Up until now, I thought that finding someone to design and make our wedding cake would be the easiest part of our wedding arrangements ‐ so it wasn’t high on my priority list. Suddenly, one day I realised that nothing had been done about said cake, which made me really angry ‐ yes, bridezilla was back! I got into action and called around a few local cake makers.
With most wedding‐related things, it’s easier to try and make appointments for a Saturday, when we’re all off work, but the following three Saturdays were already booked up with shopping for bridesmaid’s dresses. A few of the cake makers I phoned were already booked up for 31 July, so this just made me more stressed and determined to find someone ‐ I couldn’t wait for a free Saturday!
Luckily, Mike mentioned our hunt to one of his colleagues and she gave us the number of one her friends, Connie, who happens to be a cake maker. I was so relieved when I phoned her and found that she still had space for our day! I managed to book an evening appointment with her for two days later, but unfortunately Mum was in Scotland visiting family all that week, so she had to miss it.
I trawled through the internet and loads of wedding magazines looking for pictures of cakes to cut out and take with me. I realised that I knew what I didn’t want, rather than what I did ‐ not totally useful, but at least it’s a start! I picked loads of pictures out, and then went through them with Mike, to make a short(er) list of possibles. There weren’t any pictures where we liked the entire design, but there were a few elements of different cakes which we could use.
So, Mike, Dad and I went along to Connie’s house, armed with loads of pictures of likes and dislikes. Connie had a huge number of albums with photographs in them of cakes that she had made. I realised that the shop that she used to partly own made my 18th birthday cake ‐ it’s true what they say about it being a small world!
Although we’ve heard a few nasty rumours that we may have a wet summer this year we have to plan for a hot summer like last year’s just in case. There are some types of cakes which, due to the heat, would not be practical. This ruled out having a chocolate cake and it also meant that if we wanted some tiers of sponge cake, Connie would need to make sure that they didn’t sink into each other with the heat.
There are so many different types and styles of cakes, right from the traditional to ones that don’t even look like they’re made out of cake! If, like us, you don’t know what you want, you need to go to a cake maker who can make a wide variety of styles, who has lots of ideas and who isn’t afraid to share them with you.
Mike isn’t too keen on fruit cake, so we decided to have one tier sponge and two tiers fruit. We’re sticking with tradition and keeping a top tier. Other than asking for a sponge tier, Mike also had one other cake request to make: he’s Formula One mad and he wanted a Formula One car as the cake, made from chocolate!
We didn’t want anything too traditional looking, but equally we didn’t want anything too quirky. I really fancied a fairytale castle, but Mike saw that idea in the same way that I saw his Formula One car idea. As we haven’t chosen the exact flowers that we are having yet, we’ll decide on the exact cake decoration nearer the time. But at least we have the cake in place. Phew!
Read Gill’s diary next month to see how her wedding planning is going and to pick up some handy tips along the way.
