It’s the end of March now, and that marks our 4 month countdown to the big day.  We’ve hit the three-quarter mark of planning.  While I do feel that we’ve gotten a lot done in terms of big stuff, I have a feeling the devil is in the details.

One thing I’m excited to be able to check off our list is deciding on our cupcake vendor.  I am excited to announce that we will be working with Donna Marie Gluten-Free Bakery.

Although I was pretty psyched about the vegan bakery, Eco Bella, Alex wasn’t.  He just didn’t love the dairy-free frosting and preferred Donna Marie’s traditionally sweet, moist, and creamy cupcakes.  This was also a moment where I put the guests wants before mine.  I wanted my guests to have the best possible first gluten-free experience.  That meant to me, not knowing it was gluten-free.  Donna Marie delivered on this point, where Eco Bella’s more hearty, whole-grain cakes would definitely have raised some eyebrows.

Glad to be done with the hard part, it’s time for the fun part: cupcake flavors and decor.  Even though we’ll be having cupcakes, we still wanted them to look like a wedding cake.  Enter the tiered cupcake stand:

LIke the image above, we’re having a small cake to cut into as well.  When Donna Marie asked me for decorating ideas, I just sent her a bunch of my inspiration photos and an explanation of what the decor theme would be.  What I should have done was look for images of cupcake trees and send those because when we chatted to talk about her ideas, I wasn’t entirely prepared to be commenting on them, I mostly just said, “yeah, that sounds great.”  Right afterwards, I regretted not doing my homework here.

Here’s what we decided via our phone conversation.  There would be four flavors of cake: lemon, red velvet (squeee), chocolate and vanilla.  We’d have 100 mini cupcakes and 100 regular cupcakes.  I had the idea of having each flavor be decorated different to identify the flavor.   The regular cupcakes be frosted in off-white, with accent frosting flowers in coral, robin’s egg blue, pale orange, and a coffee-colored brown (for the chocolate).  The mini cupcakes would be frosted entirely IN these accent colors.  The cake on top will be frosted in off-white and the focal point will be our lovebirds cake topper.

That sounded great in the moment.  Now, I’m not so sure.  My main concern is that it will be too colorful, as most wedding cakes are white.  My other concern is that it won’t be formal enough and won’t match the overall look of the wedding, which is more subdued in the color palette and natural/rustic in the feel.  One thing I’m not concerned about it them being delicious.  We’re meeting with Donna Marie in May, and hopefully it will all come together then!