Wedding

I've been keeping myself pretty busy the past couple of months with wedding planning, freelance work, looking for a new job, everyday errands, meal-prepping, working out, and to be honest... with a little bit of freaking out! I’ve been having trouble balancing everything I have to do, and I have to admit that I’ve begun feeling a tremendous amount of Anxiety. Like, wake up at 3:00 am and can’t fall back asleep because your daily schedule pops into your head kind of anxiety.

Even though Henrik and I have had more time to make decisions than most couples for their weddings since we began planning a year and a half out, the workload keeps increasing the closer we get towards the date. I feel like having extra time for planning has possibly even complicated things further for us. We’ve done tons of research and seen numerous options for everything possible (maybe me a little more than Henrik), making every decision much more difficult. I thought I was good at decision making but now second guessing all of our choices has become second nature. Embarrassingly, every stupid little decision for anything in the wedding has now become this strange eternal reflection of us as a couple in my head and has put me into full-blown perfectionism mode. I have to keep reminding myself and getting reminders from others that i’m being totally RIDICULOUS!

We are currently now stuck working on a million little things. For instance, this weekend we spent a whole day looking at what to do for welcome gifts for guests that are staying overnight at our wedding hotel. It was insane how much time and money you can spend on crap like this. We were like "do we go with boxes, bags or baskets?" Then it got me wondering if people can fit a basket in their suitcase. Or, if anyone even really f’ing cares about any of this and would we be spending a crapload on fancy baskets for no reason? Well, needless to say, we went with a nice gift bag (that I will probably tie a big luxurious looking tag and ribbon on).

Then, of course, the second half of the day, we had to decide what the heck to put in our newly purchased bags. At this rate, we will be done in a millennium. We bulk purchased still and sparkling water that we hope to put custom labels on. We’ve also started to make cute little custom trail mix bags, with stuff from the Costco of Sweden, called Martin & Servera, but we still don't really know what else to pair with it yet. (side note: Martin & Servera just recently renovated their stores. They are so refreshingly clean and nice inside now!) Maybe we could also get something sweet that is iconically Swedish to put inside our gift bags too? Any ideas? Comment below! Though all of this sounds like a lot of fun, there are so many silly details like this left to do and I feel like we have like negative time to get it all done, so i’ve gotten super stressed out. Why didn’t anyone really sit me down and tell me that weddings can get this crazy? Maybe they did and I just didn’t hear it.

Our bag full of bags from Office Depot in Sweden and the endless amount of finishing stuff I am just starting to collect and test. These current finds are from Panduro, and the cute danish store in our local mall at Liljeholmen called Søstrene grene.

One of the many cute little confetti pops my mother sent me in the mail from the US. And, our wedding ribbon styles for testing on gifts and decor.

Not sure if I'm going to use this for anything, but I liked the idea of trying to tie the place cards to the napkins with little leather ties. Even better, I found imitation suede which is a little more animal friendly. We are having a table decor workshop with the wedding planner and florist soon, so I've been collecting random things like this to test that day.

The velvet ribbon we bought off of Ebay.co.uk from China, to use on our invitations from Minted.com. I had my heart set on velvet ribbon for the invitations and that was the only place we could find it. I think they turned out quite nice!

Our new homemade (well... home assembled) trail mix!

Balancing all these little choices for everything imaginable, within our set budget, has also been quite a task. Turns out everything I decide that I like best is, of freaking course, the most expensive option! Go figure! I’ve turned to DIY’ing a few different things to help on cost. Which, I think has definitely added to my stress and time issues. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not a long lost Kardashian and no one expects to see custom over-the-top everything. I was in so deep I was looking into getting embroidered napkins, personally engraved wine glasses for all the guests, and a private castle museum tour with actors in costume (our wedding is at a castle with a museum inside part of it). Yep, true story! I actually almost made all of that happen until my mom called me and legit said “No, Heather. You are not the activities director on a cruise ship. This is a wedding.” Which, brought me back down to planet earth a bit. I can’t help it, I’m American. As we say, go big or go home, right?

When I was whining about all the idiotic things going wrong with the wedding planning yesterday to a friend, she asked me a clever question that really made me pause and regain my sanity. She said “what do you really remember from all the other weddings you’ve been to? Do you remember the tables? The gift bags? Do you remember any of these details?” and all I could answer her with was the word “No.” 🙃

Thursday evening my Fiancé, Henrik, and I went to a wedding cake consultation at Patisserie Sthlm, along with our wedding planner, Anna from Rental Stories (who has been so totally awesome through this whole process!) We couldn't have been more pleased. They were so great!!!

It's actually been a little difficult to find an American style tiered wedding cake baker in Stockholm—Sweden's wedding cakes, though beautiful, usually have display stands with a big pole going through them, that I'm personally not a fan of (see Haga bakery's image below).

