Piece of Cake Part 1: Plain and Simple, Yet Oh-So Lovely...

...and cheap! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hive, please allow me to introduce my wedding cake:

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And you won't believe who's making it!

What for it....



PUBLIX!

Yeah, you read that right. A grocery store bakery is making my wedding cake. And it's going to be fabulous AND affordable!

Now that I'm living in Savannah, I decided to start working on some of those "must-do" items from my wedding checklist. FMIL is in town for a 6 day visit so she, FSIL, and I headed out to a couple bakers to get started. I took a few requirements with me so I wouldn't be persuaded by any smooth talkers while on our quest.

1. Must feed at least 40 of our 75 guests (the groom's cake will feed the rest and then some)
2. Must use buttercream icing
   
3. Must be oval & two-tiered
   
4. Must have impeccable piping skills
   
5. Must be NO MORE than $5 per slice (and that's pushing it!)
   

After a few tries at some absurdly expensive shops, I was beginning to feel unrealistic about my cake budget. Then I remembered to stop by Publix since I'd already been contemplating them for my simple wedding cake plans.

Can I just start this recap by saying my experience reminded me of the Publix commercial about wedding cakes and customer service? Our baker, Evelyn, was so helpful and cheerful that I immediately liked her. But when she got to the prices, I absolutely fell in love with her! More on that a little later...

First off, I showed Evelyn some of my inspiration photos I brought along to give her an idea of how I wanted to customize the main inspiration cake to make it my own.

Buttercream. I want a "homemade" and southern look to my cake, so fondant was out of the picture. Evelyn will smooth it out to the point that it almost looks like fondant but still has the feel of "icing". Besides, most fondant isn't that tasty, so why pay for something a lot of people end up peeling off and discarding?

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Monogram. I never tire of seeing a couple's initials on their wedding cake. Evelyn will incorporate ours into the scroll work on the top of the cake. That means no cake topper, just beautiful piping!

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Single flower decor. I absolutely love the elegance and simplicity of a single, large bloom on a cake. Flower of choice? Peony of course! I will either be adding a fake bloom or having our groom's cake baker make one out of gumpaste. (More on all this in Part 2.) Publix cannot make large flower blooms, so these are my only options (or importing a real peony bloom, but I'm not doing that).

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The result? Well, we won't know for sure exactly how it'll look until the week of the wedding. But I've made a handy little guide on where our changes will be to take to our tasting Sunday! I'm keeping the ribbon and "string" detail from the inspiration pic. And although I haven't tried the flavors yet, I'm pretty sure what I'll choose. :)

(editing done in Picnik)

Unfortunatley, the one area Publix lacks in cakes (at least to me) is their limited selection of flavors. Too bad they didn't have some sort of peach filling. Doesn't get much more southern than that! To compensate for the flavor selection, the groom's cake will have more exotic flavors. But you'll have to stick around for Part 2 to hear about them! Our groom's cake meeting is next week (I'm having it made somewhere else).

So now you're probably wondering about the price, right?

Well, I asked for a cake that will feed at least 40. Evelyn gave me a magical number of only $140 for 44 slices!* I was blown away! At that price I got greedy and asked how much the next size up cake would cost. She surprised me again with the number of $165 for 66 slices!* I decided that for a $25 increase, I might as well go with more slices to be covered just in case both cakes are so delicious we start to run out. Even better, we don't have to pay any deposit. We just have to pay the full price 3 days before the wedding. And if I'm not happy with the cake, they either have to work on it until I am, or I just don't have to pay. Sweet. Literally.

So if you weren't doing the math, that's only $2.50 per slice. I would gladly walk into a store and buy a slice of cake for that price. Heck, nowadays you can't even buy a dessert in a restaurant for under $5!

So stayed tuned for Part 2 to hear about this tasting and our groom's cake meeting!

*Prices before additional 20% for Red Velvet flavor. Updated prices in Part 2.