This week’s episode of WE tv’s Amazing Wedding Cakes showed the importance of having a network of high quality vendors whose work you respect and whom you can trust to give your clients the best.

Just think,  this is probably the first time a bride has ever selected a venue, talked to a florist, ordered food for a crowd or worked with a cake designer for a cake custom-made to feed perhaps hundreds of people. She needs you to introduce her to the ideas and people who can make her vision happen.

In this week’s episode, a bride and groom went to their wedding planner, Kevin Covey, for a suggestion for a vendor for their cake. He suggested Christopher Garren’s Cakes who created a design of that the couple loved (see sketch above).

When Christopher Garren decided at the last minute that the cake would be better done a little differently than the design the bride approved, he asked Kevin to speak to her for him. Kevin was confident enough to know that Christopher had the interest of the bride in mind and would give her an amazing wedding cake.

Do you have confidence that the vendors you recommend are the best at what they do? Are they customer focused and have the bride and groom’s best interests in mind, like you do? Do you have good working relationships with them and are you repectful of each other’s opinons?

You should be able to answer “yes” to these questions. If not, decide if you really want to share clients or if you are ready to add new vendors to your network.

The video below is the sneak preview from the show which airs throughout the week. (You can learn more about the cheese wheel cheesecake on the Merci Beaucoup Blog.)

While planning a wedding you may be asked to also help plan the bridal shower. In the last episode of WEtv’s “Amazing Wedding Cakes,” The CakeGirls were hired to make a cake for a “pantry ” themed bridal shower. For a “pantry shower,” guests bring the bride items that will fill her pantry such as; flour, sugar, aluminum foil, soups and cake mixes. With the ingredients, guests also tell the bride the recipe of a happy marriage. 

Pantry showers are not unusual, they are similar to”recipe” showers and sometimes even called by this name. For a recipe shower, you would mail recipe cards to guests in their invitations and ask them to complete the cards with their favorite recipe. They bring the non-perishable ingredients, such as pantry items, as gifts to the bride. Some also expand this to suggesting the guests can also bring the things needed to make the recipe such as; mixing bowls, wooden spoons, oven mitts, and measuring cups. On the day of the shower, you can take the recipe cards and create a recipe book or a recipe box.

In the video above, you’ll see the CakeGirls talk about their pantry party cake. In addition, the other cake designers of the episode talk about their cakes, one, Christopher Garren’s Let Them Eat Cake, with a theme from the movie, “Edwards Scissorhands” and the other, Cake Alchemy, a cake based on the chandeliers from the bride’s venue, the Carlton Hotel in New York.

This past weekend WEtv started a new season of the show, “Amazing Wedding Cakes,” which features some of the top cake designers in the US making wedding cakes for couples who want something other than traditional white cakes.

In the episode that is airing all week, Meri Beaucoup, in Los Angeles, California, had a bride and groom who had were into tattoo art and wanted something funky and tropical to go with their table centerpieces that included goldfish. The designers created a seven-tiered cake, airbrushed with colors of blue and green to represent water, then piped with orange buttercream koi fish.

Cakegirls, in Chicago, Illinois, created a topsy-turvy teacup cake in pink, black and gold for a very chic, fun, modern, sexy tea party bridal shower. Their shop, unfortunately, was destroyed by a fire earlier this year so they are not currently making cakes.

Christopher Garren’s Cakes, in Costa Mesa, California, had a couple whose wedding theme was Steam+Punk, which is a style that combines Victorian England and Jules Verne science fiction. The cake had an antique look and featured gears, the inner-workings of a clock, a corset and a blimp. It was truly an amazing cake.

Five questions the cake designers asked the brides and grooms that your couples should be prepared to answer:

1) What are the specific design elements that you are using in the wedding?

2) What color palette do you have in mind?

3) Where is the wedding taking place?

4) How many guests are you expecting?

5) What size cake do you want? If the couple is having a smaller wedding but wants a tall cake, layers can be made of Styrofoam and covered with frosting or fondant to match the real tiers.

If your couple has an unusual theme, like Steam+Punk, have them bring photos to their meeting with the designers. Also make sure they bring their cake topper, if they have one they want the designer to use.

As a wedding planner, you’ve probably watch cake shows on television (such as Cake Boss, Amazing Wedding Cakes, and Ultimate Cake Off ) to get ideas on how cake designers and bakers work and get inspiration to pass along to your brides. Your brides probably watch these show also, along with looking at spectacular cakes in bridal magazines, and may be dreaming of multi-tiered cakes with rolled fondant. But the no one mentions the prices of these over-the-top cakes and unless your brides have big cake budgets, you may want to give them some ideas about how much cakes cost before they approach cake designers and bakers.

The Fall/Winter 2010 issue of area-specific Brides magazines, mine is Brides Northern California, has an article, “What a Cake Costs.” It will give you the basics of cake costs and the choices brides can make that might can lower costs. If you are just starting to learn about wedding cakes, you might want to pick up a copy of the magazine.

Here are 5 tips from the article:

1) Custom designs cost more because the designer needs to create the design and figure out how to execute it.  Brides can save money by choosing an affordable design from the baker’s portfolio and having it slightly altered to suit the color and style of the wedding.

2) The rolled fondant you see on many of cakes on television is expensive because of the labor involved. Colored fondant is even more expensive since it is additional labor to knead coloring into the icing. Buttercream is cheaper but it does give a whole different look to the cake.

