Cake Tasting and Contract Signing

I love when a meeting with a vendor goes well. Our cake tasting with Creative Cakes went so well that we decided to sign the contract that day. Having that additional large, huge, big deal checked off the list lifted a weight from my shoulders I hadn't fully realized was there. Also, their cakes are really beautiful. Want to see some? Sure you do.

Image via WeddingBook

Image via Project Wedding

Image via Project Wedding

We arrived for our tasting promptly at 9:00 am. Apparently, the Kettle wedding party rolls large everywhere we go, cake tasting included. At each appointment, I let all the major players (Momma and Daddy Kettle, Mima and Poppa Kettle, etc.) know about it. They know they're welcome to come to anything since we're planning this big shindig all together. It ended up being 6 of us there.

Mr. Kettle and I along with both sets of parents make for an interesting time no matter where we are. There are always plenty of laughs, anecdotal stories, and fun. There's just not always a lot of listening or focusing on the task at hand. In fact, our baker's response to our spaciness (well, not mine, but most of our entourage) gave her beaucoup bonus points and let me know she'd be great with our group.

When we arrived, they were photographing cakes for a catalog or book or something. They looked so delicious. Cue mouth watering visions of cake slices dancing by. And it smelled so yummy in there. They brought us out several plates of cakes and cake mousses. They also told us anything else we want to try they'd bring out as well. We began digging in and all realized we loved their simple white cake.

I had just gotten off work, and in my defense, I work 12 hours and was really tired. So I forgot my camera, but I did take pictures on my BlackBerry!



Personal photo: Starting at the red velvet cake and going clockwise we have red velvet cake, strawberry mousse, chiffon cake, vanilla bean mousse, chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, white cake, white chocolate mousse. The white dollop on top of each cake is just the basic buttercream.



Personal photo: Just another cake photo to get a better view of the other side of the plate. Drooool.

Personal photo: You can clearly see which cake and which mousse we preferred. It was all about the white cake and the strawberry, chocolate, and white chocolate mousses.

After realizing we all liked the white cake more than the chocolate, and even more than the (gasp!) red velvet, we knew that it would be okay for us to go with just plain white cake for an entire wedding cake. That's how I know that cake was good, I wasn't even thinking about fun and exotic flavor mixes anymore.

Once we had a cake flavor it was time to think filling flavor. Based on how long our cake would be out before serving, we knew mousse was our best bet, plus it was a way for me to get more whipped cream into the cake. I thought the chocolate and white chocolate would go well together and they did. Winning! On a whim, I asked for the lemon mousse, which turned out to be really lemon-y. Almost too lemon-y. But I tried it with the strawberry mousse and it was heaven; it tasted like really good strawberry lemonade.

We decided to alternate layers between the two chocolates and the strawberry lemonade. Then we had to talk design We pulled up pics of my dress on the store's iPad and showed her the details. She came up with a great drawing where each 2 of the four tiers mimicked my dress. Divine!

Personal photo: sorry for the blackberry pic, but you get the idea, right?

I don't know if you saw the line that says 135 servings in that picture. But our baker says we don't want to end up serving way more cake than is needed, especially since we're doing the cake as part of the dessert bar. We can always order an extra sheet cake if need be, but this would be just fine four our venue.

The fact that she didn't try to sell us on some 6-tier 300 serving cake really pleased us. It pushed us over the top and Momma Kettle wrote her a check. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I'm definitely adding "close up of cake details" to my must-have shots list for the photographer. Speaking of photographers, I've got a great idea for a photo guest book, but that's another post.