A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece.

You know what the best thing about The Knot is? It’s that it tells you how many days are left until your wedding. When I logged into The Knot today, it told me that I had 18 days left!

Sure, The Knot has great resources and I found a lot of advice on the site this past year — but it really wasn’t the wedding I was envisioning. In fact, my idea wedding was as far from anything on The Knot than I had imagined. In actuality, Off Beat Bride was more my style — whenever I felt that I was doing something too left field, I would visit Off Beat Bride and be reassured that what I wanted really wasn’t different than the norm.

In choosing what to serve for my wedding, I was stuck between two potential bakeries. It came down to Twiggs Bakery and Sweet Cheeks.

Twiggs Bakery wedding cake tasting.

Twiggs Bakery had the wonderful white velvet cake and we were blown away with the tasting board. The owners of the bakery were truly nice people that we enjoyed talking to. Up until Sweet Cheeks, I felt like that they were always number one in the running to make our wedding cake.

Sweet Cheek’s tin cake.

On the other hand, Sweet Cheeks offered professionalism as well as a visualization of what our cake would look like. Our cake would be unique, made with deft eyes and careful hands BUT we weren’t completely sold on the cake and there was no comparable flavor to the white velvet.

If the taste of Twiggs Bakery was combined with the skills of Sweet Cheeks, it would have been the perfect fit. Paul and I kept going back and forth between the two until we came up with a third option: cupcakes.

During this time, we changed plans from having our wedding at a formal restaurant to a beach house. It wanted it to be more intimate and relaxed, especially since a lot of our friends would be coming from out of San Diego. We didn’t want formal seating arrangements; we wanted everyone to have a choice of where to sit or wander at the beach if they wanted. It was then that I brought of the idea of cupcakes. Since the food is going to be a self-serve taqueria, why not have the dessert be just as easy?

That’s why I called up my friend, JustJenn. Actually, I think I may have coerced her into inviting us over for a cake tasting. Initially, she misunderstood our intentions as an invite for her to tag along to a cake tasting, but no — we wanted her to host us to taste her cupcakes. In her home. Yeah, we can be pushy like that.

I’m not a stranger to JustJenn’s goodies. She makes delicious desserts and we’ve been honored to be the recipient for some of them. I knew that whatever she would bake, I would love it and I did.

The cupcake spread at JustJenn’s and we took home leftovers.

Jenn blew us away with the spread she set out for us. There were eight different cupcakes for us to taste! I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning and I think I ate more than my full share but they were just so good. She had even made some custom flavors for Paul, knowing his undying love of Ovaltine and coffee-flavored cake. If I could have chosen them all, I would have. But after much debate we selected only two. What Sweet Cheeks and Twiggs lacked, Jenn has in spades. In addition, we know that the cupcakes she will make for our wedding will be made with the utmost care and attention. We are so lucky to know her and have her bake cupcakes for us from her home in Los Angeles.

As for the wedding itself, I can’t wait until it’s over but I imagine even months after, I will still be visiting Off Beat Bride. Just check out this wedding that has Bridezilla and Groomera cake toppers.