3) The realistic flowers on cakes are made of gumpaste and are time-consuming to make. Fondant flowers are quicker to make and therefore less expensive. They won’t be as detailed as ones from gumpaste but are still very attractive.

4) Intricate piping takes time and skill. If your bride wants piping on her cake, have her select a simple sign.

5) Hand-painting, needed to add designs on fondant, give a pearlized  look to flowers or add gold leaf to a cake, also demand a lot of time and a high amount of skill so it can be expensive.

If the bride is on a tight budget, help her have realistic ideas in mind before meeting with a cake designer and baker.

The photo above is from a YouTube video of Cake Boss.

Yesterday was wedding and bridal fair day in my area and in other places too, according to my Google search. I attended the San Francisco Wedding Fair at the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco. The fair was aimed at helping the affluent bride who wants a stylish, elegant wedding.

Here are some of the photographs I took in the main display room at the event, they might give you ideas and inspiration to share with your brides.

The photograph above is a tabletop inspired by fashion designer Coco Chanel. This and the other tabletops I’m showing here, were designed by Floramor Floral and Event Design. The matching designer cakes were by Tracy Auseklis, Owner and Cake Designer of The Buttercream Studio.

I found the idea of getting colors and style from fashion designers interesting. This colorful one, full of gold with white lacy flowers is from Christian LaCroix.

As is the matching cake.

Here is the Giorgio Armani inspired tabletop – clean and elegant.

And the matching cake.

The tabletop inspired by Jean Paul Gautier.

Tabletop inspired designer Tarun Tahiliani with gold and the bold, rich colors of India.

Notice how the shape of this cake echos the shape of the centerpiece.

It is difficult to tell if the brides who saw these displays or sampled the fabulous food will actually place orders. Some will but many more were probably there just to gather ideas from luxury wedding vendors that they can use themselves in budget friendly ways.

Click Here to Watch the Full Episode of “Cake Boss”

Featuring Four Wedding Cakes and Two Grooms Cakes

This was a week of wedding and wedding planning shows on television.

Earlier this week, The Learning Channel television show, “Cake Boss”, was all about wedding and groom’s cakes. The New Jersey bakery had 50 orders for wedding cakes in one week.

Four of the wedding cakes and two of the groom’s cakes were featured in show. The family of bakers made a white wedding cake with branches of cymbidium orchids and curly willow, one covered with chocolate fondant and decorated with draping and sterilized peacock feathers, a cake covered with white and ivory roses, and a six-tiered cake in which each tier was a different shape (see above).

The themes for the two groom’s cakes were fast food and a German drinking boot.

Watching the show will give you insight into all that goes into the making and decoration of custom wedding cakes. You can catch it again when it replays next week or, if you don’t get this show in your area, you can watch it right on the TLC website.

One of the tools in the bonus Toolkit that comes with my ebook on becoming a top wedding planner is a worksheet for interviewing a baker.  The worksheet tells you to ask the bride to prepare for the interview by doing such things as getting photographs of cakes she likes,  knowing flavors she and her groom like and dislike or are allergic to, and knowing the size of her reception room so the cake will not be too large to fit in the room.  It also gives you all of the questions you and your bride need to ask so you don’t miss any of the details of what you and she need to know before ordering.

I found this video on YouTube that is an interview with the Buddy Valastro, of Carlo’s Bakery, the “Cake Boss” from the TLC television program of the same name.  In it he shares what a couple would experience when they book a wedding cake appointment with him or any other wedding cake baker.  It’s worth taking the time to watch it, especially if you have not had much experience with bakers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found this YouTube video from the wedding television show “Get Married” to show everyone what they look like (sorry I couldn’t figure out how to delete the pop-up ad, just click on the “x” that is on the right side of the ad to close it):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did you see the wedding planner on The Learning Channel’s television show Happily Ever Faster working on a wedding with a black and white theme?  This is always a popular theme because it is very classic but at the same time, it can have a bit of an edge.

Black and White theme ideas from the show were:

• Black and white checkered dance floor, which was already at the venue, but you can rent them from a party rental company.

• Black linens, both tablecloths and napkins, with white china.  You could instead use white linens and black china.  Or mix it up with white tablecloths, black napkins and black china.

• Backs of the white chairs were tied with black sashes.

• Wedding cake was iced in white with black designs and topped with white flowers.  (If the bride wants real flowers, be sure the baker uses pesticide-free, organic ones on the cake.)

• Venue was decorated with white calla lilies and white dendrobium orchids.  Use black vases to keep with the theme.

More ideas:

• Bridesmaids in black with white sashes.

• Black and white favor bags, you can find ones that look like mini bride’s dresses and tuxedos.

• Large strawberries decorated to look like they are wearing a black tuxedos.

And black flowers, whether tulips, roses, or calla lilies, will give the wedding a real dramatic edge.

Are you planning a gay or lesbian wedding and helping the couple select a wedding cake?  They can select a traditional white wedding cake and get wedding toppers of two grooms or two brides. Or like many couples today, they can have one designed in favorite colors, the colors of their venue, or the colors and style of their theme.

In my last post, I gave tips on working with bakers from the television shows Amazing Wedding Cakes and Cake Boss.  In the Cake Boss episode, the bakers were making a wedding cake for two grooms.  It was a red, multi-tiered cake with gold lace-like bands, resembling the red velvet curtains with gold trim at their venue, a movie theater.  Check the photos of cakes at the website for the actual Cake Boss store, Carlo’s Bakery.  Don’t just look at the wedding cakes, get inspiration from cakes made for all sorts of parties, just use your imagination when you give suggestions to the couple.