My good friend (and biggest fan!) Tara decided to purchase my services as a wedding gift for her cousin Lauren.  After much discussion, Lauren decided she wanted her cake to be solid gold.  I had never made a solid gold cake before, so I set to work doing my research.  Part of the project entailed ordering in all kinds of edible gold paint and sparkles from the UK.  I was so pleased with my little purchase!  How could a girl not get excited about edible sparkles? 

The cake itself has layers of vanilla cake with raspberry buttercream, as well as a top layer of spice cake with cream cheese icing.  Yum!

Getting to help celebrate people's important life moments is the best part of this job.  Four years after their wedding, Gurveen asked me to surprise his wife with an anniversary cake.

His wife had also passed the bar exam that same week, so he requested a cake to celebrate.  He also wanted both cakes to be a surprise, so i had to lie to his wife when she asked for a cake to celebrate her becoming a lawyer.  It broke my heart to lie to her, but I think she understood in the end.

Every wedding has its share of challenges and triumphs - this wedding of 300 mini cupcakes was no exception.   This job came to me after a guest at another mini cupcake wedding tried my minis and loved them.  Johanna decided she wanted minis for her wedding as well, and contacted me for a tasting.  Almost everything went well, but the vanilla mini cupcakes for the tasting ended up being a little overdone and dry.  While they tasted OK to me the night before, they were certainly not up to my standards on the day of the tasting.  Fortunately, Johanna was nice enough to let me do a do-over and impress her with what my vanillas are supposed to taste like.  She decided to go ahead an book me for her wedding.  We went with Vanilla & Vanilla, Chocolate & Chocolate, Red Velvet, Raspberry & Vanilla and my personal favourite, Chocolate & Mocha.

The next challenge (and triumph) was how to display all of these minis.  They were going on a table in front of the head table and the bride didn't want a high tower hiding the couple, so I had to figure out how best to display them on a lower profile.  I was quite happy with how it came out!

I had a total of six wedding in 2013, and each one was special for different reasons.  Whether it was an amazing venue, a personal connection with the bride and groom, or the excitement of trying a new cake technique, each wedding had been a treasured experience.  The year culminated in, what was for me, one of the best wedding I’ve had the pleasure of attending or being a part of. 

So many factors went into the fantasticness that was Josie and Roshan’s wedding.  The ceremony was sweet, personal and the officiant was charming.  The venue (Hockley Valley in Orangeville) was all around amazing, from the gourmet food, to the room décor, everything was top notch.  The DJ was awesome and the photo booth was a big hit (I think my table took advantage of the instant fun pictures – the majority of the pictures are of us!).

I think what had the biggest impact on me was the way Josie and Roshan incorporated aspects of all their varied heritages (Scottish, Greek, Italian and Indian!) into aspects of their wedding.  The highlight of the evening for me, and most people I think, was the Scottish piper and the Indian bhangra drummers playing the newlywed couples into the reception area for the first time.  I don’t think I would have ever put those two instruments together, but man was it ever incredible!

And of course, Josie and Roshan had a beautiful wedding cake as well.  Their theme was red and gold and their flower was a poinsettia (which were beautifully scattered around the room, three per table!).  I decided on a simple cake with hand made sugar pointsettias.  I wanted the focus of the cake to be on the flowers, which were going to be quite the task, so I kept with a simple white fondant design with a gold ribbon accent.  I had gotten quite sick just before the wedding and was bed ridden for a couple of days, which put me really behind with the cake.  Luckily, thanks to a couple very good friends, we were able to get everything done in time.  I was very pleased with out the flowers came out.  The mother of the bride has a better picture of just the flowers – I’ll see if I can get a copy.

The vast majority of my orders come from word-of-mouth advertising (since that is the only kind of advertising I currently have), but every once in a while, someone will find me on google and send me a request.  Lisa and Mario were just that kind of a couple.  It’s exciting to be working for a brand new client who has never heard or me or what my work is like.  It’s a great chance to prove my skills once again and to show my clients that good taste can come at an affordable price.  Lisa and Mario were very easy to work with.  They wanted cupcakes (Plain Jayne and  Red Velvet) for the wedding, plus a topper cake with two of the cutest cake toppers I’ve ever seen!  I believe they purchased the hand-made wooden ornaments from a shop on Etsy.

Word of mouth is my favourite form of advertising!  About a year ago, I got a request through my website from a friend of Sean and Ana Maria's (whom I've done several projects for).  Jessica said that she had tried the cake at Sean's wedding and that Sean highly recommended me (thanks Sean - I owe you a cupcake!!).  I met with Jessica and her wedding planner and we hit it off instantly.  Jessica decided on some mini cupcakes as well as a 7" cutting cake.  The minis are Double Chocolate, Lemon with Raspberry and Red Velvet (tinted orange) while the cake itself was Lemon cake with Vanilla Bean buttercream.  I love how they came out!  The slabs of tree that they are sitting on were perfect as well.  I wish I had gotten a picture of the room.... The Steamwhistle Brewery is a beautiful venue for an event!

