bought in the week before the wedding.
How do you keep the candles until the wedding day?
In their packaging, standing upright, somewhere cool and out of direct light. Heat is what most easily changes the shape of a candle before it’s used, and a tall one that has lain flat in the warm stays slightly bent.
Three places to avoid, all in ordinary homes: the car, a sunny windowsill and the area behind a radiator. If you move them to the venue on the day of the event, you move them in their box, not in a bag on the back seat.
The same rules apply to christening candles, which usually stay in the house longer before the service, because they’re ordered together with the rest of the christening set.
What to do before you order, so there’s time for a replacement
You set the order date so that between delivery and the event there’s a margin in which a pair could be remade. When you order a week before, the margin for remaking thins out to almost nothing, however fast we work.
The full calculation, with the workshop days and the courier days put end to end, is in the article on when to order your wedding candles. If you’re still choosing the model, you’ll find it in the wedding candles category. If the date is already set, tell us in the first conversation, so we work with it, not with an estimate.
Of the whole journey, your part takes five minutes and fits into a single day: you open the box, look at every candle, take photos if something isn’t right and write to us the same day. We take care of the rest.
If you have the parcel in front of you and something doesn’t look right, write to us on WhatsApp at +40 726 162 810 (we answer in English), Monday to Friday, between 8:00 and 16:30 (Romanian time), with the photos attached. The answer is a replacement parcel, not a form. And if you haven’t ordered yet and want to know how much time you need to have a margin for a replacement, send us the wedding date. We’ll give you a number of days, not a general promise.
