It seems our poor rings got ousted by the desire to see cake. Sorry, fall rings!
The Cake
The wedding cake is probably one of the only two things I had very specific (and very vague!) ideas about. For me, it was all about my dress and the cake. I didn't really care about anything else.
I was always sure I wanted Richard Tan, a pastry chef who works at the hospital, to make my wedding cake. I don't like (from scratch) cake. At all. I think it's bland and dry and... gross. Give me Betty Crocker anyday. But Richard's cake is
amazing. Out of this world. I could live (quite largely, I'd assume) on his buttercream alone.
I also wanted
Colette Peters to be involved too. I had seen her cake books and her work on the Food Network.
Then I grew to love Mike McCarey's (of
Mike's Amazing Cakes) work. I love how he took inanimate objects and turned them into cakes.
Shortly after we became engaged, I contacted Mike's Amazing Cakes. My hope was that they'd do what they do on a couple episodes of Food Network Challenge. You tell them about yourselves, and they come up with a cake.
Unfortunately, they wouldn't have that. It's not that they weren't willing to work with me, but... they weren't willing to work with me!
I was asked to send pictures of cakes I liked. I did. Then I was told they'd make the cake (alissa's pinkcakebox Corpse Bride cake was the one they offered to make) with the colors we wanted and maybe put a cat on it for upwards of $1200 (and that didn't include delivery).
The fact was, I was almost willing to pay that. But not for someone else's cake. We wanted *our* cake.
So that bombed.
Then I went to Richard (hospital pastry chef) and found out the hospital won't allow him to make wedding cakes because they're too complex. He was more than willing to do a shower cake, but would more than likely get in trouble if he attempted anything more extravagant.
He recommended I go to
Jacques Pastries. He actually worked there for many years, and he said they worked very similarly. We had been to a bridal expo where they were sampling their cake, and I tried it, and I had to agree that it tasted just like his. I also loved the cake models they had, and I had said to Rob if Mike's didn't pan out, we should look into them.
So I made an appointment.
Two weeks later... (it felt like forever!)
We met with one of the managers (Tammy) of the store, and she was amazing (and had lots of nice things to say about Richard). Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I said to her, I really want three cakes:
1. Whimsical/mad hatter
2. A concept piece (like hikers on a mountain)
3. A big inanimate object cake
I also told her I loved fondant cakes... how smooth they were.
She didn't even have us look at the portfolio/book on the table. She really *got* us. I had shown her several designs we really liked, and we didn't even need to finish. She asked us what we were like. We said our world was our cats (all five!), and that we really liked walking (hiking without the hills and mountains!) trails. We loved nature. We were having a fall wedding and thought it'd be neat to have an outdoorsy type cake that didn't seem like a cake at all. Almost all of our cake pictures had dragonflies, frogs, and other critters on them. She asked for pictures of the Bengals, and of course, I had them. She actually asked me to send more in email because the more pictures we sent, the better the detail (whee!).
She said, I have an idea, let me scope and sketch it out, and you can taste the cakes while I do it.
Sketches! I wanted sketches! Yay! (I tried to scan what she gave us last night, but the printer wasn't working. I'll try again.)
The cake was great, though I have a lot of trouble trying to imagine the flavors together. They give you a piece of chocolate cake and a piece of vanilla cake, and then, like Disney, you get cups of buttercreams and preserves. If you don't know how much they put in the cake, it's hard to tell if what you're trying is going to pan out the way you think it will. I may very well have missed out on a fantastic flavor combination because I wasn't tasting it the way I should have.
Rob and I were stuck on the flavors we tasted at the bridal expo. He really loved this caramel apple spice cake (I liked it, but it didn't scream "wedding"), and I loved the almond/amaretto (tastes like cherries to me!), so it was tough looking past those.
But we did come up with our flavors (no peanut butter, Carrie!).
Three tiers, from bottom to top:
Almond cake/amaretto buttercream/chocolate fudge truffle (Did I forget to mention I'm allergic to chocolate?)
Spice cake/cherry buttercream (sounds weird, but it was very, very good)
White/vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream/strawberry preserves
It seems funny we didn't want any bland flavors, and we made our tier the bland-ish one. But we really liked the combination. It was like strawberry shortcake.
I just hope I get to taste each tier!
Tammy came back, and when I saw her sketch, I almost cried. She managed to take all three cakes I wanted and put them into one cake.
So the cake will be three tiers (obviously), but the tiers will be oddly shaped to match the earth. The top tier will be off center, because the second tier will have a pond with a frog! There will be trees... birch, oak, maple. With a path forging up the cake. There will be a rock mid cake with our initials and heart carved in the middle. Neechee will be sprawled out on top of the rock (made of sugar paste). Emily will be sitting on the top tier doing something adorable, I imagine.
The only bummer for me was that they could do it all in buttercream! I was like, NO! I want fondant! (I didn't say that, because she was right-- it would look better with buttercream, and buttercream is delicious). I had an idea anyway to compensate for it.
The best part was, the quoted price was a fraction of the cost [of Mike's]! I was so happy!
I should have spattered the pictures at the beginning, but I knew if I did that, you wouldn't read my whole post!
So here are the pictures I showed Tammy when we met with her. They're from all sorts of places, including Jacques' own cakes.
We are big Halloween fans, so I had to toss this one in.
We love Pink Cake Box!
A LOT.
We saw this cake at the bridal expo. It's from Jacques'. We thought it was really cool.
Another Jacques'. Rob really liked this one. I thought it was adorable.
Jacques does it again. I thought Rob would love this one because he's big into trucks. But he said we could leave the trucks at home.
We loved the critters on this one.
I liked this one for the fall theming, and the fondant.
Flowers were our focus on this one.
Cats.
This one is a Colette Peter's creation. We liked how it took the couple's interests and put them all in one cake.
Another Colette. Rob really liked the take on Monet.
Another "painting" cake.
We loved this cake, but we didn't want to see any white.
We liked the stars popping out of the top.
We loved this one for the animals, the trees, and the painting on the cake. Big kitty!
This one gave us the idea of having a tree stump for a cake. We really, really,
really loved it.
If we had to have a quasi-traditional cake, this would have been it.
So here is what our cake will be similar to. It's not going to be the same (we're definitely not going to be on it), but it's buttercream, and it has trees.
I live off Exit 4.
I might just have to crash this shindig! (only kidding)
We're not sure if the eleventh table is our sweetheart one (which would be great), or if it's going to be another table. But we're coming up with ideas for the eleventh (we have leftovers, but we're not sure we want to do another basket). 
Me want to see cake! 
Those aren't cakes! They are works of art!!! 
Cannot wait to see sketches of yours! Oh, and your babies are so absolutely adorable! 
