Once you start figuring an actual budget, you realize you can't afford everything. You have to decide what is a top priority and spend your money there.
One of my top priorities is the cake. I love dessert and I'm often underwhelmed by wedding cakes. I wanted to make sure my wedding cake wowed me.
So we tried cakes. A lot of cakes. Fifteen to twenty cakes between various expos and events. They all had an incredibly sweet and grain buttercream that I refused to have my wedding.
I was at a meeting with a cake designer who understood my frustration and suggested Imaginary Cakes to us. Apparently, it has the least sweet buttercream in the county. I had to try it.
Before our tasting, we were able to pick three cake flavors and three filling/icing choices. Imaginary Cakes also gives vanilla buttercream and fondant, since most of the cakes they make are covered in vanilla buttercream.
I was excited about that because I really wanted to check out this buttercream that was rumored to be less sweet than the others.
When we got there, a "map" was put in front of us. It was exactly like the back of a chocolate box (you know, the one that ruins Forrest Gump's mama's theory).
The map completely matched up with our choices (even down to the shapes of the cakes).
My mom and I were left with the cakes and fillings, plus an iPad slideshow of cakes that the company had made.
I wanted to watch the slideshow, but the moment of truth was in front of me. Literally. Could this be the buttercream I had hoped for?
I decided to try a bite of cake first.
"Try this filling," my mom said, talking about the strawberry filling made from berries picked and frozen from a local strawberry farm.
So I tried a bite of cake and strawberry filling. Delish.
"Did you try the buttercream?" she asked.
It was good. Actually, better than good. It was the best buttercream that I had tried since moving to North Carolina.
The chocolate cake was amazing and the filling we paired with it, oh my gosh, we wanted to take home a funnel's worth. All the cakes were great, actually. They weren't sweet alone, and the fillings and icing weren't incredibly sweet either, but when it was all paired together, it was amazing.
After we tasted the cakes and decided what we were going to pick, we went through the photos I saved from the slideshow. I showed ones I liked and what I liked about them, but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted.
So I did what any normal bride to be does: I went to Pinterest. I had pinned cakes, lots of cakes, and went through them to remind myself of what I wanted.
Professional bakers are amazing and can pretty much make anything you want, so don't be afraid to ask for what you want. It's your wedding. You can find someone to make your dream cake.
And finding those people can be easy. You can go to an expo, you can ask around, or you can ask your venue. Our venue, coincidentally, has this bakery on its preferred vendor list. That means that our cake can actually just be added into our package and we don't have to worry about making sure we pay someone else. One less check to write; one less headache.
So, I'll be honest: We didn't finish our cake samples. At the end, when we were asked if we had any questions, I said, "Can we take the rest home in a box?" I laughed because, well, this is a bakery that makes custom orders only. It's not a storefront. No one can walk in and purchase something from behind the glass and leave with it. We were told yes ... and we were given the fillings to take home too.
That night, we had a second cake tasting with Pete and the leftovers. He's not a sweets guy at all. In fact, if we didn't have a cake, I'm not sure he would miss it. And even he loved the cake. I can't wait to have it again in four months (and then a year and four months since we are keeping our top piece for good luck).
BRIDAL BABBLE: Have you done a cake tasting yet? How was yours?
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