I'm going to have my cake and eat another one too! The late night buffet.

Quite possibly, the late night buffet was one of the things I was most excited about while planning our wedding. I freaking love anything baked. Cake, croissants, breads, cookies, you name it, I'll eat it. So when it came to planning our late night buffet, I went a little nuts. I wanted a cake in every flavour. Dan was slightly revolted though, so we turned it into a sweet and savoury buffet to make him happy too since, you know, he was the groom and all... 

It started pouring rain halfway through dinner, so we had to move inside a bit earlier than we had intended for our late night buffet and dancing since our outdoor dance floor got pretty damp. The father/daughter, son/mother dance was to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". It was very sweet. I thought I would be a wreck dancing with  my dad since I'm such a Daddy's girl, but I'm pretty proud of myself that I held it together! 

And now, the food!!! We didn't get any shots of the savouries, but here's what we had for the people who aren't as obsessed with cake as I am: Mini Grilled Cheese with Paradiso Cheese, Bacon & Caramelized Onions,  and Roasted Fingerlings with Braised Short Ribs, Roquefort & Veal Jus. And then of course we had my favourite sweet from Ezra, the “Coffee & Doughnuts” Mini Coconut Doughnuts with Coffee Crème Anglaise. *drool*

Our cake and cupcakes from The Wedding Cake Shoppe. So tasty!!!

The topper I made of Dan and I and the cats.

We met waiting for the elevator on the 9th floor.

On the left, a strawberry chiffon cake with our lobster claws cake topper (five points if you get the Friends reference) I made from fimo clay that I just noticed are on the cake wrong, LOL! Oh well. On the right, a lemon meringue pie with our Value Village vintage topper I got for less than a dollar. All the cakes (other than our wedding cake) were from Frangipane Bakery in Toronto. Hands down best cake of my life. True story.

Chocolate cake with chocolate icing and beautiful piping work. The cake topper is salt and pepper shakers which were a gift from the lovely couple in Chinatown where I bought all my paper lanterns.

My favourite "transformers" tray (it folds up like a clam!) with my homemade chocolate chip cookies using my mom's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe (*cough tollhouse cough*), a tradition with my friends. I made the cookies the night before the wedding and my girlfriends thought I was nuts! It really helped me relax though :)

Our cake and cupcakes were from The Wedding Cake Shoppe in Toronto. The cupcake picks and wrappers were handmade by me!

The picks said "Gimme some sugar" or "Veronica loves cake Dan" written on them and our wedding date on the other. The wrappers have "eat drink be married" cut out along the top.

We put out the cheese left from the cocktail hour earlier.

Handsome men dig in.

I was obsessed with these napkins I bought. I still have some left and I think they are the funniest things ever.

I had some caramel left from the favours so I poured it into a mason jar for the buffet.

I was dying to get a shot of me in my dress with these napkins. I made our photographer go get his camera out after he had put it away just so we could take these. Honest truth, I hate these paintings. I made the Mill remove them from our reception area. Sorry. LOL! But they look cute for these photos ;)

And a little bit of dancing to close off the night. We used Laura at Sounds of Distinction for our DJ and she was AMAZING. We danced non-stop start to finish. When it came time to turn on the lights and head home, no one wanted to go, we were all having too much fun!

Well folks, that it! We got married, we ate, we danced, we laughed, we cried. It was incredible. More than I could have dreamed of! One last post about our details and we'll get back to real life!

Cupcakes make the world happy

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Hello, my name is Veronica and I am a cake addict. I will eat it both in regular and cup form. I don't even need a plate. Give me a fork and the platter.

You can imagine my glee when I attended my first wedding show and got to sample cake from about 10 different bakeries. I have no shame, I broke the cardinal rule and asked for a sample of each flavour. See addict admission above. I repeated said behaviour at my second wedding show which resulted in many sugar high giggling fits while crammed in tiny photo booths with my sister.

Sorry, back to the point. One particular bakery really struck my fancy, The Wedding Cake Shoppe. They had an entire four tier cake covered in conversation hearts. Cake AND candy?! Are you kidding me?! On top of appealing to my serious sugar addiction, their spicy chai latte cake sample was some of the best cake I have ever eaten. Period. I start every day off with a chai latte and now you're going to give it to me in cake form?! Obviously I signed up for a consultation on the spot (of course after making a huge fool of myself gushing over their cake flavours and the adorable Japanese cake toppers).

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Finally sampling day arrived. Best. Day. Ever. Dan and I showed up hungry and excited. We met with Aleksandra who helped us delineate what it was that we wanted. To be honest, we didn't even want a wedding cake. I just really really really loved their cake, and having a wedding was a great excuse to buy one! After looking through lots of books of photos with cakes they've made previously, we decided the common thread was a "natural" sort of vibe. Branches, leaves, birds, that sort of thing. I honed in on one in particular when Aleksandra mentioned it had been created to match the graphic on the invitation. Reeeeeeaaaalllly. Screw the birds, I want a cake that matches my invitations!!!! I haven't yet posted about this, and I promise I will soon, but our invitations are based on the fact that Dan and I met in an elevator.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are having an elevator mini cake! That's right, two tiers of cupcakes (60 total), capped off with a two tier mini cake that looks like an elevator! SWEET! Now I'm not going to give everything away since I want to DIY a few things and post tutorials for you, so stay tuned for the details of how I'm going to make my cake even more wonderful and personal! If you haven't guessed it by now, I'm a little excited! And do you know what else makes me excited?! How amazingly well priced it all was! Our full bill ended up being less than $400 including $130 delivery, and a $30 cupcake stand rental. Ummmm SCORE! I can't recommend the ladies there enough, they are so sweet and charming, really gave us lots of time, and had great ideas. I can hardly wait to pick up another 6 pack of flavours so we can finalize them for the wedding!

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Wedding shows

You know why I love wedding shows? Free cake! Plain and simple. Yes there are great vendors out there, yes you can get some good deals, but man, free cake is awesome!











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When heading to your first bridal show, here are some tips shared with me from my own engaged and/or newly married friends. All of them have benefited me greatly!

1) Print off address labels (I bought mine from the good ole dollar store) with your name, address, email address, and phone number on them. This will save you a lot of time filling out countless contest entry forms.
2) Set up an email address just for wedding related things like said contests, contacting vendors, etc. I've found this to be a lifesaver because it's all in one place without having to wade through all your other day-to-day life email.
3) Bring a rolling backpack or bag of some sort. You will get about free 15 bridal magazines, wedding planning books, etc which are lovely and so useful, but also heavy.
4) Bring water and a snack. It's always dry in convention centres and the food is typically greasy, unhealthy, and overpriced. A bottle of water and some trail mix will go a long way after all that cake!
5) Enjoy! Chat with the vendors and take part in the free photo booth shots, get your ring cleaned for free, the show is your oyster!

I went with my sister/MOH to the National Bridal show today and followed the above rules. We had an absolute blast! Thankfully this evening was the first day of the show, so it was lovely and quiet and we had time to talk with the different vendors and really take it all in. We met some great people and I really enjoyed myself even though it was a smaller show. I came home with three strips of photos of us, a multitude of free samples, and some great coupons and ideas. So go and enjoy, hopefully you only get to do this once ;)

(Personal photo)