No Cake Pictures Please, Sherpa Series Volume 1
Consider me your wedding cake sherpa. Most likely, you haven't done this before, and I have, over and over again. Let me guide you through what are possibly some of your more pressing questions about selecting and designing a wedding cake.
When you're first getting started, you're going to want to look at a lot of wedding cakes. This is great. It helps you become informed on what is out there, recent trends, what can be done in cake so far, and maybe it helps expand your ideas of what you want your wedding aesthetic to be. It makes it easier for a designer to talk with you and understand what you like and what you don't. And sometimes what you don't is way more important than what you do.
When you come in for a consult with me, I really want you to be informed, but not settled on any one design. Because what we do is custom. We ask the right questions, listen very carefuly to your answers, look at the amazing photos you bring of your dress, invites, flowers, colors or even an amazing pinterest board. Or for that matter, anything at all that you love, fabric, interior design, a gorgeous iron panel or sculpture. Design inspiration can come from anything at all. Just keep it in mind when you're walking around in the world and you'll see inspiration everywhere.
What we don't do, is look at photos of other cakes. Our superpower is storytelling through our cakes. Each cake represents the client they were made for and works to tie together all the details of your day, becoming a centerpiece that encapsulates the celebration. Its our policy not to copy others work. That wouldn't be custom, now would it? It wouldn't be unique to just you. It wouldn't be yours. And when you put photos of beautiful cakes on the table, its almost impossible to move away and create something new. Being able to discuss the details you like helps us to incorporate things you've seen and fallen in love with, while at the same time making something new, and taking cakes to a place they haven't yet been. Images of other cakes are limiting to the creative process... and that's what this is, a process.
Throwing ideas out there, some good, some not so, but all leading us to the place when you look at the draft sketch and say "that's my cake!" All cake designers are different. We have different techniques, aesthetics, artistic signatures. We are so many things, but we are not copy machines. Even if we took on that complete recreation, it would still be different, funneled through each of our own processes and artistic eye, and will never be an exact replica. If you're madly in love with a design you see, contact that baker. I know they will be thrilled to make it for you and honored that you loved it so much you sought them out.So please do continue researching, but pretty please avoid bringing cake images from other designers to your consult or sending them via email. Don't you want your story told?
