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I’m an immigrant!

Whew! Never thought I’d see the day I’d admit to that publicly. Not sure if I’m feeling relieved, or horrified at myself at the moment. Holy crap. It’s been a long time coming, though.

You see, when I first moved to Minnesota from my homeland – Canada – many years ago, it was immediately obvious that if I was to be “out” about being an immigrant, life could be very, very difficult for me. Let me explain..

My husband and I lived in a small town in rural Minnesota. It was an eye opening experience. While I’d been told to expect everything to be pretty much the same as it was back home, it was anything but. I encountered a LOT of xenophobia and extremely vocal anti-immigrant sentiment. I was even turned down for a job because of being an immigrant! I can’t tell you how gross it was to watch a prospective employer salivate over my resume, asking how soon I can start.. then get to the line about my work visa, watch his face turn to stone while he tells me “Oh. You’re an immigrant. Well, we’re not hiring right now”.

While it’s easier to laugh about this now, I remember being at a Barenaked Ladies concert with my husband. This was early on in my immigration experience. A (very drunk) guy that was seated near us overheard my husband say “Canadian”. He demanded to know if my husband was from Canada. “Well, no… but she is!”. A reasonable response, right? Well, the guy got up in my face and tried to pick a fight with me over it. Made a lot of slurs about my country, my heritage, and … our army. Yes. At a Barenaked Ladies concert. It was very bizarre.

I was also harassed several times at the local hospital, where I’d see my Dr from time to time. Apparently, presenting a Canadian ID is an invitation for all kinds of disparaging comments about our healthcare system (Which – for the record – is AWESOME, and I miss it!)

Anyway, I don’t want to get too much into all of the crappy experiences that sent me flying into the closet. It was pretty ugly. I learned fairly early on that being Caucasian and lacking an accent was a bit of a blessing, that life would be easier if I’d shut up and just fit in. People tend to assume that people that look and sound like me are local. I decided to just.. let them. I got good at dodging questions.. “Where did you go to school?” “Up north!”, for instance.

Eventually, the stress of living in that small town became too much, and we took the huge step of moving to the city. Life in the Twin Cities has been much better, but the nagging nightmare of my initial experiences as an immigrant kept me firmly in the closet. I didn’t want to be harassed about it, I didn’t want to endure slurs, and I even worried about how being “out” could hurt my business. The wedding industry is ugly, and I can still totally see competitors saying crap about it. Whatever, I’m much more secure in who I am, and what my business is.. let them.

The longer we live in the cities, the more comfortable I am in admitting to it. Well, in face to face situations, anyway. I shocked my husband by admitting it to a room full of people in a panel discussion at a large convention this past July! Progress has been coming, little by little.

Gotta say though.. my final push out of the closet door could *not* have been any more Canadian. This final little burst of courage? Inspired by Degrassi. Yes. DEGRASSI. LOL.

Anyway, hrmm.. anything else to say? I don’t know. I’m soon going to have to hit “publish” on this, and it’s really freaking me out.

I know that a lot of people out there will read this and think “As IF Canadians get harassed / ridiculed/ etc”.. but it happens. A LOT. Xenophobia either knows NO borders, or is very intimately acquainted with EVERY border, depending on how you look at it. I’ve spent a very long time being made to feel like a second class citizen (well.. NON citizen, anyway! LOL).. feeling forced to keep part of myself a secret.. It’s a crappy way to live. Really crappy. Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about GLBT rights – because I can TOTALLY identify with them, even as a straight married chick. Well, that and.. you know.. I’m Canadian! We tend to be into crazy stuff like equality!

So, that’s it. Whew. I’m going to assume this will be a huge non-issue to the vast majority of people that follow me here, on facebook, and on Twitter. I have cool followers like that Anyone else.. ah well, whatever. At least I can be my Degrassi watching, poutine eating, eurodance loving, Nanaimo bar-making, Canuck self. Just know that this post is taking a HUGE amount of courage for me to post, and it’s been an issue for a very, very long time. I’ve just come to learn that I can’t control the way anyone else acts to anyone from another country, and that by closeting myself like this, I’m giving the bigots WAY too much power and control over my life.

On that note, I leave you with…. beer commercials!

