Cakes, cakes, cakes! We love gorgeous wedding cakes! Vanilla Bake Shop is one of our favorite cake vendors based in California. Owners of the shop, Amy and Jeremy, are passionate about providing couples with custom designed cakes for their wedding day and wedding events. Get to know them from our interview with Amy below and check out some of their lovely cake designs!
Photo Credit: Sean Watkins
What inspired you to start your business?
A few things…
I quit a great job working in the television industry after my dad’s advice of throwing caution to the wind and “doing what makes me happiest” for a career. I soon realized baking and being a business owner was what I was meant to do. I quit my job, went to culinary school to become a pastry chef and started a dessert baking company which evolved into Vanilla Bake Shop in 2007 with my husband. Haven’t looked back since!
Photo Credit: Vanilla Bake Shop
What options for customization do you offer?
What makes our cake team so awesome, is that they all have artistic backgrounds. The skies the limit with the customization we can do. Recently we were asked by Grace of ‘Grace Ormonde Wedding Style’ magazine to create an Asian inspired cake. Two of our lead designers worked on it together. Yuko handled the beautiful sketch and design, while Kim made the cake & hand painted Tsuru birds in traditional Japanese Sumi-e style of painting with real Sumi-e brushes.
Photo Credit: Vanilla Bake Shop
If you could give one tip to couples planning a wedding, what would it be?
When it comes to the cake, be creative!! Couples should have fun with their cake and weave personal touches into it. This will likely be the most extravagant cake they will ever have in their life, so it should taste incredible and reflect their personalities. One of my favorite cakes we made was 5 tiers with the couples names and wedding date hand painted in gold Edwardian script with each tier being a different flavor. They wanted enough cake so each guest could have 2 slices, one at the wedding and one boxed up as their favor to take home!
Photo Credit: Vanilla Bake Shop
What is one thing that most people don’t know about your biz or you?
Most people don’t know that we are baking 24hrs a day at our bakery. If you knock on the back door of our kitchen, there will always be somewhere there! Something about me, is that I grew up riding motorcycles and shooting guns with my dad and brothers! Its been a while since I’ve gone riding, but if you happen to stall your motorcycle, I know how to fix it! Or, if there’s a gun fight showdown I have some good odds.
What is your one must have item/tool to have while you’re working?
My iphone. I text, email, listen to music and conduct most of our business through it. When we opened our second bakery this summer I accidentally dropped it and shattered the face. I felt like a cave man without it, completely out of touch. It’s part of my body now.
If you had to chose one word that would describe you/your business, what would it be?
Evolving!
5 Things that Make You Happy?
1. Our 1yr old Max’s smile! (with his 4 teeth)
2. My husbands Chicken Parmesan
3. Noodles, our dog
4. Coffeemate
5. Paris!
Photo Credit: Kimberlee Miller Photography
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Messina Photography
Photo Credit: Hazelnut Photography
Photo Credit: Teness.com
Photo Credit: Jason Herring
Photo Credit: Vanilla Bake Shop
that’s about it, lol). I love being able to create beautiful work in a gorgeous environment. Sometimes the arrangements really shock me when they are finished with how lovely they are. I give all the credit to the flowers 
Vendors We Heart: Couture Motion
Having your wedding documented on film is a way of capturing all of the emotion, small moments and details throughout the day. As any bride will tell you, the day goes by in a flash. If you have the day on film, you will always be able to look back on your wedding day to relive each moment or catch anything you missed in all the excitement.
Megan and Ian of Couture Motion work with each of their couples to create a wedding film that is personal and tells their wedding story from beginning to end. Hear from the artists themselves and see some examples of their films below…
Arron & Meagan
What inspired you to start your business?
Ian was going to film school at Columbia University and was doing some research on a camera (Canon 5D) for his thesis film. He stumbled upon a wedding film and was blown away. He had no idea that a wedding film could be so artistic and meaningful. From there he shot a few weddings, thinking it could be a good way to make some extra cash. Megan has loved weddings way more than a normal person should. So on one of those weddings Megan tagged along to help. The experience of working and creating these mementos together was so fulfilling that we both decided to change the course of our lives and start this business together.
What options for customization do you offer?
Our services are completely customizable. Our base services begin with a 7 hour package with 2 artists and 2 cameras. The couples receive a highlight film and a feature film. Beyond that you can add almost anything you want. Our most popular add-ons are the Interviews, the Love Story, and the Save the Date.
If you could give one tip to couples who are planning a wedding, what would it be?
Something that we actually talk to our Brides and Grooms about is experiencing their wedding day. With such a huge event and so much planning that goes into it, it can be easy to forget that this is one of the seminal days in your lives. This is the last day that you will be an individual. By the end of this union and celebration you will be forever intertwined. If you let all the details consume you then you will miss this transformation. So I guess the tip would be to plan as well as you can, but when the time comes, just live in the moment and enjoy yourselves. (And of course, hire a filmmaker to document that experience.)
What is something that most people don’t know about your biz/you?
This answer is two fold. First, I think most people see wedding filmmakers as being rather expensive. They are right, it is expensive, but it is worth it. The level of difficulty and skill it takes to make these films is incredibly high and the resulting film’s value is worth every penny. Going into further detail, and secondly, our job is only 10% done after filming the wedding. A very large portion of our work is done in the editing. That is where the artistry and the time comes in. The film collection that each couple receives takes us a bare minimum of 80 hours to editing, and that doesn’t even include the time it takes us to color grade, sound mix, and create the DVDs.
What is your one must-have item/product/tool to have on-hand when you’re working?
5 hour energy shot? Kidding, that’s like number 3 on the list. I would say that the number one product is the camera. All the other toys can make things a little more flashy, but if we had to, we could create a wedding film with just two cameras and nothing else. It’s the camera that matters.
If you had to choose one word to describe yourself/your business what would it be?
Authentic. We strive to capture the experience as honestly and authentically as we can. We take pride in our pieces when perfect strangers feel like they know the couples in the films.
5 Things that make you happy?
Our dog, Cooper.
Spending time with our family.
Cooking a gourmet meal.
Creating art.
Each other.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Hmmm…. Oh, I know! The relationships that we form with our couples is special. Sometimes it’s okay for wedding vendors to have a client/vendor relationship (i.e. money given=service provided), but that never works for us. We need to get to know the couple and we need to form a trusting relationship with them. That is how we create our films and how we are able to reflect the actual experiences of our couples.
Andrew & Jennifer
John & Carolyn
To learn more about Couture Motion and to check out more of their fabulous wedding films click here!