Weddings in North Carolina

Cake shooters from Sugarland, Chapel Hill NC

You make them by cutting rounds of wedding cake and then layering them with piping of ganache and frosting – they were served with cute little plastic paddles. I think they were very pretty and much less messy than cupcakes.

I went to the Bridal Fair in Chapel Hill today – it was postponed from last weekend because of snow. Here are some of the cakes I saw there…

Tall fondant cake from Swank Cake Design, Chapel Hill NC

Swank fondant cakes: black and green, black and white, ribbon design

Wedding Cakes from Sugarland, Chapel Hill NC

I’ll be featuring these “cake shooters” (above) in the next post. And here’s detail on Sugarland’s adorable Indian bride and groom:

Cake topper, not sculpey but fondant, for an Indian wedding

A friend sent me this, she knows I’m fascinated by unusual wedding cakes. I’m not sure I’d eat this but I sure like looking at it!

I was at a bridal vendors event lately and while I did not meet this vendor, the idea seems interesting:

Chantel Smith, “event coordinator,” is offering a flat-rate $5,000 package which includes:

Events in a Box, NC.

My daughter, her sweetheart, and various members of the family sampled wedding cake from seven bakeries this past weekend.

Cupcakes for weddings

She called them and reports that cupcakes cost $2.00 each if you buy more than ten dozen.

My daughter, the bride-to-be, and her groom were in town for a whirlwind tour. We tried several caterers, visited her venue (Duke Gardens), and sampled cake at seven bakeries. I baked the last two cakes myself, as a home-made comparison taste-test.

We tried 2-4 cake types each at:

1. Guglhupf;
2. Cake Dreams by Sally;
3. Mad Hatter;
4. Sugarland;
5. Sweet Janes
6. Bliss
7. Good Taste Cake Designs.

Now the happy couple are back on the plane to California and I’m on my bed wishing for Pepto-Bismol. Reports on what we sampled will have to wait…

Fashionable tilted wedding cake

They told me the layers are so heavy you have to put pieces of corrugated cardboard between the layers and support the cardboard with little pieces of dowels. Well, that was easy enough – however, after I iced it I sadly realized the cake was not perfectly level.

My delicious but crooked wedding cake, 1981

On the “day of,” my dad, who was an engineer, looked at it with displeasure, said “you need some shims,” and proceeded to square it up. Or so I thought he had, but when I dug up the picture, I saw the re-engineering had actually not been successful. Luckily the cake (which was chocolate with fresh cherries and kirsch) was delicious.

These days, if this happened you could just say you did it that way on purpose!

UPDATE: I am writing about my bake your own cake experience.

The hopeful customers: my daughter and me. She’s been planning a modest (well, maybe not austere, but hopefully not luxury-priced) wedding and is researching, of course, on the internet, since she’s in California but is marrying here in North Carolina. Well, she’ll need a beautiful delicious wedding cake, right?

Anyway, she came across a high-class (apparently) cake baker and sent me a link to his site. We agree – his site is so arrogant and annoying we won’t consider contacting him.

What’s not to like? Check out this language from his website:

We invite you and one (1) guest to one complimentary cake tasting/consultation, by appointment, to sample our cakes and review our portfolio. We also request that the person who will make the final decision for your wedding cake be present at the tasting. Additional tastings are limited to weekdays, for a fee, and are subject to availability.

As a courtesy, we request a minimum of 48 hours notice should you need to cancel your appointment. If notice of an appointment cancellation or an appointment reschedule is not confirmed within 48 hours, and a revised appointment is requested, then a $25.00 tasting charge will be incurred.

At the conclusion of your consultation, we will provide you with an estimate of projected costs.

Consultations last for approximately one (1) hour and can be scheduled Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Prior to our meeting, we request that you have an event site, caterer and florist secured with deposits, as well as preliminary floral and theme decisions. We also strongly recommend that you determine your overall budget for your wedding cake prior to consultation. If your cake budget is undetermined, please contact us prior to consultation to evaluate our predetermined pricing packages. This collaboration will determine and promote a complimentary and successful understanding of any budget requirements and/or restrictions and ultimately determine if the consultation and tasting appointment should resume as scheduled.

If you desire to purchase a full-color rendering with 3-Dimensional details of your designed wedding cake prior to construction and the contract stage, please provide a check for $185.00 at the tasting/consultation appointment. After completion of the color board , you will be invited in for approval before advancing to the creative construction stage.

Maybe I’m naive, but especially in this economy I don’t think wedding merchants can afford to alienate potential customers. If my daughter and I wanted to bring her groom (well, fiance) to the cake testing, actually one of us would have to stay home?

My comment when I saw this site: “I bet we’d have to take out a second mortgage on the house to afford this cake.” And, as an experience old mom, I say life is too short to spend it dealing with irritable artisanal cake creators who assume you are not worthy of their artistic creations.

If you plan to separate the mother of the bride from a whole lot of money, you better be at least a little bit friendly and welcoming.

I’ve been showing this page to so many people I thought I might as well post it here. These toppers cost more than $2,000, but look at the detail…

Cake topper with backpacks

Anniversary cake topper

1802 West Main St. , Durham, NC 27705

Tel: (919)286-1987

Housed in what used to be a gas station,  sharing a parking lot with Whole Foods, Ben & Jerry’s, and a bunch of other nice shops, the Mad Hatter is the place where my ex-husband bought his wedding cake when he remarried. Have a look at their classic cake descriptions.