Back in the beginning of March, I received an email from one of my tweeps. She excitedly told me that w00tstock was coming to Minneapolis, and “I don’t know about you, but I think w00tstock would be better with cake!”

Well, I had to agree, so I got a hold of Paul and Storm, the geeked out musical comedians in charge. Offered up some cake, they were interested, mentioned I’d have my husband – a photographer along with me to take pics… they asked if he’d be willing to be the official backstage photographer (Willing? Hell YES he was!)…
and we were on track for an adventure in epic geekery!

The plan was to make a surprise “Tardis” cake for Adam Savage & Wil Wheaton. Hubby would photograph the goings on, while I doled out samples of our caffeinated brownies and blondies (from our line of baking mixes. Cake would be served, geeking out would occur, and it would be an awesome night.

Monday was the day, finally! It had been difficult to not blab the details of the cake design itself, while I had been free to tweet that I would be DOING a cake. Everyone wants to know what it’ll look like, especially when it’s a.) Geeky, and b.) Intended for geek royalty! This blog entry is gonna get long and image-heavy, so click through to read & gawk!

The day got off to a bad start. Due to some dropped communication between the various parties involved, we ended up cakeblocked at the last minute. The Guthrie decided – between the time we left, and arriving at the loading dock – that 1″ samples would be too much competition for their concession stand, and we were left with 600 samples we could not serve. Damn!! Woulda been good to be told that – we briefly considered a tweetup sampling out of the back of our truck. LOL.

We loaded up the dolly with everything else, and set about to get the cake discreetly delivered to a room where Wil Wheaton wouldn’t see it. Of course, he was one of the very first people we came across. While a few people tried to guide him away from where we were, there were a few tense moments as we tried out best to stand in front of / conceal out delivery. My minion of the evening – Rachel – and I set about setting up our merch booth, while my husband went on the photography gig he’d been looking forward to awhile.

At that point, the rest of the evening kinda became a flurry of activity, so let me just point-form our highlights. This probably won’t be accurately chronological in any way!

- It was great to meet SO many of my tweeps! Thank you all for coming by the booth and identifying yourself as such! Kaji, TheGreenAvenger, PerpetualMind, NorthernGypsy, off the top of my head… hi!

- At one point, Wil Wheaton warned my husband (as the photographer, not knowing he was in any way related to me or the brownies backstage) that the brownies may taste really good, but watch out – they’re REALLY caffeinated!. Wil later told the story to me as well, saying that a little bit of one had him feeling like.. damn, I can’t remember how he put it. Like a hyper chipmunk or something. He was talking very fast

- Minutes before the big unveiling, I was told in no uncertain terms that Wil would “lose his shit when he sees the cake”. He did. It was great! Here are some pics:

(What happens when you present a geeky cake to a room full of geeks!)

For more pics of the cake & backstage presentation, check out our Facebook page – fan us while you’re at it!

- I took a really crappy cell phone pic of Wil on the floor, photographing his cake. Cake Wrecks retweeted it… Wil tweeted pics.. both (with a total combined follower number of 2,889,949!) including my username… and my twitter feed went apeshit. Here’s a more pro version of the Pic I tweeted:

(Being married to a photographer is handy!)

The cake, if you don’t recognize it, it the TARDIS from Dr Who. What made this cake really cool – and a stand out for my husband – is that the light on top was not only functional, it blinked. That meant a trip to Ax-Man – his favorite store in the world – as well as ripping apart a few different lights/components, and making custom electronics for it. He was in his glory We let Wil keep the blinky light!

Another interesting thing about the cake was the inside joke we piped on the back. If you follow either Wil Wheaton or Paul and Storm, you know what that’s all about I’m not describing here, as I don’t want to attract certain types of spam comment bots!

- Being approached by a friend of mine who’d seen Twitter just blow up over the cake – and all of the high-profilers tweeting about it – and the first thing she said to me was a rough quote of a local “bigshot” (in her mind) planner who told a friend of mine that I have no idea what I’m doing, that by catering to geeks and doing stuff like having Klingons as escorts at an Awards Night (see Here and Here, and Here), I was – quote – “throwing my business down the toilet”. Ah, sweet, sweet vindication. I’d actually forgotten all about that until the friend brought it up. I was very smug after that reminder, LOL.

- While he wouldn’t OFFICIALLY “bust the myth” of fondant tasting bad, (oh, how I was hoping for video of that!)… I was told that Adam Savage liked my fondant, and was totally unaware that fondant has a bad rep.

- We met two of the guys from Thaco! While hubby was photographing Wil with his cake, I went over to inform him that I noticed Bill Stiteler in the corner. You should have seen his grin! He loved that movie.. and had the “claim to fame” of being Thaco’s first review on Amazon. As Bill pointed out, that’s their ONLY review… so if you’ve seen it and loved it, go review it already! (That’s a totally unsolicited request/recommendation, by the way!)

Actually, I should be more accurate. Hubby met one of the Thaco guys, I met two – Duck came up to my booth. I have NO idea if he wanted info or anything, cause I immediately asked “Are you the guy in Thaco?”, and when he confirmed, I may have sort of screeched excitedly about my husband being a big fan, and asked for a photo with which I’d torment him. He graciously allowed it Hubby WAS jealous, just as I called it.