I used to love bookmarks when I was a kid. I loved going into book stores and pouring over their selection of bookmarks, weighing the options. What color tassle? Glitter, or no glitter? Unicorns? (Of COURSE I wanted glitter and unicorns!) Loved it.

The second delivery is something even more important, and I’ve been waiting for this day forEVER. My initial shipment of “The Spirited Baker: Intoxicating Desserts & Potent Potables” arrives today! I CANNOT wait to see them, the culmination of an insane amount of work between my husband (the photographer!) and I! Insane.. this feels so surreal.

Today feels like the biggest day of my life… well, second only to meeting/marrying my amazing husband. I’m such a dork about this.. but it just feels.. augh! Amazing, and nerve wracking, and everything!

So as I sit here waiting.. and waiting.. I’m reflecting on my career. It’s been a wild ride, and we’ve had some really fun, amazing moments! Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? In no particular order, here are some of my favorite moments from the past few years:

W00tstock

Ah, w00tstock was awesome! 700 nerds and geeks under one roof, the comedic stylings of Paul and Storm and Wil Wheaton, appearances by Adam Savage, but also several “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ guys there: Trace Beaulieu, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy… authors John Scalzi, and James Kakalios… running in to the guys from Thaco… watching Wil Wheaton “Lose his shit” over the cake I made… just epic. Check out the blog entry about it : here.

Klingons!

Over the past year, we’ve maintained excellent relations with the Klingon Empire, and it’s been a blast!

Our initial involvement with Klingons came from working on Commedia Beauregard’s production of “A Klingon Christmas Carol“. A ridiculously awesome show… and an insane, 4′ long Red Velvet Klingon Bird of Prey cake! Epic!

We later followed that up with being nominated for a fouffy local event industry award for that cake, and attended the fancy, red carpet awards show with an entourage of 4 fully-uniformed Klingons!

Check out the blog entry about Klingon Christmas Carol here, and the blog entry about the Star Awards here, and photos here and here!

The invention of caffeinated baking mixes!

The title almost says it all, doesn’t it. While we’d enjoyed moderate success with our modest line of baking mixes, I wanted to have some fun with it. I wanted to come up with a product that could/would be sold on ThinkGeek.com.. so I took my beautiful brownie mix recipe, added a ton of caffeine anhydrous and guarana seed extract to it, tweaked everything so that the caffeine flavor was completely covered up.. and a star was born! Each brownie made from the mix has the same amount of caffeine as a large cup of coffee, and are fudgy and delicious.

The brownie mix WAS eventually picked up by ThinkGeek.com, just months after its invention. Mission accomplished! The brownie mix was followed up with Jacked up Java cookie mix and Cranked up Chai blondie mix, both available from our online store.

Click here & here for old blog entries about that!

Pioneering the art of “Cake Taxidermy”!

Foopmallet was one of our favorite groom’s cakes ever. We love it when people order cakes that really represent their personalities and interests.. in our eyes, generic cakes are a little passe. So, when we met with Kirk and Amanda and received an order for the Kirk’s World of Warcraft character as a cake, we loved it! Add to that the fact that we further personalized it by crafting a new flavor – Redbull, for Kirk and his gamer friends.

Well, Foopmallet apparently had too many hitpoints to be felled at the reception, and was still standing a month later. The decision was made to preserve the formerly-edible cake into a less biohazardous statue. Read all about the process – and see the photos – here!

Ace of Cakes

It was SO thrilling to find out that the Aces of Cakes themselves, Charm City Cakes not only knew about us, but were referring people to us. From time to time, they receive requests for cakes from Minnesotans.. who got passed our way. We were completely honored to find out about this! Oh, and btw.. they were big fans of the caffeinated cookies (from our mix!) that we sent as a thank you!

Learning to be ourselves

I’ve always been sort of an outsider to the wedding industry. I don’t like being told what “has” to be done, I’m not huge on trends, I’m more for individual expression, free of societal expectation/intervention/guilt trips, etc. In 2009, we finally gave up on traditional wedding media & advertising, veering off on our own, unique marketing path. We stopped attending wedding shows – our personal idea of hell – stopped pursuing all of the traditional wedding marketing venues, and completely changed our focus.

