The Wedding Blog

Step One: The main bulk of the invitations are out! I'm sooo glad that's over with. On the one hand, they look good. And I got to design them exactly how I wanted. On the other, they were a ton of work and I owe Nelle for taking an evening off to come help me. Side note: I took them to the post office Monday, only to be told to come back tomorrow, when the 59-cent stamps be available for sale. I was precisely one-tenth of an ounce over the weight for the basic one-ounce rate. Dammit. But they're done. The good thing about the postcard RSVP's is that it's got room for people to write on if they like. I'm hoping to collect some cool responses, knowing my friends.

Step Two: I've gotten in touch with the organist, and have the contract in hand, so that's getting taken care of. I would've done piano myself, but Don likes organ music so we're gonna go with it.

But . . .

Step Back: Jaime from Deluxe called and it seems she has her own family wedding to go to on the 26th - in New York. She said she could still make the cake on Friday and have it delivered by her staff, if we were desperate. But she doesn't like not being on site when the cake is delivered (that's my kind of perfectionist!) so she'd prefer if we found someone else. I hope to call and make appointments to meet people Friday - Don has agreed not to go into work that day to do some wedding-related errands.

My thoughts: I've googled a bunch of bakers. One quote: All cakes are made in my home kitchen, baked and decorated by me. I mainly use cake mixes for the cakes and homemade buttercream for frosting, but I can make almost any kind of cake or frosting.

Okay, here's the deal: If I were doing this myself, I might cheat with a box. But I'm not going to pay an arm and a leg for someone else to do that. I'm thinking that if I'm going to pay a professional, I'd like the kind of cake I'm not capable of making myself. Otherwise, it's just a waste of money. So I'm trying to find people that are not going to bake up a cake mix, do a basic frosting, and slap a topper (supplied by me, of course) and some pretty piping on it. If I'm going to have a box cake for my wedding, I'll do it myself or beg Don to do it.

Don thinks I'm being too picky, I know, and feels that anyone who's been doing this out of their kitchen is able to come up with something as good as we can make. Which is true. But the point is, if I'm going to pay $400+ for a cake, I want it better than we can make. If I do a cake myself, and it's not professional quality and perhaps not quite perfect in decor, well, it's a quaint labor of love. If I pay that kind of money for a professional to do the same thing, it goes from being cute to kind of pathetic. Just my opinion, I suppose that puts me into Bridezilla territory. (Sigh)

So basically I'm looking at people who can do the fancy flavors, fresh ingredients and a bang-up job decorating. I'd like to find someone like Jaime, who had a ton of ideas and was totally excited about the theme. Finally, I'd like to find someone who isn't going to be snobbish about the cake being divided into two - one bride's and one groom's - in order to keep the cake budget under $500. If it turns out that the only people who fit the criteria won't fit with the budget, I think we're back to doing it ourselves.