Tisha and Rodney's wedding update

So I haven't gotten all the pictures back but the couple that I do have are really great.  I am told that not only did the bride love her wedding cake but the groom couldn't get over his XBOX 360 cake and controller.  It was so much fun to make.  Here are the images I do have thanks to Megan Bugbee of MEB Photography  http://www.facebook.com/MEBPhotography02.

You also must keep in mind we had a bit of a floral snag.  Originally the florist was to leave flowers to be cascaded down the cake.  When the delivery guy was leaving I asked for those flowers and he said he didn't have any.  Immediately a phone call was made the Catherine of www.cherishedcelebrations.com who was actually at the ceremony site.  When the delivery guy found me six, count them six, small little flowers left over in a corsage container, she asked that I use them as a topper.  It did explain the abundance of flowers at the ceremony site.  I am waiting for a second set of photos but I'm told the some flowers did make it to the cake.  

This was a good reminder that things can go wrong.  When putting a cake together sometimes we have areas that we think, "Oh, I can cover that with a flower."  Unless you are actually providing the flowers you better not count on it.  Luckily I wasn't counting on the flowers to cover any major flaws but that cascade of orchids would have looked really pretty too.

Fall colors and dark chocolate

I am very excited about my upcoming October 27th wedding.  Grayson and Greg are a great couple who love chocolate and aren't afraid to be bold.  When I first met Grayson she said, "We love chocolate.  Our colors are all darker fall colors.  I don't know what we can do with that."  So when we met for cake and design she certainly went for the chocolate - dark chocolate mousse filling and classic fudge frosting.  Because they are going with a fall theme and an outdoor, rustic but elegant ceremony/reception she was afraid the chocolate would be too much.  I mean, who uses those colors for a wedding cake?

Ah, the darker color palette is always a friend.  Nothing makes fall colors stand out like a darker background.  White is always stunning but a dark background makes your colors come alive.  We came up with a beautiful design that lends itself to the rich colors of the dark chocolate frosting allowing the beautiful colors of gold, maroon, rusts and reds to come to the forefront and lend their hues to the event.

I'm excited about this design and can't wait until October gets here so we can get some great pictures.

Grocery store cakes are a great bargain!

Really?  I recently saw a segment (via Yahoo.com news feed and now I cannot find it anywhere) but the essence was that you can get a wedding cake just as good as a professional bakery for 10x less cost.  The cake they showed was three tiers, possibly 100 servings, white cake, strawberry "filling" and buttercream frosting, simple piping and details for only $316.  The quoted that a professional bakery would charge$3,300 for the same cake.  Really?

I did some quick math based on my own prices, and since we're guessing how big the cake is, I found that very realistically it can be done for that price (more or less depending on the unknown variables).  How many times have you met a client that talked about a wedding cake that tasted okay or just not good?  It looked great but the quality of the cake versus the beauty of a cake was no where near equal.  Why?  Because that grocery store cake was not made fresh, not even in the last 72 hours in most cases, and mass produced frosting was used; and it wasn't made from scratch.  The designs the bride and groom can choose from are usually very limited as are the flavors of cake and filling they can select.  

One broadcaster said, "How much cake does the bride and groom get to eat anyway?"  Okay, I'll grant you most of the time there isn't much cake eaten by the bride and groom but you'd be surprised how many couples carve out a little time to eat cake while sitting and visiting with their guests.  Now, the flip side of the coin, "How many guests are eating cake?"  Almost all of them!  And while the bride and groom are visiting with these cherished friends and relatives who have come to help them celebrate their special day one thing they might hear about is the wonderful cake, not just how pretty it is but how delicious it is.  You want to see extra glow on the bride's face tell her how awesome her cake tastes.  Most of my clients take extra care to choose flavors that are not just delicious to them but that will also be loved by their guests.  This leads them to choosing multiple flavors but in the end they are thinking as much about their guests as themselves.

So before you rush out to the grocery store to buy your budget cake shop around.  Pick at least three bakery professionals to interview.  Talk about pricing, what's included and do a tasting to see the difference in their product and the local grocer.  

You know one thing they didn't say the grocery store did was the delivery?  Now that's a whole new topic.