Rather than aiming for any and all brides that could fit us in their budget, we focused on working with brides we like, that we WANT to work with, and who appreciate us. Fellow nerds and geeks, for the most part! It was a ballsy move at first, but has paid off with us being MUCH happier, having MUCH more interesting / artistically fulfilling cakes, and generally being treated with more respect. Awesome.

Having fun with cake competitions

As a former figure skater, I know how frustrating it can be to enter a competition, trying to live up to the expectations of whoever happened to be judging. Particularly as those expectations tended to seem random and arbitrary at times. Early on in my cake career, I decided to have fun with competitions. Take some rules as literally as possible, bend definitions, think outside the box.. whatever. Just have fun with it!

Twice, we’ve had the opportunity to really have fun with a competition. We submitted a “Tremors” themed wedding cake for a chocolate show competition – their only theme rule was that the wedding cakes had to be animal themed. Well.. graboids are animals, right?

Then, we were invited to compete in the “Czar of Cakes” challenge at the Minnesota Monthly Food & Wine Experience. The only real rules specified that the cakes had to be epic, and had to be Food/Wine themed. We could have done the wine/cheese thing.. but we decided to do a cake themed around “Silence of the Lambs”. It was epic.

It got a ton of attention.. it was blogged about around the world, and actually sent us over our monthly bandwidth in one day! Most of all, it was a ton of fun. We have a ton of info and pics posted… click here & here for our blog entries about the Food & Wine themed contest cake. Also, click here for the blog entry about the Tremors cake.

Wow, what a crazy ride! I think that sums up most of my favorite moments of my cake career – am I missing anything particularly epic? Anyway, that brings us up to today, as I continue to wait for the UPS guy. The book is done, and on it’s way to ME! I triumphed over my ADD! It’s done! The pre orders will be mailed one week from today, signed, beautiful, and ready to make some epic desserts with. Have you preordered? Click here to do so – ordering before August 31 not only saves you $1 per copy, it ensures you’ll receive a signed copy!

This cake was made for one of my geeky tweeps. Her husband and her have had a running joke about a “Ganache Ganesh” for years. (Ganache being the thick chocolate filling that truffles are made from). She jumped at the chance to make their in-joke a reality, and planned to present him with a birthday cake of epic proportions. I am pleased to present “The Ganache Ganesh”!

This cake is entirely edible, aside from a couple dowels/wires in the extremities. The base and most of Ganesh’s body is made from our B-52 flavor cake:

“Not only delicious, this cake is a visual delight when sliced! Alternating layers of blood orange and mocha cake are filled with alternating layers of Irish Cream Mousse and Blood Orange chocolate truffle ganache!”

Awesome.

The rest of the cake is sculpted from Rice Krispies.

Watching the comments come in on Twitter and facebook has been great! A few of my favs:

“Wow, I had to convince my husband that was a cake.”

“That is possibly the coolest cake EVAR, and then the name makes it even better. More pics please!”

” “Look at your man. Now look at me. Is your man covered in fondant?” need an occasion to get @Celebr8nGenr8n to make that one. “

” That is amazing! The secret ingredient is obviously insane amounts of awesome. Well done.”

” I love your cakes. Love and hate..cuz they’re gorgeous…but then it makes me crave your delicious cake.”

Thank you kindly, everyone! It was a lot of work, but the pics and reactions make it SO worth it!

Scratch that, if you follow my blog, you likely don’t read the blogs I’m talking about

Anyway, the idea is to post a photo, extract a few colors from it, and use it as an inspirational color board. “Inspirational”, in that a bride may see this board and decide to base her wedding florals, decor, and theme around it.

Well! As you may be aware, I have many, many years of design experience behind me… and I figure it’s about time I take a crack at designing color palettes. I present my first attempt, “Cool as Ice” after the jump…

I think that this would make a sunny and unique spring color palette…

I just saw a blog entry that Ariela at RBK Creations just posted. Fell in love, had to share!

