Living in the land of Longhorns pretty much guarantees that I will be making some sort of UT inspired grooms cake...and I make them quite often.  I have always enjoyed making various groom's cake in honor of their favorite Alma Mater.  But, I was extra excited when Deah and James met with me about their wedding.  Their choice of brides cake, a horizontal texture design to be dressed up with a small floral cascade, was perfect for the country chic setting of Twisted Ranch.  But then, we began to discuss the grooms cake!

James graduated from Texas ATM University and often participated in their yearly bonfire.  A huge ATM tradition!  For his grooms cake we decided to create the Aggie Bonfire!  This Red Velvet cake was decorated with edible chocolate logs to create that bonfire look.  On top of the 3 tier cake was a milk chocolate outhouse with "TU" piped above the front door.  A little jab the Aggie's have often made towards Longhorn grads. Delicious and a wow factor!  The vision came to reality effortlessly and I can't wait to see professional pics of this cake!   

Engagement season is over, wedding season is about to begin, and right now we are in the middle of booking season!  We have been meeting with bride's left and right to talk to them about their wedding.  As you are preparing for your consultation, here are a few things to consider:

1. Is my date open?  First things first, right!  Spring wedding months are booked, but give us a call...we might still be able to work with you.  Summer is filling up fast, so if you are a May through August bride give us a call asap.  The fall brides are starting to come in, but most dates are still available.  As is winter.
   
2. Determine your budget.  Do some research and come up with a realistic budget for your wedding.  A great place to start is www.costofwedding.com.  You can type in your zip code and it will breakdown the average cost based on your guest count and even go into details, like what is the average budget on a wedding cake (answer $350-550).
   
3. Have a theme and ideas in mind.  Search pinterest and pin ideas of cakes that you like.  That way we can discuss different ideas.
   
4. Think about the extras.  Do you want to save your top tier?  Do you want flowers on your cake or other adornments?  What about a grooms cake?
   
5. Be open to suggestions.  Some brides come in "knowing" exactly what they want.  And sometimes, that's great!  And sometimes, not so great.  Be open to changes or ideas.
   

I cannot wait until tomorrow!  It marks the first anniversary of when we began our ever so popular Grand Tasting!  So, what happens at our Grand Tastings?  If you read my blog last week you know a little bit about how we run our private tastings.  The Grand Tasting is yet another opportunity for brides to sample tons of cake!  But first, the details:

Grand Tasting
 Chateau on the Creek
5:30 - 7:30 pm (it's come and go)

What you can expect: Expect to sample!  Lots of cake!  When you come in, sign in and say hello.  Then come grab a plate at our cake buffet. Grab a drink and enjoy!  I will be walking around along with my husband, Kevin, to help answer any questions you may have.  Some brides even bring photos and we design her cake right there, contract, deposit...done.  Easy!  Walk around the room and check out the mock cake tables for inspiration.  Snag an album and view samples of previous cakes we've made!

What will you be sampling this show:

• French Vanilla with Strawberry Cream Cheese Filling
• Pink Champagne with Strawberry Filling
• Lemon with Raspberry Filling
• Banana Foster with Cream Cheese Filling
• Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Filling
• Chocolate with Bailey's Chocolate Mousse

Will other wedding pros be there: Yes!  Also attending will be Pete with Best DJ's Texas, Jenn with Oragami Owl (she has some great ideas for decorating your bouquet), AJ Event Coordinators, and Alan with Texas Roadmasters! 

The best part of choosing your wedding cake is tasting!  Am I right?   Seeing your cake come together in addition to tasting lovely dessert treats is most brides favorite part of wedding planning!  Well, with exception of choosing the dress.  Let's face it...nothing is better then finding that dress!  Sometimes people think it's a pretty straight forward process.  And in a way, it is.  However, different bakeries organize their tastings in different ways and it's important not to assume we are all the same.  Because of that I can't speak for other bakers.  However, I would love to explain how our tastings work!

We look at the flavors our brides for that weekend have chosen and select 3-4 flavors and bake additional servings of those cakes for our brides to choose. Why do we do this?  For several reasons.  One, it allows you to taste samples you may not have considered before.  I cannot tell you how many brides fall in love with a flavor simply because I had it available and choose that for their cake.  Two, it keeps our prices low.  We are one of the more competitively priced bakers in town and we would like to keep it that way.  If we had a business model that allowed all brides to choose 4 different flavors our costs would skyrocket, and so would the price of your cake.  Third, we are a small custom bakery and it's just not feasible.  Myself, along with my assistant, run this whole gig.  We don't have a full service bakery with several full time staff members whose only job is to bake cakes all day.  We chose to keep our custom bake shop small because we like the relationships we build with brides.  And we like for them to feel confident knowing who is making their cake.  On average, we meet with 2-3 brides per day.  It takes 2 hours from start to finish to make a small sample cake.  If every bride selected 4 samples, we would spend 48 to 72 hours per week on sample cakes alone.  That's another full time job!

But, what if you want to choose your samples? Not a problem.  Our goal is to service every bride.  Since the majority of brides don't feel it necessary to select their tasting flavors we have found our tasting policy to work great.  But, we do want to cater to those who prefer to be more selective in their tasting choices.  We don't mind baking custom samples for those brides, however, we do ask that brides purchase those samples.  We will have them available to taste at our consultation.  This provides an opportunity for those to sample what they want at a minimal fee for them without having to raise the price for everybody.