We want to start by offering a crumb of reality. There are a million blogs out there detailing the things to ask your wedding cake maker, but it was important to us, at Bluebell Kitchen that we make our own for two reasons. Firstly, we think a lot of the suggestions you’ll find online are a bit generic – we would hope that by the time you come to your consultation, you’ll already know we’re available on your date, we offer cake tastings and so on! Secondly, as we speak to every couple during your consultation we know a thing or two about what you might want to ask. So we’ve put together this five-tier guide to help you get the answers to the really useful questions.
1. Do you bake the cake here?
Like many wedding cake makers we are a home-based business, and lots of our consultations take place here at our studio. Naturally, our couples often want to know whether we bake their wedding cakes here or have a separate hire kitchen. We designed our large home kitchen especially for our business (we have two ovens!), and all our cakes and macarons are baked here One of our specialties is creating modern, elevated wedding cake designs with that comforting, home-baked taste.
We have been inspected by our local council and this has to be repeated every few years. We also fill out a daily diary called ‘Safer Food, Better Business’ which is used by all catering businesses, no matter the size.
2. Can we have different flavours on each tier?
One of the next things to ask your wedding cake maker is about your options for flavours, and whether you can choose different ones for different tiers. At Bluebell Kitchen the answer is a resounding ‘yes.’ In fact, we encourage it! You could go wild and choose three totally unique flavours (how about salted caramel, coconut and blueberry and chocolate orange!?) or pick three with similar flavour profiles (perhaps luscious lemon, orange blossom and almond and Earl Grey, elderflower and lemon for a citrus fiesta). You can explore our full wedding cake flavour menu here.
Whatever you choose, we don’t expect you to remember which tier is which on your wedding day. We always provide flavour cards to place next to your cake when it’s cut and served, so your guests know which delicious bite they’re diving into. You could even use your wedding cake sketch as part of your menu, leaving your guests longing for a taste before the starters are even served!
Bonus question to ask your wedding cake maker: do you draw a sketch?
We already alluded to this one, but many of our couples want to know if they’ll be able to visualise their cake design before it’s made. Because all our designs are bespoke, we create hand drawn sketches with lots of description and colour so you can really imagine how it will all come together. We’ll email you a copy, and also send it to you in the post so you can have it as a keepsake! If you’d like to incorporate it into your menu, let us know and we’ll make sure that’s possible.
3. When do you start making our cake?
From the moment you secure your wedding date and place your order with us, we start work on your tailored wedding cake design. We’ll begin by bringing the design to life through a sketch, and collaborating with other suppliers to ensure your whole wedding day vision works together. These elements along with crafting your hand-made sugar flowers usually take place weeks, if not months, in advance of your wedding date.
In terms of the actual baking, we work backwards from your date. For a Saturday wedding, we’ll start baking on Tuesday so it has 24 hours to settle. We make two cakes per tier, so it’s a lot of cake! We prepare and buttercream each layer with a light Belgian white chocolate ganache on the Wednesday, and on Thursday we ice your wedding cake with either wafer thin fondant or glossy buttercream. On Friday we stack the tiers and add decoration. We might even add the final finishing touches on Saturday morning. This could involve hand painting, making and adding edible lace and other textures, and preparing posies of sugar flowers.
On the day of your wedding we’ll personally be there to deliver and set up your cake, which leads us nicely onto…
4. Will you deliver our wedding cake?
We are asked this a lot, and as we spend so much time creating your cake we won’t leave anything to chance. We created a whole blog about this. Dive into our Wedding Cake Delivery Guide to see how it all works.
5. Do we need a cake stand?
Finally, we are often asked whether it’s really necessary to have a cake stand. The short answer? Definitely! Adding a cake stand is one of the easiest ways to add height and impact to your wedding cake, helping to elevate it from its surroundings and stand out. Not all wedding cake stands are created equal though, and we often get asked how to choose one that will work well with your style of cake. Luckily, we also have a comprehensive guide for this – Choosing A Wedding Cake Stand: Elevate in Style.
When it comes to things to ask your wedding cake maker…
…Our advice is to not to be afraid of asking all the niggling questions and tackling all the little concerns you might have. We’re always happy to talk our couples through any and every aspect of their bespoke wedding cake journey. If you have something specific you’d like to find out before your consultation, our blog contains lots of helpful advice. To book your consultation and spend some time with us, just fill in our contact form and we’ll get back to you!
Photographers: Fiona Kelly Photography, Rebecca Douglas Photography, Natalie Lucy Photography