You may recall RBK Creations from our blog entry, “Far-flung Awesomeness of the Floral & Photography Varieties“. If not, here’s the basic scoop: Met her on Twitter, she’s located in Texas, and she makes the most ridiculously awesome fabric and button wedding florals. Love them! (No, this is not a paid ad or anything!) Of all the bouquet styles she does, my favorites are the felt ones, especially when there are bright colors involved. I’m a sucker for teal & purple… so when I saw those two colors, in my favorite style.. WITH LEGOS.. I had to post! Isn’t it awesome? Here’s some contact info if you want to revel in her awesomeness more closely – like with your own set! Website: www.rbkcreations.com Twitter: @RBKCreations Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/reallybadkitty Facebook: www.facebook.com/RBKCreations

My photographer friends are gonna kill me for saying this, but wedding photography is an area that can really suffer from that sentiment. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when wedding photography started leaning towards the photojournalistic, and away from the stiff, posed, and painfully staged-looking photography that was so popular when I first entered the wedding business. I loved to see photographers and couples relaxing a bit, having fun with it, and taking more chances!

Engagement sessions, however, seem to have a bit of a hard time breaking out of the mold. While I’ve seen some great, warm, personal sessions, I still think that the vast majority of engagement sessions look more like senior portraits, or Sears/Walmart style family pictures. Very formulaic, take the couple to a park, kiss, hold hands, lay in the grass, whatever.

I have photographer friends. My husband did wedding photography before really settling into his niche of food & product photography, so I know how it is. I know that many brides feel that getting that style of photos is what they’re “supposed” to do in this grand ritual of getting married… and sometimes it can be hard to coax a couple out of that thinking. (The same applies to white cake, inside and out.. and cake toppers! LOL!)

HOWEVER… the other day I saw what may just be the most amazing engagement photoshoot ever. I would almost put money on a certain one of my photog friends either crying or squealing when she saw/sees this particular shoot. Anyway, the photographer is Chelsea Gray, and she’s based in Montreal, Canada. Chelsea felt inspired by a blog entry she’d seen – which had featured an engagement session themed around the movie “Up” – and suggested a fun shoot to Cindy and Jean-Nicola. They jumped on the idea, and suggested The Notebook as inspiration. The rest, apparently, is history. Check out that *completely* epic engagement shoot HERE. Amazing! Anyway, after seeing that shoot, I had to see her other work, and immediately fell in love. I LOVE her style, her eye.. and how she works with her environment to create visually stunning images. Whether incorporating the lighting at a “Cosmic Bowl” session at a bowling alley, natural light streaming through colored glass windows, or just natural light outside, she has a wonderful talent for making great use of that lighting.

Anyway, I was so blown away by her images, I thought that a blog entry on her work would be a great idea! Though she IS available to travel to far-flung weddings.. but at the very least, these photos should serve as great inspiration! Be sure to check out her blog for a ton more engagement sessions! All of the photos on this entry are courtesy of Chelsea and her team at Blushing Bride Studios!

Additionally, I love how so many of these photos are NOT of the couple alone in a field somewhere, but actually have other people, random passers-by, also pictured. I think it gives a lot of movement, a dynamic feeling to those photos. I absolutely love it! “At Blushing Bride Studio we’re always trying to push the button stylistically, creating one-of-a-kind images for our clients. We are based in Montreal and available to shoot worldwide.” For more information, contact Chelsea at: Web: www.blushingbridestudio.com Email: chelsea@blushingbridestudio.com Phone: 514.502.3494 Know a vendor, event, product, or service that you think I’d flip out over? Contact Me to let me know about it. My blog entries are of subjects that I love, and are not paid advertisements.

]]> http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/08/12/completely-epic-engagement-photography/feed/ 0 http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/08/11/cake-toppers-they-dont-have-to-be-as-horrible-as-you-think/ http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/08/11/cake-toppers-they-dont-have-to-be-as-horrible-as-you-think/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:24:34 +0000 admin http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/?p=502 This blog entry is going to be a unique one for me – a positive blog entry about something I normally hate!

Yes, I am vehemently, rabidly anti-cake toppers. 99% of the time, I find toppers to look cheesy, cheap, and TOTALLY out of place on a cake. Most of the readily-available toppers in stores all look the same as they did 20 years ago, and they all sort of look the same. Yawn. They go completely against my belief that a wedding should be personalized, and truly reflect the couple.

Aside from the stand-alone cheese factor, the other thing that gets me is that they’re very rarely used in a way that complements the design of the cake. I’ve got almost 20 years of old school design experience, so things like jarring breaks in form, line, color.. it just gets to me.

