Cake Tasting

One of the things I think Dave was looking forward to the most...and I have to admit I was to..was cake tasting. We've been looking online and asking for recommendations on Facebook from friends for wedding cake bakeries in the Columbia-area and options were pretty slim. It seems there are only three or four popular places that people use.

We used one of the more popular ones for our engagement party cake... I loved the way it turned out. It was exactly what I asked for....the only problem.. the cake was VERY dry and the icing had no taste. There was some fondant on there... like the endzones, yard markers and the stars but I just wasn't pleased with it...especially for the price we paid. So after that experience, I knew I wouldn't go back there. Plus the day I picked up the cake, the baker/owner wasn't very pleasant.

So I continued to search... I heard a lot about one place in West Columbia that's pretty well known....but I wasn't pleased with the things I saw on the website... so I Googled....googled...and googled..... and out of no where, I found... Parties To Go. Carol Sturkie is the sole baker/employee who's been in business for 30 years. I spoke with her by phone last week and was pleased to talk to her and what she had to say. So we made an appointment for this past Saturday to have a consultation.

Mom, Dave and I ventured out to her bakery shop, which also happens to be out in West Columbia.. and completely fell in love with Carol. Her bakery smelt amazing as soon as we walked in. And her cake...omg! It was amazing! Her wedding cake is a cream cheese pound cake...delicious!!! I showed her what I had in mind.... I wanted this cake exactly as it is...except I wanted orange and pink..rather

than the yellow of course. I told her off the bat I didn't want it completely covered in fondant so the plan is for the cakes to be covered in butter cream icing with the dots only being done in fondant. The layers in between the cake will be done in pink.. with the majority of the circles b ein g done in orange tones and the smaller dots will be pink! And her pricing... it can't be beat!
I really can't wait to see what Carol does for us come May.

In the mean time... Dave kept talking about wanting a cake for this weekend's football tailgate. It's the weekend (other than the wedding) we have been looking forward to. Carolina and Tennessee will take to the gridiron Saturday. So after we ordered/discussed the wedding cake, Dave and Carol talked about a cake for the tailgate.. I'm not sure what the plan is or what's going to be on the cake so I guess we will wait and see.

One other thing we completed this past weekend was the ceremony planning. Mary Louise, a friend of mine and girlfriend of my college professor, will be marrying us. Dave and I had dinner with her and Dick Saturday night to kind of catch up and plan the ceremony. So that is pretty much done... Lots of things getting checked off the TO DO list... with a lot still left to do.

One other thing I hope to complete this week is to pick out the font for the invitations. The print company who is doing out invitations is in West Ashley and we are living in Summerville now... so it's like a 25 to 30 minute drive over there.

Until next time...

Moving On Up....

The last few days of our lives have been crazy! We have packed up and left our apartment in West Ashley after hundreds of problems and am now living in a beautiful place in Summerville.... moving up the interstate, a little closer to my family by about 25 minutes! It's been a transition getting used to light switches, having more space, and climbing three flights of stairs as our apartment is on the third floor. 

It's a fairly new complex...only two years old and a place we plan to call home until we buy a house.  I can't thank our friends enough for helping us with the move... I know once they found out it was the third floor, they wanted to run and hide. So a big thanks to Geoff and Vicki, Gino & Elisha, Mandy, Kentrell, Andy, my grandparents and my mom... without yall, Dave and I would still be trying to move in.

Anyways.... enough on the side note...back to the wedding.  I found a place to print our invitations finally. It's a printing company in West Ashley that did the invitations for our friends, Joe & Krystle Yozzo.  The company has a graphic artist on hand and was able to recreate the invite I made and we are in the final stages of picking out a font we are happy with.  I can't wait for the final product.

This coming weekend we are hoping to get the wedding cake planning done. I think I've found two bakeries I want to check out while we head to Columbia to see Darius Rucker in concert on Sunday.  So that's on the to-do list. We are also planning out our ceremony this weekend.  My friend Mary Louise will be marrying us.  She's such an amazing woman and has a special place in my heart.  Not only did I get the chance to work with her on the Crimestoppers board when I was in Columbia working at WLTX but she is also dating my favorite professor from college who has helped me so much.

One other thing I'm pretty excited about right now wedding-related is my first bridal shower. My matron of honor, Suzanne, is hosting it December 11th in Columbia for all my friends/family there. I can't wait to see all my WLTX girls as well as some of my sorority sisters!  Here's what the front of the invitation looks like.

I'm so excited and really looking forward to it. Now I just need  update our registries since Dave and I have been living together for almost a year and have gotten a bunch of things.

Until next time...