- Hubby had a GREAT time photographing the whole thing. His highlights included getting shoved on stage a few times to take pics, looking out on the audience and seeing a bunch of people he KNEW. That had to be pretty cool… we really did end up knowing a TON of people in attendance, too!

- You see this couple? They got engaged at W00tstock! On stage. I didn’t get to see it personally (was at my booth!), but I hear it was a geeked out moment of beauty! They later told me, at my booth, that my cakes were one of the first things they thought about after getting engaged. What a compliment! It was also cool for my husband, who was “shoved out on stage” to capture the moment. I think it’s the first engagement moment he’s been a part of, aside from his own!

- Speaking of couples getting married, guess who stopped by my booth? Check this out:

That’s a crappy cell phone pic I took of one of my favorite couples ever! They were actually anonymously “famous” that night, and have been for awhile – they’re Cory and Tori, the couple who ordered the Super Mario Brothers wedding cake for their wedding a year and a half ago! You know, the one on the front page of my site, and on most of my advertising… the one that something like 90% of the attendees at W00tstock geeked out over? Them! Awesome to see them again – and doubly awesome that he was wearing a Super Mario Bros shirt for the pic!

- We got a hell of a shoutout on stage from Paul and Storm. I’m used to very dry “we’d like to thank our sponsors” kinda mentions… this was nothing like that. I knew they were excited about the cake and enjoyed it, I didn’t expect it would come through SO much on stage. I was very honored.. and luckily, quick enough to capture most of it on video:

I CANNOT tell you how electrifying an experience it was when they crowd went SO nuts over the pics of the cake. I have goosebumps just typing about it. Thank you SO much, all of you. You made my night!!

- On the subject of unexpected ego boosts, holy crap – I read the comments on the cake pic Wil tweeted. Awesome, check it out!

- Being surrounded by not only almost every geek and nerd we know – which is ALWAYS a good time, we were surrounded by geek royalty, which was really cool. Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, as mentioned.. but also several “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ guys there: Trace Beaulieu, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy… authors John Scalzi, and James Kakalios – who I’m told COMPLETELY brought the house down with his Physics talk. (Twitter sure went nuts!), and more!

- I got to meet Neil Gaiman! I had gone back to the green room to look for my husband, poked my head in to ask for him.. where Neil was the one to answer. Neil thought that he knew where he was, and very kindly led me back. Very gentlemanly… and he actually contributed to my most surreal moment of the night. He stopped, turned around and extended a hand, and said “I’m Neil Gaiman”. Like I had NO idea who he was! Kinda caught me off guard.

I’ve met and/or worked with many celebrities over the years, and I’m pretty sure he’s the first to ever introduce himself. Many/most just expect it’s a given that I know who they are, even when that’s NOT the case – sports stars are particularly guilty of this. (Ironically, I’m usually quite guilty of not having a clue WHO they are!). I follow him on Twitter, as a result of SO many of my friends talking him up.. even though I’ve not had time to read fiction in.. wow, maybe a decade? He was just such a down to earth and nice guy! I think I’m gonna have to seek out one of his books and give it a go, as soon as I have a minute to breathe! (so probably end of July, by the current looks of things!). Any recommendations?

- As part of the show, artist Len Peralta (of the Geek A Week project) was on stage, seated at his computer… designing the official W00tstock poster. They set it up so that the audience could tweet suggestions as to what all should be on this poster… and yes, my Tardis cake ended up on it! How sweet is THAT? Thanks Len! You rock.

Wow, this entry is long and crazy. Trying to think if there was anything else?

Oh! At the end of the night, when the Geek Royalty was lined up at a table across the room, signing autographs.. 4 or 5 people came by my booth with their autographed poster.. and asked for MINE! Signed em and did a quick “Tardis cake” sketch. Fun!

All in all, a crazy awesome night!! What were your favorite memories of #w00tstock ?

A few months ago, I started a collaboration with one of my twitter buds, @RBKCreations, who makes the most amazing bouquets out of felt, fabric, and buttons! I’m a huge fan of incorporating fun, unique touches in weddings, really personalizing them – and these bouquets really speak to me. Well, more like scream “WANT!!!” to me . Absolutely adore her work.

The fruits of that venture will be blogged about in the next month or two. Her bouquets are such a unique art, I can’t resist giving you guys a sneak peek!

Of course, as we haven’t had our photo shoot yet, that means using someone else’s photos. What a happy coincidence – one of my favorite industry friends, @awesomebrandi, is a Texas based photographer that has worked with RBKCreations! All of the photos on this blog entry are courtesy of Brandi Thompson Photography.

Ariela (the bouquet art goddess!) and Brandi are both hilarious, intelligent, and wickedly talented. They’re definitely a couple of my tweeps that have made me curse distance, I’d love the chance to work with them in person! This will have to do for now, though.

Aren’t they amazing? I’ve never seen anything like them, and LOVE it! For the right bride / wedding, I think they’d make an amazing statement! Also love the permanence of them, always great to be able to cherish your wedding bouquet forever!

