Dessert Bar Inspiration!

 Dessert Bars have become all the hype with weddings and parties these days. 

When planning my own wedding last fall I knew that I had to have a dessert bar. My favorite foods are basically anything with sugar in them so having a dessert bar was ESSENTIAL!

I found a lot of inspiration from the marvelous Amy Atlas. She has created some of the most beautiful dessert bars I've seen.

Since I'm a floral designer adding flowers to the dessert table was a must! In fact, I wanted the flowers to be a big part of the look. We used hydrangea, roses and sprayed branches with hanging ribbons and crystals which finished the look. My sister in law, Heidi, is super talented and made the desserts for this table (which lasted maybe 20 seconds... I learned that I wasn't the only sugar lover at our wedding dinner!!!). Thankfully we had A TON of wedding cake to go around. I was so in love with my wedding cake (thank you Granite Bakery and Bridal)! It had to be the center of the table. The lace details of the cake were unbelievable.

When designing a dessert table I think it's very important to label your desserts, plus labels can be really cute and can add a lot to the table. We chose to go with all white plates and dishes as well as white linens and a white lace overlay. I wanted the candy and desserts to pop a little which I think they did. When choosing the candy I wanted a variety of shapes and sizes and textures. We chose pina colada licorice, orange rock candy suckers, tangerine sour balls, pina colada sour balls and peach taffy. We did the same thing with the desserts. We served mini cupcakes, macarons, cake balls and white chocolate dipped oreos. We had little cellophane bags for the guests who opted to take their treats home. And for the finishing touch, Heidi made little sticker labels with our initials on them to seal the bags (I love to personalize things!).

The most important thing to remember when designing a dessert bar is to make sure to add your personality to it. Have fun with it and let it reflect a little piece of you!

 I made the cupcake papers our of lace doilies. So cute!

 The rest of these dessert bar pictures are from the Ruffled Blog. They had a great write up on dessert bars and how to properly put them together. To read the post click here.

Granite Bridal's Cakes from The Bridal Showcase

The Original Bridal Showcase was held this past weekend at the Salt Palace. It was full of hundreds of brides along with their soon-to-be hubbies, bridesmaids, moms, etc. I was a the bridal show on Friday and it was a packed house. It's always fun to see what vendors come up with for their booths each year. Today I am featuring the wedding cakes from Granite Bridal's booth. I also did some florals for their booth which you'll see in the pictures. Ryan Thompson with RLT Photography was kind enough to share these pictures with me. I think you'll enjoy these cakes (and flowers) as much as I do!

 Just looking at these flowers gives me spring fever!! It feels so far away!

 This next cake is the exact cake they designed for my wedding. The lace details on this cake are so gorgeous (and very "in" right now).

 How do you not just love this groom's cake?? I saw a lot of groom's taking a second look at this little gem. In my opinion groom's cakes are a really fun addition to the wedding and they seem to bring a sparkle to every groom's eye.

Hope you enjoyed these treasures from Granite Bakery and Bridal.

For those of you who want to use Granite Bridal for your cake but don't live in Salt Lake, you're in luck... they deliver all over the Wasatch Front!

My Love Story!

This next blog post is one that is very dear to my heart. This was the day I married the love of my life! I've been dreaming of this day for, let's be honest, most of my life (I'm a female!). Even though I've thought a lot about this day I haven't actually had any of it planned out until the day we decided to get married. That's when the wheels starting turning.

Since I'm a floral designer and I've been in the wedding industry for 8+ years there was a lot of pressure to create something

beautiful and timeless.

My color palette ranged from whites to ivory, golds and pops of peach, peachy orange and terracotta. I created my bouquet with all white flowers which consisted of ranunculus, garden roses, white dove roses, white lisianthus and white spray roses. I also added in some white beaded brooches to add a little glitz. Brittany with Cascio Photography was the fabulous photographer and did such a beautiful job of capturing every detail.

 You'll notice this "red cooler" in more pictures. It (he) has become a part of our family. It's very rare for "the red" cooler not to show up to a family event. That being said it would have been unfortunate for him not to make it to my wedding. He not only showed up to the temple but he made it to the dinner as well. It wouldn't have been the same without him. :)

 The cutest nieces and nephews I've ever seen!

 My lovely Maid of Honor, Halle!

(my cute little 9 year old niece)

 Obviously I am a florist. I debated on whether or not I should hire a florist or if I should take on the daunting task of doing my own flowers. Well, I chose to do the flowers myself. With of course the help of my family and girlfriends. I was so happy with the way it all came together!

This dessert bar was probably one of my favorite things. The cake was designed by Granite Bakery and Bridal and the desserts were created by my sister in law Heidi. I could look at this forever!

 I heart!!!

Delicious hand passed hors d'oeuvres by The Point Restaurant.

Chef Brandon Howard created our menu which consisted of smoked prime rib, pancetta wrapped chicken and butternut squash ravioli. Yum!

 My husband is a DIE HARD B.Y.U. fan (I'm a very loyal Aggie fan just to be clear). Since the bride typically gets to pick out most everything for their wedding (that was the case for me) I thought I'd surprise Jared with a B.Y.U. groom's cake. I think that might have been in his top 3 favorite things of the day!

 We had the most awesome D.J. EVER!! Durven with Laughing Gravy was unbelievable! I've worked with him on several different occasions and always knew that he'd be the D.J. for my wedding. He did NOT disappoint!

 To the left of Jared are my brothers and Dad. To the right of Jared are his brothers and Dad. A few of these guys (I won't mention names) were not afraid to be in the spotlight. This may have also been in Jared's top 3 favorite moments of the day.

 Go Grandma! She was pretty wild on the dance floor. she can pop a wheelie like no one's business.

 The next string of pictures are some of my favorites! My 2 nephews in the front really have no idea what they are trying to catch. They just know they want it and nothing or nobody will get in their way.

 Let's just say the garter ripped in two pieces. They both won. Lucky little guys!

 And here's the "red cooler" again. And my not so shy brother and brother in law. The night wouldn't have been complete without tossing sodas to the crowd.

 What you didn't see here was Ryan, Jake and Adam shaking up the sodas before they opened them.

And finally, here (click on the link below) is our baseball engagement video. I posted it a few months back so some of you may have already seen it.

Baseball Engagement Video

There you have it! My little love story. This was truly the happiest day of my life. I have to say thank you to all the family and friends who helped with all the details. And of course to all the wonderful vendors who made this day possible!

Vendors:

Photography: Cascio Photography

Videography: Ballam Films

Cake: Granite Bakery and Bridal

Venue: The Point Restaurant

Catering: The Point Restaurant

Rentals: Bacchus Rental

D.J.: Lauging Gravy

Invitations: Cindy Dunkley (Bride's Mom)