Some couples take weeks to decide on their wedding cake flavour. They deliberate, they compare, they go back and forth between the options until they've almost convinced themselves that the decision is impossibly difficult.
And then there are couples like the Reids.
How It Started: The Garden Route Wedding Expo
I was exhibiting at the Garden Route Wedding Expo, one of those wonderful events where engaged couples walk around, ask questions, and get a feel for the vendors they might want to be part of their day. I always bring tasting samples to expos, because for me, the flavour is everything. The best thing I can do for a potential client is simply let them taste.
The Reids came to my table, tried the samples, and that was it. No deliberating. No "we'll think about it and come back to you." Right there at the expo, they decided: these are our flavours.
I love that. That kind of certainty is always a sign that the cake is going to be wonderful.
The Cake They Chose
They went with a three-tier design, and their flavour choices were genuinely inspired.
The bottom tier: chocolate cake with salted caramel and chocolate ganache. Rich, deeply flavoured, with that perfect push-and-pull between the bittersweet chocolate and the salty-sweet caramel. An absolute showstopper of a flavour.
The middle tier: vanilla cake with salted caramel and Italian meringue buttercream. Lighter, more delicate, with the salted caramel threading through both tiers as a beautiful connecting thread. The Italian meringue buttercream gives it a silky, cloud-like finish that I never tire of working with.
The top tier: chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling. Playful, nostalgic, and completely delicious, the kind of layer that makes guests go back for seconds and ask the waiter where the cake came from.
Why Flavour Has to Come First
The Reids understood something that I always try to communicate to every couple I work with: the cake has to taste incredible. The look is vital, of course it is, and we put enormous care into every visual detail, but the flavour is what people remember. The flavour is what gets talked about at the table, what gets brought up in conversation months later, what stays with the guests long after the photographs have been posted and the thank-you cards sent.
A cake can be the most beautiful thing in the room. But if the first bite doesn't deliver, everything else falls a little flat.
The Reids knew exactly what they wanted because they'd tasted it. And when I eventually delivered their wedding cake, months after that first expo conversation, they recognised it immediately, because great flavour has a memory of its own.
A Note on Booking via the Expo
If you're in the Jeffreys Bay, Port Elizabeth, or Garden Route area and you see Weddings of Joy at a wedding expo, please come and taste. That's the whole point of being there. There's no obligation, no pressure, just really good cake and a conversation about what you're dreaming of for your day.
Because sometimes one taste is all it takes.
Weddings of Joy is a bespoke wedding cake studio based in Jeffreys Bay, serving couples across the Garden Route, Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), and the Eastern Cape. Follow us on Instagram for the latest cakes, flavours, and inspiration.