Are you looking for a cool, different party for older children who no longer want to run wild around a play gym, or perhaps an alternative hen do or birthday celebration for grown ups?  How about spending an afternoon or evening at The Just Darling Cake Studio, where you can learn how to decorate cupcakes and eat a sumptuous afternoon tea? 

After the fabulous sucess of my daughter’s 8th Birthday celebrations, where we did exactly that I’m happy to offer the opportunity to everyone.  The studio is quite small and ideal for 4-6 people to decorate cupcakes comfortably. Each person has a workstation with 6 cupcakes that are plain iced and a selection of different handmade embellishments with which to decorate the cakes.  The cupcakes once decorated are theirs to take away, along with an apron as a longer lasting keepsake of their fun.

After decorating the cakes the workstations are cleared away and afternoon tea is served, you can choose from a selection of dainty sandwiches, macaroons, cake pops, cookies, meringues, cream scones… the list goes on and is completely flexible.

The parties are £35 per person and includes 6 cupcakes each, an apron and afternoon tea.  They can be booked be contacting me via my contact page or calling on 07429 570744.

To see more pictures of the party why don’t you visit my facebook page?

I thought I’d better blog now as with four weddings next week there isn’t a hope of me getting near my computer, plus my eldest daughter turns 8 and is dancing in Blackpool…. I feel faint just thinking about it all!  However I’m well prepared and thoroughly looking forward to it all. 

This week has been very much a preparation week, making flowers for wedding cakes, and preparing for Laura’s birthday party, which because of the next weeks ‘tight’ schedule is happening sunday.  Laura wanted to do something different for her party and has decided to take over the studio for cupcake decorating classes followed by afternoon tea… I can’t describe how giddy I am about this party.  In fact I’ve been enjoying it so much I’m planning to offer it as an option to anyone who wants to combine decorating cupcakes with a sumptuous afternoon (or evening) tea.

So far Laura’s menu consists of tiny sandwiches, cake pops, meringues filled with cream and strawberries, hand painted cookies, layered Jelly with cream, popcorn and marshmallows, and chocolate dipped strawberries… not your traditional afternoon tea but she is 8.  They will however, have vintage china to enjoy their pink lemonade out of!  I’m planning on offering a menu that caters to all ages and from which you can choose your favourites.  So I guess the purpose of this blog is to request ideas for what you want food wise and also what you would want the classes to be like.

Laura and her guests are each having six cupcakes to decorate (and take home) and I have pre-made all the decorations.  However, for older parties I’m thinking you may also want to make some of the decorations yourself? 

So let me know what you think and what you would like, these occasions would be perfect for children (7+) and for adults and can be held either in the evenings or on sundays.  I am also thinking of offering a corporate option where I take the event into companies as a team building exercise?

All ideas welcome and after sunday I will have lots of pictures to show you from Laura’s party, so come back then   I will also have the pricing finalised then so I will be able to take bookings.

The cake is a replica of the restaurant itself:

2012 is turning out to be a pretty good year and it’s only just April! So it looks like I’ve got a lot to be thankful for! I owe this in great part to my lovely clients who have supported me by ordering from me in 2010/11 and in most cases recommending me onto their friends and family meaning 2012 is going to be slightly crazy but in the best possible way.  In this business word of mouth is the best advertisement possible and I just want to say thank you so much to all of you!

I also would like to say thank you for bearing with me while my website has been updated, how do you like the new Wedding Cakes Page and Corporate Cakes Page, it’s just the galleries that need a bit of work now.  Thank you so much to Mark Skeet, at Cat Creative Media, for all his work on the site.

Also thank you for your patience as it’s been way to long since I last blogged but I promise despite being really busy I’ll be blogging on a weekly basis from now on.  So please keep reading and let your friends know too, and please, please, please leave comments so I know you’ve been, it’s so much appreciated. 

My family and friends know how much I appreciate all their support, but just in case “THANK YOU”, big shout outs especially to Mark, my husband, for putting up with EVERYTHING, my parents for moving all the way to Yorkshire and especially Mum for being an amazing Granny to my girls and letting me work extra hours, Alex and Ju for investing I hope you realise how much difference it’s made!  And Jo and Kate for listening to all my stresses and giddy moments, I love you all and couldn’t do it without you!  Here’s to an awesome wedding season!  Cheers!

Just Darling Cakes is set to have a fabulous 2012, so many beautiful weddings to creat cakes for, but places are filling up fast (I already have more booked this year than I did in the whole of 2011).  So if you are getting married this year and would like to book in for a tasting and design consultation, you need to do so now.

So what do you need to do?  Give me a call or email to set the appointment up.  Then you come along to the studio and see samples of my work, taste all the gorgeous creations we make, drink as much tea and coffee as you like and we discuss your Wedding Cake.

To book you cake, it requires a 50% deposit and then 50% balance to be paid 2 months prior to your wedding.  However, I am also happy to sort out a monthly payment plan to help spread the cost of your cake.

I always deliver the wedding cakes (control freak me?) and set them up for you, so that will all be taken care of. 

I look forward to seeing you soon.

It was lovely, but knowing what I know today, it’s a tad bland?  I’m lucky to know several amazingly talented stationers, were there people around like this 10 years ago? I’m sure there were but without facebook and twitter I was oblivious.

