Cake Tasting

As we had posted previously, we were planning to use Publix to make our wedding cake. Kelly met with a Publix baker at a wedding expo in Savannah, and together, they came up with a cake...flavors, frosting, design, and most importantly, cost. So we made an appointment with the Publix near Windermere, and took these plans with us, thinking everything would go smoothly. We were way wrong. First, the manager was not in and she was "unavailable for the rest of the morning." Next, we were presented with cake scraps, none of which were the flavors of cake we were interested in using. Finally, we were told that we couldn't use the design Kelly had originally chosen, and the prices that were quoted in Savannah were supposedly wrong.
The baker didn't even have a wedding cake order form, so she was writing all of our information down on scrap paper. And worst, we had to stand up the entire time. The cake is a big purchase...it is not just birthday cake or Dairy Queen ice cream cake (that's for the groom's cake). Then, she wanted us to come back Monday morning to see if we could do the design we originally wanted...sure, it's not like we work on Monday mornings or anything. We got a half-hearted "congratulations" as we walked out. So all and all it was a terrible experience. I'm not saying every Publix is like this. I know couples use them for weddings and have great experiences; the reason we considered them in the first place. Unfortunately, we were not one of those couples...far from it.
But thankfully our wedding coordinater at Windermere came through for us. She gave us the name and contact information for a great baker who is just starting out on her own after making cakes for another company for 15 years. She specializes in wedding cakes. We called her immediately after leaving our tasting at Windermere and she agreed to meet us the next day...with cake samples. As you can see below, they were pretty good because we kind of demolished them.

After Kelly described what she wanted, she sketched it for us and even drew in the frosting detail. It was a lot like those cake shows Kelly watches on TV on the food channel. After sampling her cakes and fillings, we decided on four different flavors, so each tier will be something new.
In the end, I guess we have a good ending to a very bad experience. It probably worked out better this way.

A little taste of this, a little taste of that....

In the words of one of my favorite chefs, Yum-O! We spent this Saturday tasting the food for our reception. Mom and Dad drove up from Augusta to help us out. Who would want to miss out on this?

We headed to Windermere to make sure the low country boil was up to our standards...and it was! We approved not only the boil but also the fried okra, cole slaw, and cajun chicken. Don't worry, the food won't be to0 spicy...but it won't be boring either.

This is our coordinator, Diane. We were very impressed with the organization of the tasting and most importantly, the food!

Mom and Dad enjoyed the Low Country Boil and the great customer service!

Not sure what I'm concentrating on in this picture.

We can't wait to see what you think about the food, too!

Couples Shower

This past Saturday we had a wedding shower with our friends from Augusta and MCG. Sarah and Hank, Katie and Trey, Jenn and Brice, Erin and Ray, Leigh and Jason, Chrissie, Ms. Annette, and Naomi all hosted the shower.

We gave the hosts and hostesses framed pictures.The MCG friends!

We had a great time and appreciated all of the hard work and effort put into making the shower happen! Thanks to everyone who stopped by...it was so good to catch up. We love our gifts and can't wait to use them in our home.

Giveaways!

Not long after Cary and I got engaged I started searching for inspiration for the wedding. I quickly poured over magazines, websites, blogs, and books. However, blogs are my favorite...obviously I liked them so much that we started our own! Well, along with blogs comes the occasional give away. Often, the blog owner will giveaway a sponsored product or service to one of their readers. All the reader has to do is visit the product's company site and then comment on the blog post with their name and contact email. It's that simple, and it is a win-win situation. The company gets free publicity and lots of internet traffic while the blog's readers get a great prize.
Anyway, I quickly caught on to these giveaways and entered several. Although, I must caution you to only enter reputable ones...there's a lot of sketchy things on the internet, so be careful.
All in all I've won several things for the wedding and it has allowed us to keep costs down a bit. The first prize I won (and definitely the best) was our engagement session with our photographer along with the save the dates and a portrait. I also won our favor boxes for the wedding as well as favor boxes for the rehearsal dinner (and for a while there I thought I was destined to win cute little boxes!). The latter came from Origami Boxes, a cute website that sales all sizes of origami boxes in all sorts of papers. I was very impressed with their customer service and would recommend them to anyone.

origamiboxes.org

Most recently I won a clay flower cake topper. Sounds weird, I know, but visit the artist's site and you will quickly see these things are amazing! The company is called DK Designs, and it is based in Hawaii.

dkdesignshawaii.com

Mine is different than any of those because the artist allowed me to customize it a little. I would definitely recommend one as a keepsake!