Tasting galore

We made it just in time for the cake tasting at 3:30 at Kat's Cakes. The shop was closing at 4. We had to wait a bit since the people before us were still there. We just wandered around the shop. When it was finally our turn, we discovered that the group before us had pretty much eaten the last of the cake. We got one seriously small sliver of white cake, two huge slices of chocolate cake and a micro bite of pumpkin cake and two big slices of spice cake.

So we basically didn't really get anything we were interested in. We wanted to taste the white cake with some of the fillings, but really we only each got a small bite. Spice cake was out. We tried it but weren't interested in it for a wedding cake, same for pumpkin. We were interested in white and chocolate.. the fillings were another story. We got the most funky filling options for us to taste.. Guava, Mango..etc. We had to ask to try strawberry and cherry. The only plus was the Swiss Meringue Buttercream.. It was heaven. We had to ask for a second tasting cup - basically because that was the only thing we liked. So I asked about being able to taste specific flavors and she said that we would have to buy 6" taster cakes in order to taste further flavors.. even though we didn't really get any flavors at all.. other than chocolate.

Then the pricing... it was $220 over what we were quoted at the bridal show we went to. I remember because Aaron liked some strange looking cake, so I asked how much it was. The owner said it was $500 because it was in fondant and it has intricate work. However if I wanted something simple in buttercream it would be around $300. Well our quote for our simple butter cream cake was $520.

I asked if the pricing had gone up and she said no. I got the feeling that she was just a clerk there, so I decided to send an email to the manager later.

Tomorrow, we are going to another shop, the Dutch Bakery, who says they are $3.00 a slice. So we'll see. I went in on Tuesday to pick out flavors and it just seemed weird. They had all these flavors but they seemed they were already paired with fillings and frostings. So I'm wondering if we just get one flavor or if we can get more than 1 flavor. They were really busy and the clerk was helping me didn't know much about the flavors and stuff and kept having to ask her mom about the flavors. I mean with names like the "Princess cake", its not too self explanatory. It didn't say white cake with strawberry filling or anything. So I figured I'd just ask questions tomorrow at the tasting.

We also have one on Sunday too. We are going to be all caked out. Then next friday night we have a tasting at a restaurant for catering, then the weekend after that we have another catering tasting and a cake tasting. We are going to be fat by the end of this month.

I did talk to a caterer in Sacramento about catering - Asante Catering. Their website says $21 pp for 1 entree and add $4 for another entree. Well. Thats not bad. Well that doesn't include staffing - another $600 and linens - another $300 and wine glasses - another $200 and cake plates - another $200... and a bunch of other miscellaneous charges. So really thats not $25 its $38 a person and that without tax and gratuity. I think our whole quote came out to be about $4600!!

The more I talk to caterers the more I regret that we didn't book the one I liked when we had the chance.