To cake or not to cake!

One of the harder questions when it comes to wedding planning is what to serve to your guests. Whether to go with a traditional wedding cake or the new trend of serving cupcakes or going into a completely different direction with pie or another dessert favorite like ice cream sandwiches. The key is to pick something that you both enjoy to eat and fits your personality and theme of your wedding. Here are some examples of past clients choices:

Review: Babycakes Cake Pop Maker

To continue my very unhealthy obsession of Cake Pops, I was further drug deeper into my addiction last week when I went to our Kohl's grand opening and found on the bottom shelf in the appliance section a Babycakes Cake Pop Maker. I was so excited when I found this, I forced stopped myself my jumping up and down like a little kid on Christmas. I thought that this would be great way to make my Cake Pops more round and be easier to make and clean up.

So today, I finally tried it out after going to the store to buy my favorite cake mix, Funfetti. After mixing the batter and warming up the Cake Pop Maker which only took about three minutes, I read over the directions and then decided to try out one Cake Pop before a full batch of 11. After several tests, what I found to work the best was to fill the Cake Pop molds using a tablespoon. This was a lot easier than filling each mold using a zip loc bag with batter and it was a lot less messy.

The first Cake Pop was a clear success. The next step was to see how they would cool and hold up when I melted my candy and coated the Cake Pop. I was very surprised how quickly the cake pops cooled. After placing a candy coated stick into the Cake Pop and refrigerating for about 15 minutes I coated about 10 Cake Pops without any problems.

The only drawback for the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker was that the bottom half of the Cake Pop cooked faster than the upper half so I had to be careful not to overcook the Cake Pop and in the middle of the cooking process, I flipped each Cake Pop over for even cooking.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my $24.99 purchase from Kohl's. I would recommend anyone who loves Cake Pops just as much as I do to buy the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker.

Vendor Spotlight:Oona Copperhill

I started my business in 2002 after getting my master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Montana. It was then I moved to the Seattle area and began covering beautiful weddings all over the Puget Sound and beyond.

My favorite part about working with couples is capturing all of the little moments that make a wedding unique to them. I love documenting love and emotion and laughter and I also love making beautiful images of the details, the setting, and all of the elements that each couple has chosen for their day.

A great wedding photographer must be able to not only capture all of the beauty of the day but to also tell the story visually and evocatively. I take great joy in crafting photos that do both. I also believe that because of my training as a photojournalist, I offer my clients more extensive coverage than they might find with many other photographers.

When looking for the right photographer, I would give two pieces of advice. First, make sure you love their work and that you’ve seen a large sampling of it to be sure they are both talented and reliable. Second, choose someone you like! Your photographer will be a part of your wedding day - at some of the most intimate and momentous moments of your life. Be sure you feel comfortable with the person you’ve chosen and that it feels like a great match.

I’ve noticed that photojournalism has become a very popular buzzword and most people want a healthy dose of candids in their wedding images these days. This is a fantastic development because I believe these can be some of the images you will treasure most. But when you are considering a photographer, just be sure their photos really reflect this style if that’s what you want. As it’s grown more popular, even photographers with a more traditional and formal style have taken to calling themselves photojournalists. A great photographer can give you beautiful candids as well as portraits and it will show in their portfolio!

Oona Copperhill Photography
253.549.5825
www.oonacopperhill.com

Alpha Phi Conference Wrap-up

This weekend, Elegant Affairs had the immense pleasure of coordinating the Alpha Phi Pacific Northwest Regional Conference for the fifth consecutive year. This year's conference took place at the beautiful Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California, just a hop, skip and a jump from the airport.

Work began back in the late summer when the venue was selected from about a half-dozen hotels. Once the venue was selected work began with the PNW Regional Team to develop a theme. We decided on a Glee themed.

A logo was created that best represented the theme:

Actually planning the conference for the 220 attendees living two states away was made easier with assistance from the Doubletree Event Manager Ariadne Glyptis. It was great working with her because she gave us great ideas how to have the best conference ever along with all of the help from theAlpha Phi PNW Regional Team.

The best part of the planning was coming up with the idea of Friday night's "Dessert Bar." Again, to go with the Glee themed, we rented two slushy machines from San Jose's Party Time Rentals and had a great candy bar comprised of M&Ms, Candy Bars, Skittles and pretzels to go along with the cherry and blue raspberry slushies.

Another highlight of the weekend was Saturday night's Diva Off where we had two of our regional team members act as Sue Slyvester and Will Shuester to introduce our chapters who participated in the Diva Off. (Click on the link to watch the video)