I prefer toppers to be an extension of the cake design itself, usually made from the same materials. Sugar flowers that are also used throughout the cake design, not just plunked on top, for instance. An unbroken, balanced continuation of the design, seamlessly executed. If such a continuation isn’t possible – for whatever reason – I much prefer to have NO topper, whatsoever.

It IS, however, possible to incorporate a topper into the cake without it being cheesy OR jarring! It takes a little creativity, planning, and a talented cake designer.. but it can definitely work. Here are the two key points to remember:

1. It must be a nice topper, ideally custom – and preferably unique. There is absolutely no way to make an off-the-shelf Wilton topper uncheesy. Ironic, maybe.. but not uncheesy. Sorry. I’m blunt, but I speak the truth! Do you really want your great aunt Bertha beaming at the memory of seeing that same topper atop her own cake?

2. Contrary to the normal order of things.. you really need to choose such a topper first, and DESIGN THE CAKE AROUND IT. Do NOT try and plop a custom topper on top of any wedding cake design, it won’t work. Incorporate the colors, themes, and general feel of your topper into the cake, and it will be much more coherent, pleasing to the eye, and YOU.

Where to find such a topper? WELL! I went on a “cute topper finding mission” this morning, and I have a load of inspiration and contacts for you, dear readers. Some are quite epic!

Let me say this… when it comes to finding talented artists to create truly unique toppers, Etsy.com is a GOLDMINE! The vast majority of the toppers below are from Etsy. Let’s get started, shall we?

First up, we have “Fliepsiebieps”, from The Hague, Netherlands. I love how adorable these custom polymer clay toppers are, and – as a cake artist – would love the opportunity to design an adorable cake around these. I love the use of color, and the lines that this artist uses. I think these toppers would be an adorable keepsake on a bookshelf, mantle, or whatever for years to come – but then, that sentiment really applies to any well done, custom topper! Fliepsiebieps has several means of contact listed: Etsy: “Fliepsiebieps” Twitter: http://twitter.com/fliepsiebieps Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fliepsiebieps Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/esthertaal

This next artist. “buildersstudio”, just completely blows me away.. and I’m not even in to Steampunk! I can’t get over the insane amount of detail that goes into these “robot” steampunk wedding cake toppers. Sick. Amazing! Love it! I don’t even know what else to say. Etsy: Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/buildersstudio

The interesting thing about this next artist, “splendorlocity”, is that they mess with those awful premade toppers… and manages to make them about as acceptable as they’re gonna get! Check them out on Etsy:http://www.etsy.com/shop/splendorlocity

The artist who makes these ADORABLE toppers, “kikuike”, is based in Japan. So cute! I think a cake based around any of these would be adorable, and completely memorable! Check them out on Etsy:http://www.etsy.com/shop/kikuike Check them out on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/etsy_kikuike

Lets go from adorable, to COMPLETELY BIZARRE. I honestly have no idea what to say about these. Definitely memorable, at the very least! As with many of the custom toppers I’m featuring.. it would be great for the right couple, and the right cake design! These toppers are made by pouring liquid casting clay into multiple molds, chopping them up, and then rearranging body parts before glazing & firing them. It’s like… “The Cake Toppers of Dr Moreau”. Awesome!

Megan Bogonovich’s work has been featured on Martha Stewart Weddings, Design Sponge, as well as Style Me Pretty

Check them out on Etsy:http://www.etsy.com/shop/melabo

Check out artist’s website: http://www.meganbogonovich.com

I think that’s enough for one blog entry. Stay tuned for a part 2!

Now, there have been a good handful of couples – at LEAST – who have attempted their own versions of Judson’s act as part of their receptions. This morning, I watched what may just be the BEST version done yet!

Check out the video from Jackie and Nick’s July 30th wedding, via Fine Line Weddings in Pennsylvania:

Doing the running man, to “Ice Ice Baby” – IN A WEDDING GOWN – FTW!

My only criticism? No Cotton Eyed Joe. Seriously. The world needs more Cotton Eyed Joe!

Congrats, Jackie & Nick! You guys were awesome, and you look like you’ll have a fun life together!