Taking Care of Business

Daniel & I took a trip to Keller, Texas today to visit Sweet Memories Cakes & Catering. The owner of the store is a very nice lady named Susan. She immediately made me feel at ease and we ended up staying for over three hours tasting cake and discussing our options. She has worked at Clark Gardens several times and was actually their top recommendation. We liked her (and her available services) so much that we ended up booking this afternoon!

We started with cake tasting, and the cake was divine. I'm not usually a huge cake person, but this was wonderful! I fell in love with the Italian cream & the pink champagne. Daniel, of course, loved the chocolate. Luckily, we found designs we liked equally as much-- my cake will be a square-shaped layered cake with pink & green Asiatic flowers trailing up to the top; Daniel's will be a western-style cowhide cake covered in chocolate figurines relating to the western life (cowboy boots, horseshoes, etc). Everyone (including me) was a bit surprised at Daniel's choice of cake since we aren't exactly "country"-type people... but he loved it and so do I! Here are some rough examples of what our cakes will look like:

Next we discussed catering, flowers, and alcohol. I had no idea that Sweet Memories could provide florist & bartender services, but they do and I was very impressed with their available displays. Our reception will include:

Appetizers

• Cheese and Wafer Trays on every table
• Caesar Salad

Entrees

• Chicken Parmesan
• Breadsticks
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Green Beans with Bacon

Drinks

• Iced Tea
• Wine
• Beer
• Our Signature Drink (melon & pineapple; nonalcoholic)
• Water

The meal will be served "family-style", meaning that wrought iron food holders will be set-up at every table & servers will bring out enough food for all of the guests at each individual table for every course. Guests serve themselves from the holder, bringing the best of both worlds- everyone can eat as much as they like, and there is no buffet line (something I wanted to avoid at all costs). I was really impressed with this set-up, and after Susan showed me a few pictures of receptions where this had been done, I thought it was great!

Our flowers were a bit harder to decide. I went into the discussion dead-set on stargazer lilies, preferably alone, in the bridal bouquet. Susan gently explained to me why the stargazers have to be paired with other flowers (they're so big that they can not be placed next to one another in a visually pleasing way). We searched through hundreds and hundreds of bouquet pictures until we finally came to the conclusion that I'm a very mono-flower kind of girl; I only like bouquets with one type of flower. Since I was completely against using roses (SO overdone), we decided on pink calla lilies for my bouquet, pink tulips for the bridesmaids, and pink orchids for the mother & grandmother corsages. Sadie & Ty (our furry flower girl & ring bearer) will also have little corsages made from orchids tied around their collars.

 

An example of a calla lily bouquet, but mine will be more pink

The bridesmaids will be carrying pink tulips (I just adore the tulips!)

Pink orchids (not sure what these will look like)

The groomsmen & Daniel will be wearing mini pink calla lilies for their boutonnieres. Our groomswoman will be carrying a bouquet of pink orchids (since we couldn't have another girl carrying callas, but I also wanted to distinguish her as part of the groom's party). I'm so in love with our flower choices, its beyond belief. I'm getting really excited =)

Finally, we also booked a DJ through Sweet Memories because we got quite a wonderful deal. We still need to meet with him and talk about a playlist.

Talk about taking care of business... a baker, caterer, bartender, florist, and DJ all in one day!