**UPDATE!!**  The bride has read this post and sent in some lovely pictures of the venue:

This year, I get to watch one of my very best friends get married – to one of my other good friends!  We all met at work when we were kids in our 20’s, and I watch Josie’s and Roshan’s relationship develop and grow.  It started with a crush and before we knew it, Roshan was decorating Josie’s office with cute butterflies and hearts.  Now that they are set to tie the knot, I took the opportunity to jump in and make some cake!

Josie decided that, instead of a traditional bouquet, she would like to make a brooch bouquet for her wedding day (I had to google it to see what it was, and they are actually quite pretty!).  She decided on red and gold as her theme (being that the wedding is fairly close to Christmas) and she asked her guests to bring a red/gold brooch to the shower. 

I went searching and I found a lovely brooch at a second hand store.  I then went looking for brooch moulds so that I could make cookie favours for the shower, but I couldn’t find anything.  Never one to let life get in my way, I decided to take it upon myself to make a mould of the brooch I found.  With a little food-safe moulding compound, I was able to make 2 moulds very easily.  I then made sugar brooches out of gum paste and then hand painted all 40 of them, which in turn were attached to the short bread cookies.  They turned out amazing!
Of course I also made cake and cupcakes for the event.  The cake is a brown sugar spice cake, (which is Josie’s favourite) with cream cheese icing.  Yum!

2013 is a big year for me!  I manged to book not one, not two, but six weddings this year!  Exciting!  And nerve wracking...  The one that had me most nervous was wedding #3 for Mani and Shane.  The cute couple had found me from a referral from another wedding I had done previously.  My customer are my best advertising!  Mani was trying to plan the wedding remotely (she was living in the US) and wanted to get everything settled as quickly and as easily as possible.  We met for a consultation where the couple graciously decided to go with me as their cake designer.  The couple was having a 400 person wedding and wanted a beautiful white/black/red themed cake with hand piped scroll work.  I was nervous about this cake for several reasons:  A) it was big (I bought a new vehicle just so I could make sure I could easily transport *this* cake!) B) It was for a new customer C) It was for a wedding and D) once you pipe black on white, there is no going back.  You just can't fix any mistakes, unless you cover them up.  I dug deep and in the end, just decided to have fun with it.  It was when I let go and start to enjoy my work that I found it easier.  I think I'll call this one a win.  You be the judge!

I live in one of the best cities in the word - Toronto.  There is so much to see and do, and so many amazing places to get married.  The venue my friends Chris and Katherine chose for their special day was Casa Loma, Toronto's only Castle.  It's a gorgeous building and amazing state rooms.  The wedding ceremony was in the conservatory and the dinner and dancing was in the Library.  I felt honoured just being able to set up there!  Chris and Kat decided on cupcakes for their wedding, instead of a traditional cake.  In fact, they decided on mini cupcakes at that, but I talked them into some regular sized cupcakes so that they would be visible when displayed on my Mother's beautiful silver grape vine tray tower.  Now my dilemma was figuring out how I was going to display 200+ mini cupcakes without it looking like someone just tossed a bunch of cupcakes on the table.  Luckily, I was able to pull together some parts from work and some parts from the bargain bin at the store and was able to make the smaller silver trays.  In my opinion, they came out amazingly!  I was quite happy with the overall end result of this display.  Congrats Chris and Kat!!

A tasting is very much like a job interview.  You’re meeting a potential employer for the first time and making a good impression is vital.  I like to find out what flavours the couple is most interested in before hand and then I make some mini cupcakes with different options.  It’s a little nerve wracking, especially when you’re often going to someplace you’ve never been before and meeting with people you’ve never seen before so that they can judge your work.  This time was a little more nerve wracking because not only was I meeting the client for the first time, but I would also be meeting her wedding planner for the first time – and this was the first wedding planner I have ever worked with!  AND add to that the fact that the meeting was in Unionville (such a cute town!) which I had never been too and didn’t know their parking situation was so unique.  It’s a small main stress and I guess everyone parks in lots off the main drag and walks up.

Long story short – I was late, but the tasting went very well.  Word of mouth has to be the best form of advertising!  I was recommended to this couple by Sean – whom I’ve done a few important cakes for (engagement, wedding and baby baptism).  His word must go a long way because even though the bride had met with two other bakers, she decided to go with me on the spot.  I’m very excited for this rustic wedding in October!