So today if I was choosing stationary I would be looking at something much more bespoke and reflective of my style and taste.  In many ways I’m quite relieved I’m not choosing, as the choice is immense.  These are my three favourite stationers:

I am Nat – Just beautiful, completely gorgeous and lovely attention to detail, I’m also a complete sucker for her wallplanners!

Nia Fiori – Stunning hand drawn lines and prettiness, and the coolest rude Valentines Cards.

Vicky Trainor – floral fabulousness from Vicky, not only limited to paper but also fabric invitations and hand stitched table numbers.

I did go down the road of having disposable cameras on the table but this was an utter waste of time as the flashes didn’t work properly and most of the pictures were of no use at all. In today’s age of mobile phones and fabulous cameras it’s really not necessary, you’ll have plenty of snap shots circulating anyway.

Back to the professional shots though I really can’t stress this enough, go and visit lots of photographers and do this early in the planning stage as the good ones are booked up far in advance. Look at their work and their style of shooting, see what’s included in the various packages and see who you get on with best, remember they are effectively another guest at the wedding.

One thing not on offer when we got married was the option of an engagement shoot. I would have loved this, and is something I would really recommend you to do. Many also offer a second shooter option, where effectively you and your groom have a photographer each to start the day and they then work in tandem, capturing many varied shots throughout your day.

I am lucky to know several amazing photographers, all who have different prices and styles, have a look through yourselves and see what suits you best. I would recommend Helen but she no longer does wedding photography, however go and check out her site for her beautiful photography and textiles.

James Melia – www.jamesmeliaphoto.com

Cat Hepple – www.cathepplephotography.com

Peter Boyd – www.pbphoto.co.uk

J D Palfreeman – www.jdpphotography.co.uk

Kev Rayner – www.image-i-nation.co.uk

Claire Louise – www.clairelouisephotography.com

This is our beautiful Church in Linton, it’s on the site of the oldest church in scotland and stands proudly on a little hillock surrounded by rolling green fields… just beautiful

The church was beautiful and the Reverend McAffee just lovely, even giving me a hankerchief to wipe my tears.  We had a piper to lead me up to the church it was just perfect, so afraid to say I couldn’t change this at all… not sure what I would do if I had to replace it with an equivalent in Yorkshire?

The venue was also absolutely faultless, we took over the amazing Tillmouth Park in Northumberland.  How cool, we married in Scotland and partied over the border in England!  The venue was totally exclusive to the wedding party and was incredible.  If we were getting married now rather than 2001 it would undoubtedly take place in Yorkshire so Linton church and Tillmouth Park would be a bit far to travel…. so what would I choose now?

My favourite wedding venue here has got to be Swinton Park, it’s on the same scale of gorgeous beauty and grandeur and I happen to know that the wedding coordinator Hannah is absolutely lovely and would be a pleasure to work with.  I do think that perhaps I’d want to get married there too…

Let me start at the beginning, I was a very low maintenance 25 year old in the beauty scheme of things, I wore makeup but that was about it, and I knew I would want to make more of an effort for my wedding day.  So off I toddled to House of Fraser and put myself in the hands of the least scary looking lady at the Clinque counter.  Well, the results weren’t quite what I anticipated I looked like I was about to tout for business… I was brain washed into buying a load of products then made for the loos to wash it all off.

On the morning of our wedding I did my own makeup a whole lot more successfully than at Clinque and I was more than happy with the results (I only wish I sorted the caterpillars above my eyes out… how did I come so late to eyebrow grooming????)  but way back then I had no idea how to make it last.  The lesson to be learnt, if you doing it yourself make sure you have time for touch ups and have lessons before hand in how to apply it to last, and more importantly don’t do it yourself.

If I was to marry this year I would undoubtedly put myself in Jo Bilham’s magical hands.  I’ve been lucky to have been transformed by her on several occasions and she really is a genius and by god does it last!  This photograph was taken at the Love My Dress Soiree in August and I look a darn sight better (albeit it 10 years on) than I did on my wedding day… what can I say lesson well and truly learnt.

Hair was a different matter and one purely of communication, I had seen the hair style I wanted on somebody else but I hadn’t even heard of google back then… well maybe but I was limited in what I knew I could do… and didn’t know where to start in describing it to the hairdresser.  So firstly it didn’t really come out how I wanted and secondly got totally destroyed by my veil.

I would still wear it up but this time with more interest at the front, my hair coming down over my face more and more intricate at the back the likes of which I’ve seen the amazing Kizzy of Charisma Hair, do.  The photo below is one of Kizzy’s works of art, that just happens to be on one of my brides from last August, isn’t it just stunning!

Not all my wedding posts will be this critical, I have started with the aspect I regret most, you’ll have to prepare yourselves for lots of soppy reminiscing now

I think for alot of the big decisions I probably wouldn’t change them, the venue was beyond gorgeous, I loved my dress but it’s more the small details and frills that I would add to or change… for the things I wouldn’t change I will also blog about them but it will be purely self indulgent reminiscing… so apologies in advance.

So I’ve decided to replan my wedding in blog form, discussing things that I would do differently, or the same… if I was to get married in 2012 rather than 2001…

I will start with hair and makeup… my biggest wedding bugbear in the next post….beware mine was shocking!