A note on Vulnerability

It was a YEAR!! I know it’s only October, but here at Flourish we have officially wrapped up the bulk of our wedding season. We do have a few events left throughout the rest of the year, but the jam-packed schedules, the late nights of sugar flower making, the heavy production loads, are fully put on the back burner for the remainder of 2026.

This year produced some of my most favorite cakes to date, some of the most time-intensive projects I have ever worked on, and some of the most challenging situations I’ve ever had to deal with.

Even 15 years into this career, I am learning that things can still throw you for a loop, just when you think you have everything under control. I had to switch fondants this year due to my tried-and-true Carma-Massa-Ticino going out of business, and unfortunately, I learned very late into the evening, the night before a wedding, that the new brand doesn’t hold blue food coloring like Carma did. Stripping a cake that I had already spent four hours painting at 7:00pm on Friday night and starting over from scratch, was not something I had on my bingo card for 2026, here we are.

I had spent a few hours painting a beautiful pattern in white onto a pale slate blue background, inspired by the graphic art designed for other parts of the wedding including the backdrop for the band, the invitations, and other paper goods, and when it came time for a break, as I stood back and looked at the cake from a few feet away, I realized the cake had turned purple. Not just a slight tinge, fully purple. It was a completely different color than it had started the day as. I had a physical paint swatch that I had meticulously matched my fondant to and the cake was no longer anywhere close, I knew I could not deliver this cake in that state. I gave myself 30 seconds to shed a few tears, and then I started the process of coloring 4 kilos of fondant all over again, this time using the same brand of already pre-colored fondant starting in pure cyan blue and black, rather than the perfectly-colored slate blue food coloring.

I ended up staying up all night finishing the cake, and by delivery time, my confidence was shattered. I felt like I could no longer see color correctly, and I was so unsure of myself and was so afraid that the cake would not match the décor, and that everything was wrong. I put a really high standard onto my self and my art, and I felt a little broken. That after so long in the industry, I could have such a last-minute disaster like that still happen. The long drive up to the venue on the north shore of the Chicago suburbs was tense, but rolling the boxed cake into the tent, I started to feel the tension lift, I thought maybe it was going to be okay. As I opened the box, I could see miracle of all miracles, the color was perfect and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. As everyone crowded around to ooh and ahh over the cake, I almost started crying from joy and relief. (and did so in the truck on the way back)

It may not seem a huge deal to those who don’t make cakes, or to those outside of the events or arts industry, but getting a color wrong in a sea of that same color would have made the cake stick out like a sore thumb.  My clients pay a lot of money for my art, and they expect these details to be thoroughly executed, and the planners I work with trust me to get it right every single time.

I couldn’t have imagined delivering the purple cake that day (which - by the way, was almost pink by the time we got back from the delivery) but more than that, this was a lesson in vulnerability. It came as a bit of a surprise to me that at this point in my career that I could have something so stupid (in my opinion at the time) go so horribly wrong, that it really shook me to my core that day, and had me questioning my skill, my knowledge, my expertise, everything. Over a shade of blue.

What did I learn? A few things:

1.        Step away more often from the detailed work to look at the piece from afar. I get so up close I get tunnel vision that I may miss the bigger picture until it’s too late.

2.        Testing fondant ahead of time – not only letting fondant sit overnight after coloring which I was already doing, but rolling a piece out, and putting it on a dummy to see if/how it changes. This came in handy big time this past weekend with all the colorful cakes I made.

3.        I am not invulnerable. I will still make mistakes, weird, unexplainable things will still happen, cake is an evolving art form and I can’t always predict what my medium is going to do 100% of the time. I must try and not let it completely wreck me if/when it happens again.

4.        It’s good to have a second opinion, when I couldn’t see color anymore, and was second guessing even the correct color, my assistant was here to assure me that it was correct and that my tired eyes and brain were deceiving me. (she also was honest the night before and said, yes that cake is purple)

So, here’s to the rest of 2026, it isn’t over yet. Lets hope for smooth sailing from here on out, and taking my lessons learned into 2027.  

Cheers!

-Bria