We sat down the other day and realised what an eventful year 2016 has been in the life of Bluebell Kitchen…well it’s been eventful everywhere let’s face it! Without completely writing a self congratulatory blog about how wonderful life is (we have had some real bumps in the road this year too, so definitely not all perfect!!) we just wanted to share some of our wedding and cake events highlights of 2016.
Without doubt it is our wonderful, delightful and sometimes hilarious customers and colleagues in the crazy world of weddings and events that keep us going! We have had the opportunity to work with couples marrying everywhere from castles to literally the middle of a wood, from barristers’ chambers to the beach; worked with publishers on providing cake and cookies for a book festival to a law firm’s Women in Business event; made Jade Beer, the editor of Brides magazine daughter’s birthday cake to attending a very fancy photoshoot. We cannot share every highlight or experience that we have had this year, and many of those already mentioned will become future blogs but here is just a tiny taster of our favourites…
Macaroons and DollyBowBow
Macaroons (or macarons if you prefer) are going from strength to strength in popularity. Whilst popular in 2016, we think they are going to go through the roof in 2017! Anyway Katie contacted us in the Spring about making a macaroon tower for her wedding to Rikki at the beautiful Court Lodge Barn. The brief was to create a delicate ombré effect in ivory to pale pink finished with fresh flowers provided by Floral Explosion.
Obviously being completely immersed in the world of cake (no, we don’t get out much!) we had no idea that Katie is actually a jewellery designer and fashion and lifestyle blogger / vlogger. We do now! As soon as Katie posted photos of her wedding cake and the macaroon tower on her social media we were inundated with new followers and likes, which for a small family business has been amazing. She has now posted this beautiful video below of her wedding on her Youtube channel. It was truly an English country garden wedding. The macaroon tower makes an appearance twice and we are even mentioned in the credits at the end!
Shakespeare 400
June 23rd 2016…a historic day for the UK, but more importantly it was the day of Kristin and Christopher’s amazing A Midsummer’s Night Dream themed wedding at The Swan at The Globe theatre in London! When they mentioned that they were having their reception at The Globe, we thought “Wow!”…After all it is Shakespeare 400 this year.
Being open to the public, meant we had a set arrival time, had to transport the separate tiers via various lifts and stairs to The River Room and be out again calmly but quickly…no pressure at all! We are learning many of the well known London venues work this way.
They wanted to achieve a truly “dream like” decadent feel to their reception space. We worked very closely with their florist (Hybrid Flowers) to obtain mood boards and discuss their flower ideas in detail to ensure that all of the sugar flowers matched as closely as possible to the real flowers along with supplying gold sprayed figs and cherries to finish the effect.
Our biggest challenge on the day was dealing with the humidity and the limited time. Sugar flowers don’t like humidity…nor do Erica and Charlie! We always make plenty of sugar flowers for just that sort of problem. The cake was extra deep so it was transported in sections. We had planned the location of each of the flowers on similar sized dummy tiers beforehand and taken lots of photos in order to enable us to add the flowers as quickly as possible…without any breakages we might add!
We were so pleased with the finished cake and cannot wait to deliver there again.
A Tiger Came for Tea
We were delighted to be asked to make our mini book cakes for Book Trust’s Lifetime Achievement Award for the the second year running. The award itself was set up to celebrate an author or illustrator’s outstanding contribution to children’s books.
This year the award was given to Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger who Came to Tea , the classic Mog series, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit along with so many other well loved children’s books.
We were sent a cryptic email about 10 days before the Awards explaining what was needed and could we deliver the highly confidential cakes (press embargo dontcha know!!) to London Zoo on the morning of July 6th 2016.
Book Trust are fantastic to work with as the team are incredibly welcoming, no matter how busy they are, to any of their events that we have been lucky enough to work with them on. We were even invited to stay for the Award presentation itself!
Having a sneaky peek around London Zoo, before it was open to the public was just the icing on the cake and yes, lots of photos were taken and oh how we wished we could have spent the day there.
Each wedding cake, birthday cake or indeed macaroons that we make is a highlight for us. We are so fickle…each new cake no matter how simple (oh boy do cake makers detest that word) to highly intricate always becomes our new favourite! Here’s to an even more exciting 2017, see you on the other side!
“Cakes Baked with Love”
Photo Credits: Bluebell Kitchen, Tom Pilston
