Southern Sweethearts: Time To Stuff Our Faces!

Our first dance song faded out and our DJ announced to our guests that the Lady & Sons-catered southern buffet was now open.

Once again, I wish we had more photos of the nom-worthy food.

Mr. Lab and I had already eaten, so we took that time to move around the room and socialize with our guests.

Bottom right photo by guest.

I also used that time to grab photos with my sisters since they left the square before formals.

Wait a second...what's that buzzing sound? Is that a bee?!?

Mrs. Crabcake and Mini! (photo courtesy of Mrs. CC!)

Mrs. CC drove all the way from the other side of the state to share our wedding day with us! :D

Pretty soon, it was time to do a standard at almost every wedding: cut the cake! Our DOC made sure to move our ceremony wreath to our reception for added decor. Before the wedding, I scoured the internet for a pretty vintage oval cake stand but had no luck. But I still loved the simple cake display, even though it bugs me that the table was off-center.

The cake didn't quite live up to its Martha Stewart inspiration because I opted for butter cream frosting over fondant, but I was still pretty darn impressed with Publix's handy-work.

What I wasn't impressed with was that they messed up my order and made it a completely white cake on the inside instead of one tier of red velvet and the other vanilla with raspberry filling! ARGH!

Mr. Lab and I went into the cake cutting with a firm understanding that there would be no cake smashing. I paid way too much for my makeup to have it ruined!

Little did I know that he had just chatted with the videographer who encouraged him to do it.

And honestly, I didn't care at all! But I did go after him to even up the score!

Next was the Sanford Stadium groom's cake that was my surprise to Mr. Lab. It was soooo hard finding the right baker to create this sweet masterpiece...and even harder to keep it a secret from Mr. Lab!

The score on the jumbo tron was our wedding date. And of course, I was winning! Mr. Lab married a highly competitive person. :) Btw, the real score from that day's game was a 38-0 shutout against [admittedly cupcake opponent] Tennessee Tech.

Photos of us at Georgia games surrounded the groom's cake.

Mr. Lab loved his cake!

And the cake was a huge hit with our wedding guests. Especially the Bulldog fans!

And my semi-DIY cake topper project wasn't lost on guests either!

Guest photo.

Someone wanted a piece of that cake and cut into it before we could! But we still did a formal cutting and this time, there wasn't any smashing. Glad Mr. Lab got it out of his system because bourbon chocolate cake with a Kahlua filling would not have gone well with my wedding dress!

Will you have a special cake for your groom? And are you implementing any cake smashing policies? ;)

Previously on Southern Sweethearts:

• Southern Belles Do Tea
• A Rude Vendor Interrupts Our Rehearsal
• We Have Dinner on the Savannah River
• A Spooky Ghost Tour and My Last Fling
• Our Wedding Trailer
• Becoming a Blushing Bride
• I Slip Into My eBay Wedding Dress
• The Fellas Get “Sessay”
• He Got Boudoir, I Got Bling
• An Unplanned First Look
• Our Wedding Party…and Paparazzi
• Details Tell the Story
• Years of Waiting for This Moment (Ceremony Part: 1)
• We Tie the Knot with Faith, Hope, & Love (Ceremony Part: 2)
• My Wedding Party Poses for Mug Shots While We Take Formals
• We Shared a Private Dinner for Two During Cocktail Hour
• Our Wedding Party Lines Up for Introductions
  

Next Up: We Dance with our Moms!

*All professional photos by Lindsi Jones Photography. Some images may have been slightly altered by moi.

Piece of Cake Part 4: Avoiding the "Cake Wreck"

I spent this past weekend in Savannah tying up the last few loose ends of our wedding in person. One of those loose ends was making sure my wedding cake is constructed as close to my vision as possible.

When I first visited Publix to discuss my cake, I was told there would be no problem recreating the Martha Stewart cake I found online. Remember this?

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Well, when I stopped back by to actually place the order and hand over my inspiration photo, our baker suddenly realized that the cake was an oval, not a circle. I thought she knew this the entire time! But apparently Publix doesn't do oval cakes and she said she'd have to make the cake round. I reluctantly placed the order anyways, bit my lip and walked out with my head hung low.

But then a couple weeks later I was browsing through a crafts store and saw oval cake pans. I had an idea! What if I supplied the cake pans? I mean, all they have to do is pour the batter in the forms, right? So I called up Publix to see if they would accept them, and they said yes! :D

And then it gets even better. While I was shopping online for the best deal on the oval cake pans, I ran across this:

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They're the EXACT same culinary stencils used to create the Martha Stewart cake! I. Was. Flipping. OUT! Up until that point, I was secretly worrying that I might suffer a cake wreck fiasco ala Mrs. Perfume (sorry to use you as an example P!) because the scroll pattern is so intricate. But now all the work has practically been done for them! If they screw this up, something is terribly wrong with that bakery. But I know they won't because I've seen their work which is already amazing PLUS they have all these tools to help them out!

So this weekend, I made a quick trip to the Publix handling my cake and dropped off my cake pans (which I got on sale at A.C. Moore for $27),..

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...stencils, big arse peony, and ribbon!


I'm sacrificing the monogram on the top of the cake now that they have the actual stencil, but it's a small price to pay for piece of mind. Now I can't wait to see the cake in all its glory! Here's to hoping I've avoided the cake wreck! :)

Did you supply tools to a vendor to make sure a vision of yours was carried out perfectly?


Revisit the entire Labrador cake saga:

Part 1: Plain and Simple, Yet Oh-So Lovely...
Part 2: There's Nothing Finer In The Land
Part 3: Breaking The Mold

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.