Weddingbee Blog

Okay, I’m just going to warn you right here and now: This post is about dessert, and it’s totally going to make you hungry. And not for an apple. You’ve been warned!

Recently, we had a meeting with our baker, Be My Cupcake. It’s an adorable little cupcake shop that I actually discovered a few years ago when it was located in our mall! It randomly opened one day right next to the movie theater, and I had to try it out – I was instantly in LOVE. Y’all, their cupcakes are so moist and amazing… and the frosting? Don’t even get me started.

So, of course, I was devastated when about a year after they opened there, they were gone! Disappeared, just as quickly as they had opened. Seriously, I can’t even exaggerate how upset my sister and I were. There may have been tears. BUT it only took us another couple of months (what? we’re slow) to discover that they hadn’t closed… they just moved! Score! So when it became time to start thinking about cake, they were my first thought. Because who doesn’t love cupcakes?

I was practically drooling before we even went through the door for our tasting – the smell of cream cheese frosting was overwhelming… MMMMM! We sat down and patiently waited (read: bounced up and down in our seats like 5 year olds) and then… she brought out this:

YUM.

The flavors are (starting at the top left and working to the right): chocolate with vanilla buttercream, vanilla with vanilla buttercream, coconut with cream cheese (I think?) frosting, swirl (chocolate and vanilla) with a swirl buttercream, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and red velvet (NOM NOM) with cream cheese frosting. That’s all for the top row, and the bottom row is just the same flavors, except that cute little pink one is strawberry with cream cheese frosting.

Whew, that’s a lot of cupcakes. Oh, wait – you thought I was done? We also had this:

That, my friends, is a lemon cupcake (with lemon cream cheese frosting) and a lemon-berry cupcake (that would be strawberry/lemon) with strawberry cream cheese frosting. And yes, it is just as amazing as it sounds.

We gorged ourselves on the amazing cupcakes (gosh, planning a wedding is such hard work!) and after a lot of deliberation, we finally decided on some flavors! We ended up choosing red velvet (because we’re both obsessed with it), lemon with lemon cream cheese frosting (Mr. Cardigan’s favorite) and chocolate with vanilla buttercream (my favorite. I prefer cream cheese frosting, but we figured we should have at least one with buttercream!). We also decided on cinnamon cake for the top tier, which is going to look a little something like this:

(Source)

The top tier will look like the top tier on that cake, then the cupcakes will all be very simple – plain white frosting with a little “disco dust” sprinkled on! It’s just a sparkly powder they shake on them to make them glimmer a little. It’s very subtle, and VERY pretty!

Since we’re going with such a simple look for the cupcakes, Sister Cardy and I decided to DIY the cupcake wrappers with her beloved Cricut! She has been making some mock-ups for potential designs for me, so I’ll be sharing those soon!

Anyways, when we were done with the tasting, the plate looked like this:

(Don’t worry – the beautiful little red velvet cupcake didn’t go uneaten, someone grabbed it after the photo was taken!)

So, yeah, very successful tasting! I was thrilled and thought we were all set to sign a contract and call it a day.

BUT.

I got the contract via email a few days after the tasting… when I was looking it over, I realized that I had grossly underestimated how much these would cost. If you’ll remember, I originally expected to pay less than $200 for our cupcakes. However, when we got to talking with the owner of the shop, we realized that we needed more cupcakes than we had planned. Due to the dreaded EGLP, we had many more guests than I originally thought, and some of those guests would probably end up taking more than one cupcake. So, that added some money. Then, I realized that a top tier is much more expensive than I anticipated. Add on the rental for the cupcake stand, and we aren’t actually saving that much money.

I went ahead and forwarded the contract to my mother, wincing as I hit the “Send” button. I told her that I could find a cupcake stand for cheaper, and that I’m totally willing to have a plain, boring top tier if I need to, to cut down on the money a little.

Her response? “No – I like it just the way you wanted it! Let’s just go for it. I’ll send the deposit check in the morning!”

GASP!

WHAT? That was totally not at all what I expected! So, thanks to my wonderfully generous mother, we are getting the cake (er, cupcakes) of my dreams! It will look exactly how I wanted it to, and I’m so ridiculously excited about it.

So, lessons learned here:

• Cupcakes are not actually that much cheaper than regular cake. They just taste way better. (Trust me on this one)
• Fondant is effing expensive.
• Don’t try to guess what a wedding vendor is going to charge you before they tell you. You’ll almost always be wrong. And then you’ll be upset.
• Never underestimate the generosity of a mother who wants to make her daughter happy.

Did you have any surprise vendor charges that were WAY more than you expected?