I haven’t blogged for a while and there’s one very simple reason for this; there aren’t enough hours in the day. Our second year has proven to be as incredibly busy as our amazing first year, so blogging – along with adding new photos of cakes! – has been relegated to ‘things to do if the year’s ever extended by another month’.
And thus the testimonial page that I’ve been promising us I will put together has never happened. Until now. I finally decided that it was actually okay for us to stop being so disarmingly modest (ahem) and actually blow our own trumpet. Yeah! We’re pretty damn good at what we do! And so, finally, there’s a page on the website that now proves you no longer have to take our word for it – it’s there in black and white, just a few of the many wonderful letters and emails we’ve had from our couples.
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As everyone is well aware, up until 18 months ago everything – and everyone – was chugging along nicely until the economy took a turn for the worse. Now, in most markets this wasn’t a good thing. However, I believe the ‘credit crunch’ has been to the overall benefit of the wedding market.
In one respect, those of us in the wedding marketplace are cushioned from the full effects of the economic slowdown that other businesses suffer; people will always continue to marry, and many couples have had dates and venues booked for a couple of years already. Our market cannot completely disappear.
However, what it does mean is that brides are far more likely to do some research before committing to anything. They want to have a look around and see what is available before putting their money where their mouth is – and so they should. This goes a long way to explaining why attendance figures at wedding exhibitions are on the increase.
Because of this, companies involved in the wedding industry are continually trying to come up with ways to tempt brides to use them. And so we come to the ‘Credit Crunch Cakes’.
Ack. I discovered a few companies promoting this option and it has become a personal pet hate of mine. Could anyone think of anything less romantic?! There also seems to be something vaguely insulting attached to it; these companies’ websites set out photo after photo of elaborate creations until you mention the word ‘budget’ and then you’re shuffled off to some dark corner where you have the choice of this or that, take it or leave it. It’s no wonder brides are heading to the supermarkets in droves and cake companies are disappearing.
It is true that we have designs here that just can’t be achieved on a small budget. But equally we can still do a three tiered ribboned cake in vanilla or lemon sponge for under £250 and we could give you this two years ago, when we first started out and the economy was still booming. I don’t think twice about re-working quotes for brides who want a specific look and have a set amount they want to pay; we can shift tier flavours around to help you come in on budget until the cows come home. This has nothing to do with economic downturns or credit crunches; it’s just good, simple common sense. I have lost count of the number of brides I’ve spoken to in the last 6 months who have ended up positively giddy because they’ve discovered they can have what they want at a price that doesn’t resemble the national debt of a small country.
So, if you’re researching cake companies and you come across these bland ‘credit crunch cakes’, do yourself a favour and hit that little ‘x’ button at the top right of the page. If the cake company can’t give you anything worth having from their usual portfolio, then you shouldn’t give them the time of day. Perhaps then you might take a little waltz around our gallery and see what you fancy. I bet it’s cheaper than you’d think …
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One thing can always be relied upon in January – the phone will not stop ringing. Now don’t get me wrong, I love it, because new brides mean new challenges and I like nothing better than being able to flex my creative muscles.
What makes me laugh is the way brides contact us; ninety per cent of the time, they’re flustered. It took me a little while to realise why this is, and it would appear to be the New Year Effect. Brides generally book their venues 1-2 years in advance and then put deposits down on things like DJs, bands etc. Then there’s always a bit of a lull before couples get to finalising dresses, suits, florists and – of course – the cake.
The New Year Effect is this; pre-Christmas, brides have been getting along with wedding preparations swimmingly but now everything goes on hold because they have the festive period to get through – and anyway they’re getting married in 2010, next year. Then suddenly the tinsel’s packed away, everyone’s laid on the sofa recovering from the obligatory New Year hangover and … Oh God. We’re getting married this year!! (And in some cases brides then have the completely horrifying scenario of realising they get married in less than six months. Gulp.)
Cue a long line of enquiries and phone calls the minute brides can reach the internet. Now for most cake companies this isn’t so much of a problem as they don’t really book more than 6 months in advance. Us? Well, I’m fielding enquiries and taking bookings up to October 2011.
May I make a suggestion? If you’ve had a little wander round our site, you like what you see and you’re getting married in the next year-18 months, get in touch. You can put down a £50 deposit that holds your date with us and then six months or so before your big day we can get together and finalise your cake design. (And you avoid the New Year Effect, too. You get to start 2011 feeling smug and something of an organisational goddess. Afraid that won’t help with the hangover, though.)
Equally, if you’ve had a wander round, decided we’re the cake company for you but you’re a New Year Effect bride – give us a call too. We’ll always do what we can to give brides what they want and if we have to work a little harder … I guess we’re just suckers for a good wedding.
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November – along with March – tend to be our quietest months in terms of weddings; I can’t say I blame brides, as the weather can usually only be relied upon to be awful. (Spot the two people who have birthdays in both months!)
For some reason though, I like November. That is, I like the idea of November. The ‘in theory’ part. I am actually not so keen on it when I get there. Why?
Like I said, for actual weddings it’s quiet, so in our heads we should be able to take a deep breath and sit down for five minutes. In reality, this never happens. Ever. December and January are busy months for us so we have all the prep for them. So far so good. Then it dawns on us we have Christmas cake orders to fit in, not to mention all the festive baking in the guise of mince pies, Christmas cakes and puddings we have to make for ourselves. (Can anyone say ‘busman’s holiday’?!)
We’ve also started the rounds of wedding fairs and as new clients book us I gradually disappear under a mountain of emails and paperwork. Then there’s fitting in tastings and scheduling brides who need to finalise designs for weddings in early 2010. At this point I find myself wondering who I need to petition to extend November by at least a fortnight, and my husband is sure he has a wife, only he can’t remember the last time he saw her.
But, having taken all of this into account, I guess I do still like November. There really is nothing like the baking that goes with Christmas and new clients bring new challenges and excitement; one of the upsides of our job is just as we all creep into Winter, I am already floating – cake-wise at least! – into Summer with our brides.
And all the extra work does at least mean that someone liked us at Detling. 
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Well, here we are – first post in the new blog for Sugarplum. I’ve heard all the usual stuff about blogging helping increase sales, reaching target audiences, blah, blah, blah. If truth be told, I’m giving it a go because I’m curious. I also can’t believe that any more people than I can count on one hand will ever read it, so I also thought it might be a pretty nice way of chronicling how life is treating Sugarplum Cake Co.
It’s been a pretty incredible first year; in that period of time our work increased tenfold. If anyone had told me this time last year that at the end of 2009 we’d be wrestling with possible expansion, I would have laughed in their face. All I wanted last year was someone to like us and bother to stop and chat to us at the wedding fairs. Picking up work seemed like it would be a very nice optional extra.
It’s the Detling Wedding Show tomorrow and it feels like the last one we did was a million years ago. We’ve got a bigger stand, more cakes with us, a couple of new cake flavours added to the menu and a slightly more confident air gained through experience (and the fact that quite a lot of people did like us!).
Some things haven’t changed though; we still believe our ethos of decent cakes at decent prices is bang on the money. Even though we’ve now designed and made cakes for many couples we also still understand that what is a job for us is (hopefully!) a one-off, exciting experience for brides and grooms-to-be and should therefore be treated as such.
As we pack up to go to Detling tomorrow, I guess something else still holds true: I still want someone to like us and bother to stop and chat.
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