One reason Mr. Cookie and I chose our venue was the inclusiveness of the package –meaning chairs, tables, linens, dishware, food, beverage, and cake are all included in the price. This meant less time and stress running around finding a rental company, caterer, and baker. Another reason that we chose the venue was their pastry chef. When we signed our venue contract, Ned Archibald, Executive Pastry Chef and Chocolate Magician of the Keystone Resort, was the exclusive cake baker for Ten Mile. I didn’t mind having to exclusively go with Ned because his work is fantastic.
About a month after we signed the contract, I got an email from our catering manager about the cake. Apparently with over 200+ weddings per year, Ned could not keep up with the demand and decided to not bake for Ten Mile. Now, our venue was on the hunt for a new baker and would get back to me shortly. Needless to say, I was disappointed but optimistic. A few weeks go by and I got another email from the catering manager saying that they had found a baker, Katie with Clint’s Bakery. I emailed Katie and we set-up a tasting consultation with Mr. Cookie and I in January.
To try to save time, gas, and money, we are really trying hard to limit our trips up to Breckenridge (which is about an hour and half drive from our house), so we pack our days with wedding planning activities. On this particular cold, sunny Saturday in January we had quite a day planned — skiing the mountain in the morning, cake tasting, meeting with our catering manager to lock in 2007 food prices, and more skiing in the afternoon.
At 6:00am we headed off to Breckenridge and as we turned onto I-70 we ran straight into bumper-to-bumper ski traffic. Three hours and two very frustrated Cookies later, we finally make it to Breckenridge. By this time we have missed skiing in the morning and were about to be late for our cake tasting, when Mr. Cookie hits a patch of ice going literally 5 miles per hour and runs into the back of a VW Bug in my mother’s car! We all pulled off to the side of the road, made sure everyone was ok, and then we started inspecting the cars. My mother’s car was fine, only the licence plate was bent, but the rear bumper of the Bug was broken and cracked. Ironically, the couple we hit was also engaged and getting married in Florida. They were really cool about the situation, and they eventually got a new bumper.
After swapping insurance cards, we rushed to our cake consultation. Clint’s is more of a coffee shop than an actual bakery, so there was a ton of people sipping on espresso and chomping on breakfast burritos during our entire consultation. Katie was a really nice, bubbly girl — who we later found our had just graduated from culinary school two years ago. She decided to go into cake baking after a few friends asked her to bake cakes for their weddings, and was now starting to build her business. Before the consultation, Katie and I had discussed a few options of cake we wanted to taste, and during the meeting I gave her our cake inspiration board along with a few other cake images to decide on a design.
From left to right: Row 1 take the cake, April Reed, The Cake Girls Row 2 April Reed and Erica O’Brien
Image from The Knot Colorado
We finally decided on this inspirational image for our cake. Please excuse the scan, but I gave the original image to Katie. The cake will be a three layer chocolate cake filled with real raspberry and raspberry preserves. The first and second layers will be separated with orange and red roses but the third will be sans flowers. The frosting will be a white fondant with tiffany blue royal icing detail, as well as, a thin brown ribbon on the bottom of each later.
After we decided what the cake looked like, Katie presented us with five different cakes to try –baked as adorable oversized cupcakes, however all the cakes were really dense. Because the cake was so dense, we asked if she could make it a little lighter. Immediately, a hurt look overcame her face. She told us that she had never had a problem with anyone liking her cake before, and would see what she could do. Mr. Cookie and I left feeling a little worried if she could pull off the cake, but with the exclusivity of Ten Mile she will bake over 60 cakes this summer alone. We are crossing are fingers that practice makes perfect.
On a lighter note, I found these adorable little salt and pepper bird shakers at Target for $5. Instead of a traditional cake topper, our florist will set the birds so they are peeping out of the flowers on the second layer.
Are you using a exclusive baker through your venue? Please share the good, bad, and ugly!
I love the design. I can’t wait to see it in color. I understand the feeling of not shopping around. I am having the same feeling with my florist.
I think Katie’s skills will get much better throughout the season. For the dense factor, you must think that Breck is at 9600 feet, about 4000 feet above Denver. It is very difficult to make things airy when there is no air.
Mmm… I actually prefer dense cake… mmmm… especially chocolate with fruit filling… (mouth watering)
We also used a vendor that was exclusive to our location–we didn’t get to meet with them until 8 weeks before the wedding so I was a little stressed out, thinking about all the “what ifs”. Much to our delight, the cake was perfect! They made it just like the magazine photo I had brought–we changed up the colors–I also brought color samples for them to use as guidance.
Don’t worry too much about the cake–although it’s an important part of the wedding, people love cake–dense as a mountain or light as air, you will see that guests will gobble it down!
I love wedding cakes that are rich and dense!
I have the same birdies on my table…but they have salt and pepper in them. Cute idea, though!
our cake was included and they totally messed it up. instead of red candy ribbon, they used this fluorescent orange! luckily our wedding planners had some ribbon to cover it up.
Actually you want your cake to be on the dense side if you are doing a 3 tiered stacked cake. If it is too light the cake will fall.
We’re in the same spot. We just had our cake tasting with our baker who is exclusive to the reception place we’re having it at and I have to say I wasn’t impressed. Her cakes and icings were good, but when flipping through her book, all of her cakes looked exactly the same, and they were pretty basic. But I agree with Mrs. Bic, we’re on a tight enough budget as is, we don’t have the money to go get a different baker, and all that jazz. So hopefully it’ll turn out ok, I hope yours does as well!
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I actually founf a cake topper very similar to your salt and pepper shakers! The same plain white porcelain, but the birds fit together by the neck — they are nuzzling their heads together. Super-cute, but I had to wait months to get them.
Hey there — I am getting married at Ten Mile Station next July 2009 and ALSO just discovered to my dismay that Ned is no longer doing any Breck wedding (apparently Keystone is getting possesive). I’m very disheartened. I hope to hear about how Katie pulls off your cake because we aren’t sure what we will do now — we might just do cupcakes. Good luck!
Mrs. Cookie, Denver
Age and Occupation: 25, Nonprofit Fundraiser/Theatre Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Financial Analyst
Engagement Date: September 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: May 8, 2008
Venue: Ten Mile Station
About Me: With a degree in Theatre I never realized that planning a wedding was a lot like Theatre Management, until I started planning my own. I am a coffee addict, especially Starbucks' Grande Mochas, yummy! I love to cook (especially chocolate chip cookies for my honey), travel to exotic places, and be creative. As a couple, Mr. Cookie and I are extremely practical, down to earth, and children at heart. We live in a cozy abode with our adorable Pomeranian, and love to play board games and watch movies into the evening.
awesome cake photos and your cake sounds yummy mmmmm
as a side note, I have those salt and pepper shakers and I love them, Mr. P on the other hand, thinks they are far too silly —