Big news! Mr. Lovebug and I have our first cake consultation tomorrow! I’m so excited! I’m going to get this wedding ball rolling! I’m completely, utterly unprepared!
We found this amazing, Siberian-born pastry chef named Ella. She was recruited by the Moscow government to be, like, Yeltsin’s personal baker or something, then subsequently schooled in Switzerland and France. Even just speaking to her on the phone, I can tell she’s a top-of-her-class, type-A pastry wunderkind. Her cakes are absolutely jaw-dropping. I’m absolutely terrified to meet her.
Every cake she bakes is designed from scratch based on the couple’s ideas. Ella is clearly a master craftsperson used to women with definite opinions about what they want. She asked us to bring our “thoughts and inspiration” with us. Dress swatches, ribbon, flowers, photos, sketches…
We’re bringing a necktie.
That’s right: a necktie. We’re going to pull it out my purse and offer it up lamely, and try to explain to this perfectionist confectionist that um, we’re actually not sure what we want yet because we, uh, don’t actually have dresses or flowers or a theme or even colors picked out. But, um, we have this tie? And we think it’s pretty??
Eastern Europeans are a patient people, right?
I feel like I’m on my way to fail an exam. But I do have a plan: cram my mouth with cake and nod and smile and let Ella the wonderbaker guide me to the cake of my dreams. From a tie.
Could be worse. Could be a sock.
Anyone else experience this sort of, I don’t know, “vendor apprehension” when they got started? Feeling unprepared and a bit lost?
You’re cake shopping already? Wow. I think I’m behind a bit, then.