Cake - Check! Plus a visit to the Wedding Lounge

The cake was one of the things that the fiance and I meant to deal with further down the road. It's not one of our main priorities, and the cake doesn't really require a lot of preparation. It's going to be made only right before the wedding anyway - why do we need to think about it now? Fate intervened however, and the cake actually became the first thing we paid for in full. Here's how it happened.

Cake-tasting and a trip to The Wedding Lounge! Fun stuff.

After Aleq and I made our reservation with Josiah's Catering, I e-mailed Karla (our banquet events consultant) to finalize our next meet, and to get them to move our menu meeting and food tasting up so we can get it out of the way earlier (done). I also randomly asked her about the cake, which was part of their package, and she e-mailed me that the supplier was Cake Line (with sister company Judy Uson, The Cake Artist), and she sent me the design book as well. Aleq and I felt a little disappointed because she told me that we could only choose from the designs in the book, and Cake Line will just customize the colors according to our preference. If we wanted to change to a design we wanted, we would have to upgrade and contact the supplier directly. Nothing in the book fit our theme perfectly, so I was mulling it over the next morning when I rode with Aleq and his mom on our way to work. His mom asked me who the supplier was, and when I said Cake Line, she said "Cake Line? Is that Batch Uson?" I said "Yes, the owner is Batch Uson, I saw his name in the Multiply site. How did you know?" Then she laughed and told me she knows the guy and that he's her friend from back in her advertising days. She ended up texting him that day, and he responded immediately with an invitation for a meeting with us. How lucky were we that the cake supplier our caterer was partnered up with was Aleq's mom's friend? 

That is how we ended up going last Saturday to Cake Line's office at The Wedding Lounge, which is just a stone's throw from our neighborhood! Yes, we are lucky people. Aleq's mom went with us to see her friend Batch, of course. So we got there and Batch was waiting for us with a cake for Aleq too, because it was the boy's birthday that day. How sweet. We definitely appreciated that thoughtful gesture. He also handed us a box meant for cake-tasting - it was filled with tiny cupcakes in the various cake flavors that Cake Line offers. Very cool. 

Happy Birthday Aleq my love!

The cake-tasting kit!

Then we got down to business. We showed him our design peg for the cake, but he confirmed our suspicions that it wasn't doable. The cake we found on the Internet has butter cream icing, which wasn't advisable for a wedding in this hot country because it will simply melt right off the cake. He said their cakes are made with fondant, which keeps the design and shape of the cake intact. That actually sent a bell off in my head. I actually noticed before that the cake-makers we saw at the wedding expos we went to all had fondant cakes, and I was telling my friend Geli that I'm pretty sure it's because fondant holds up well. I was right.

So then Batch told us their specialty was sugar flowers, so Aleq and I went through their book and found that they were exceptionally good at sugar flowers! Their stuff looks so much like the real thing! I suddenly wanted flowers, but then we also liked this striped cake we saw in the book and decided to compromise. We asked if we could merge one design with another, and he smiled, "Yes puede. For you, puede." Yay! Lucky us indeed. So we explained to him what we wanted, and he sketched it out for us. We couldn't visualize it at first, but when we saw what he drew, it was perfect. It was sweet and romantic, yet also modern. We also upgraded a couple of things. One is to make all three layers cake. Usually wedding cakes nowadays just have one layer of cake, with the rest made of styrofoam. That will honestly make Aleq and I very sad, so that was a non-negotiable for us. We want cake! Then we also upgraded to chocolate cake, because that was one of their premium flavors and not part of the package. He didn't charge us for the new design, which we were thrilled about when we realized it. Thank you Batch! 

I really liked the flowers on this one.

Aleq took a liking to the stripes on this cake.

Batch's sketch!

After business was over and done with, Aleq and I decided to look at the stuff in the lounge to give his mom and Batch some time to catch up. The Wedding Lounge is such a cozy, pretty place, where a bunch of well-known wedding suppliers hold office. We went around getting fliers and brochures from the suppliers we didn't see at the expos or we were interested in. It was fun.

 

Suppliers' wares, on display

Two of their editorial cakes, which were featured in magazines.

View of the lounge, with Aleq's mom and Batch, talking on the side.

When we got home, we opened the cake-testing kit and tried it. Aleq and I made the right decision - we're still partial to chocolate, though the red velvet, orange, carrot walnut, and mocha cappuccino were also good. 

The note that came with the cake-tasting kit, which lists the flavors they offer.

Yum!

Since the cake is part of our catering package, we just had to pay for the price of the upgrades, so Aleq and I did it today, in full. That was it. Cake - done!