i love these interviews with wedding vendors! this week i was super excited to come across sarah bisher’s awesome website for her cake baking business, abigail’s bake shop (see contact info below)! sarah does amazing work in raleigh and the triangle for not only weddings but all types of cakes and cookies. her website makes me extremely hungry. :)

sarah happily agreed to a vendor interview! she also supplied me with the following photographs from her shop…yummm!

abigail's bake shop abigail's bake shop

*ps – how cute would it be to serve these at your wedding instead of cake?!

Sarah Bisher – Abigail’s Cake Shop

website – www.abigailsbakeshop.com
blog – www.abigailsbakeshop.blogspot.com
facebook – www.facebook.com/abigailsbakeshop
twitter – http://twitter.com/abigailbakeshop
flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/abigailsbakeshop/
1.) How did you get into the cake baking business?

I’ve always enjoyed baking and cake decorating as a hobby – it wasn’t until about 5 years ago when my husband had the idea to create a website showcasing some cakes I made.  Quickly after that, people starting contacting me after stumbling across the site and I began to take orders.  I never imagined it would get to where it’s at today!

2.) There are a lot of cake bakers in the area. What do you think sets you apart from them?

There are a lot of wonderful cake makers who do an amazing job in the Raleigh area.  I love looking at the cakes they make and I feel proud to be associated with them.  I think every cake decorator brings their own style to the table, mine being more colorful and whimsical.  We make it a point to keep our orders per week low so that we can give each cake the careful attention that it deserves.  We never want to become a ‘factory’ that just cranks out cakes.  We also bake everything from scratch using the best possible ingredients.

3.) When someone tells you that they’d like a wedding cake, where do you go from there?

I schedule a complimentary tasting/consultation.  It’s here that we take a concept and put it on paper to create their dream wedding cake.  We look through swatches, invitations, color schemes, pictures, and anything else that draws inspiration.  And the best part of all, we eat cake!

4.) Where do you draw your cake inspiration from?

I draw cake inspiration from everything!  My kids clothes, gift bags, greeting cards, even dish towels.  I can be walking through Target and something will catch my eye and I immediately think of what a pretty cake it would make.  I spend a lot of time online looking through pictures and at design websites.

5.) What’s your favorite flavor of cake that you offer?

This is a really tough question!  I created them because I love them all.  But with a gun to my head, I would say southern red velvet.  I make it with imported Belgian chocolate and the most delicious cream cheese frosting.  The most requested flavor is lemon berry, which is lemon cake with fresh raspberries baked right in.  We layer the cake with cream cheese frosting and more fresh berries.  It’s definitely a crowd pleaser.

6.) What was the most fun request for a cake that you’ve received?

I had a bride recently who requested a custom, gourmet dessert table in shades of grey and yellow.  I made french macarons, mini cupcakes, decorated sugar cookies, and a beautiful tiered cake right in the center of it all.  I kept thinking that if I could get married again, this is exactly what I would want.

7.) What was the most challenging cake that you’ve done?

I once made a cake for Kenny Chesney when he was playing here in Raleigh at the Alltel Pavilion.  I was so nervous!

8.) What would you recommend to a bride who is shopping around for a bakery to make her wedding cake?

Try to find a baker whose style matches your own.  Your wedding is a once in a lifetime event and you want to be sure that your cake maker understands exactly what your dream cake looks like and can make it a reality.

**thank you so much to sarah from abigail’s bake shop for participating in this interview! i hope her amazing cakes and fun style can help a bride in the area get her idea wedding cake! :)

love love LOVE my new sample coffee table book! coffee table books are a bit different from albums. the main difference being in the page thickness (more magazine-like for coffee table books, more cardboard-thickness for albums) and the cover (thin silk-cover for coffee table books, thick leather or vegan alternative for albums). of course, coffee table books also have the photographs printed onto the page itself, where an album is actually a large photograph adhered to the cardboard-like pages so the print quality is noticeably different as well.

i offer them both to give a variety of choice and price range to my clients. recently i changed my format a little bit. i used to use backgrounds in my books, but i found that white pages suit me a little better. white doesn’t distract or take anything away from the photographs and it’s much more timeless (not to mention easier to design). so i redesigned a sample set to take to consults. the coffee table book got here yesterday and i love it! the silk is awesome…changing colors slightly depending on the light. can’t wait for the album to get here!

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yay! what do you think? :)

why 365?

my new sample coffee table book arrived today and it’s awesome…so much cooler than the last one. i wanted to take photographs of it for the blog, but it arrived a little late and i wanted to use natural light to photograph it, so it’ll have to wait til tomorrow. can’t wait for the new sample album to arrive in a few weeks (hopefully less!)!

sat on the deck this evening and talked to my dad. snapped some photos of a plant sticking it out in a shell of its former ceramic pot home. last year i planted a large flowering plant in this awesome green pot in the middle of the deck. it was supposedly the hardiest plant ever and could survive anything. i specifically chose it for these qualities because everyone who knows me knows that i can’t take care of plants to save my life.

so it did awesome in the summer and into the fall and winter, but, of course, i completely forgot that it was out there for the entire winter. so add snow, freeze it, thaw it, then repeat the process like twelve more times and you end up with a few cracked pots and little ceramic chips all over your deck. it looks like i went out there with a sledgehammer and smashed all of our pots to pieces during a particularly frustrating episode of lost.

it still remains to be seen whether or not the plant will come back in the summer, but it actually seems to be in good shape. i’ll know that our relationship was meant to be if it returns…because geez, i cannot be trusted to take care of plants.

potted plant

why 365?