Ariela ships her bouquets pretty much anywhere. I’ve received two, and they arrived beautifully! In addition to following her on Twitter, you can also check out her site, Here, and shop online at her Etsy store, Here.

Brandi is based in Plano Texas. In addition to her Twitter feed, you can follow her work on her blog, Here, or check out her website Here. Be forewarned: One of her most recent blog entries was about a photo shoot at a kitten rescue, and it’ll almost certainly give you “baby” fever! So freaking adorable!

SO much talent, the both of them!

]]> http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/05/04/far-flung-awesomeness-of-the-floral-photography-varieties/feed/ 2 http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/01/11/coloring-outside-the-lines/ http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/01/11/coloring-outside-the-lines/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:48:21 +0000 admin http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/?p=202 Recently, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to create a wedding cake that flew in the face of conventional wedding “Seasonality”. Thought I would share the details and some photos!

Many wedding magazines will tell you that fruits, berries, sunny colors, etc are strictly the domain of spring and summer weddings. I’ve never been a fan of the “supposed to” kinda rules that the great wedding industry machine puts out.

This early January wedding cake was themed around lemons and raspberries, inside and out! The cake was lemon with raspberry buttercream, and the cake was a sunny lemon yellow, with lemons and raspberries sculpted from fondant as the accent.

You see, although it was cold, dark, grey, and – did I mention – COLD outside, lemons and raspberries had a personal significance to the bride and groom. When they met, she was working in a cafe… and he would come by sometimes 3 times a day to buy lemon raspberry squares from her! Very cute and meaningful!

As we set up the cake, we noticed that the table names were “sunny” and happy too – the one nearest the cake table was the Lemon table, featuring citrus fruits as a centerpiece! The scent of lemon wafted throughout the reception area, as the staff busily prepped the lemonade that would be served. Lemonade in January! Love it!

An interesting thing to note about this cake – the final product we left was not the same as what we showed up with, nor what we had decided on in the contract!

The originally contracted idea for this cake was a lemon yellow cake with yellow piping on the borders. As the bride seemed fun, and her lemon raspberry bars story was so cute, I convinced her to let me do raspberry and lemon detail work on the cake (which was not any more expensive than plain would have been!)

As I finished the cake on the morning of the wedding, I really felt it needed something more – some swirlies piped around the little lemon/raspberry arrangements. So, I filled a piping bag with yellow frosting, and crossed my fingers that the bride would agree with me.

I met her as she got ready for her ceremony, and she was completely open to letting me go wild with the cake. I piped the swirls that I envisioned, and everyone was thrilled with the result! See below for before and after photos. The cake was perfectly nice before the extra piping.. but the piping really gave it that final “Ooomph”, I think!

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… letting me run wild with an idea will always result in an amazing cake. I love it when my brides trust me and give me creative freedom!

Also, when it comes to planning colors, themes, flavors … break the rules! When done right, colors don’t have to be seasonal, and neither do flavors. Non-traditional venues can be a ton of fun, and self expression makes for a very memorable wedding.

I’d love to do a full blog entry on their wedding eventually – the visuals were so striking! The bride had a wonderful design vision, the venue was gorgeous… and you know I have a soft spot for brides who throw convention and “expectations” to the wind and really march to their own beat.

In the meantime, however… I’ll present you with photos of their cake! This cake was themed around their Halloween / Goth / NIN wedding through and through – it was Blood Orange Truffle flavored! (”Our deeply rich, dark chocolate cake is filled with alternating layers of blood orange chocolate truffle ganache, and blood orange buttercream.”). Not only specifically “Blood” orange – tee hee! – but that particular flavor cuts to a beautiful orange / deep dark chocolate brown. Seasonal colors!

The cake featured sugar roses in varying shades of gray, dusted with black accents. It also featured dark gray “lace” made from Sugar Veil icing – a unique product that allows a cake designer to pick up piped designs and drape it like fabric! Exciting… and meant that the entire cake was edible!

More detail photos of this cake can be seen on our Facebook site, Here

The yellow sugar rosebud “boutonniere” & accent rose matched the many sugar roses on this couple’s cake.

This cake was from a wedding in June 2008.. but I’ve always loved the close up detail shots, so I figure it’s about time to share!

This was a really cool cake to do, just very time and labor intensive! Each individual petal was piped in meringue, baked, assembled into flowers and held together with more meringue, then re-baked!

The meringue flowers were made from around 7 different shades of white, ivory, silver, and pink. Rather than being a load of frosting flowers all over this cake.. it was frosted with brown sugar swiss meringue buttercream, then covered in these crispy meringue cookies!

Very cool.

This cake was one of our rare non-fondant cakes. We created a special frosting to acheive the textured “stucco” effect, and airbrushed it twice – once in chocolate, once with a deep red – for a slight gradient effect.

The leaves were all made from gumpaste, allowed to dry, then individually airbrushed with several colors of red, orange, copper, and gold.

Definitely one of my favorite Fall-themed cakes ever.

The nice thing about being married to a photographer is that I have an insane amount of photos of everything I’ve ever made.  The not-as-nice thing about that is that there are many, many gorgeous photos that never make it to the site!