I also noticed that a lot of Stockholm bakeries (Haga included) only have a few pre-set flavor profiles to choose from. As deliciously awesome as bakeries like these are, not allowing for customization of the inside of a wedding cake isn't optimal.

My preferences really narrowed our options in the search for the perfect wedding cake baker. On top of that, all the American style cake bakers we initially liked, seem to keep moving away! First, we were really interested in Thora's Tårtor, but she was in the process of moving her shop down to southern Sweden. (If you are in the south, check her out!) Another suggestion by Anna, Sherry Bakery, also decided to move to Canada! LOL! It was beginning to get a little discouraging.

We had at least a few good options left to contact. One of our favorites was Liv Sandberg. She looks like she makes perfectly beautiful cakes. However, we wanted to cover our bases and look around at all the vendors first. I initially emailed Naked Cake (twice) and they never even bothered with a response—now, it looks like they've even removed the wedding section off of their website. Henrik and I went in person to Sthlm Cupcake, without our wedding planner's knowledge, which was a little dumb. Wedding planners really know their shit and ours would've probably told us not to go. Henrik and I were predictably unimpressed. Chokladfabriken also looked like a good option. They had American style wedding cakes, but again, only two flavor profiles to choose from on their site. Our planner also suggested The Craving Solution, which looks perfectly adequate, but maybe a little rustic for my taste.

By a stroke of luck one day, I was scrolling through my Instagram and landed on one of Sweden's famous influencers, Kenzas', images of her 1 year wedding anniversary cake. (See a picture of it below.)

Just like that, I found Patisserie Sthlm! Anna, Henrik and I traveled a little outside the city center to a suburb called Barkaby to get there. It's in a completely newly built area of the city. So new in fact, that there is still a ton fencing, dirt and construction materials everywhere. It's located right across the street from a large dirt covered fenced-in plot of land, probably reserved for future buildings to come.

We showed up a little earlier than when our appointment was scheduled, right as one of the owners was walking inside. We had planned to kill some time by walking around a bit, but she spotted us right away and warmly welcomed us right in. They immediately led us to a little cute couch arrangement and offered us some refreshments. I have to give them some props for putting their logo thoughtfully on all of the water bottles. Nice touch ladies!

My first impression of the interior was a little surprised. Walking in, it felt like we could be inside a nice apartment of any one of the young girls that worked there. I think I was initially expecting more of a bakery feel. You know, with the traditional style counter and pastries on display, etc? Which, I guess is silly, because they're really only a custom order and special event kind-of-place. So, there isn't a need for that traditional kind of set up.

I immediately asked to use the restroom and saw all the cute girly touches of pink everywhere in there. Even the cleaning products were pink—including a small heart shaped sponge sitting on the edge of the sink. Which, I noticed while washing my hands with their equally girly pink-ish floral scented Victoria Secret style soap. I began wondering when my love affair ended with all that was pink and girly. Was it in my 20's? No Idea. I was also immediately made aware of my age (I'm in my 30's), but more importantly, of how really impressive these girls were. I mean, to already own their own business and have the level of success they seem to be having, is really just so amazing. It makes me wonder about what I have been doing with my life. Haha!

After our initial discussion, they provided their three most popular flavors for us to taste. They were all fantastic! The raspberry mousse was delicious. Anna was partial to the chocolate mousse. Henrik and I were really huge fans of the lemon option. I knew Henrik would love the lemon because he usually goes crazy for lemon meringue pie, but it really was just SO GOOD that I couldn't resist either. I can really see why these are considered "the favorites". They said they were also open to any other custom flavor options we wanted. Which, as you can guess, sold me on the spot. Although the lemon was so good, we might just end up going with it as is. Haha!

I had heard Megan Markle's cake (below) was also lemon curd, but with elderflower buttercream. Which, not only sounds amazing, but kind of Swedish too! Don't you think? Elderflower is a really popular thing here. I might just have to copy her. She is a fellow American-European expat after all. The girls at Patisserie Sthlm agreed to look into it and some other Swedish inspired options for our next tasting. So excited for that!

I am also getting married at a royal castle, Rosersbergs Slott (below), so it kind of feels appropriate to do as the royals do. Right?

After the tasting, we got down to business and discussed the bakery's capabilities. Could they accommodate gluten-free or vegan guests? Yes, Check! Could they accommodate a gluten-free and vegan guest? They thought so (but are going to look into it further). Could they ship to the castle? Yes, check! All was looking good so far.

We began discussing the size of our cake, and what it could look like—because It needs to be big enough to feed 124 people. It was then suggested that they possibly make us an extra large "fake cake", and we just have sheet cake for serving the guests. It was explained that the “fake cake” could actually have one real layer on top, for the cutting ceremony. Which, I thought was really smart! They said if we choose that option, then they could really make look our cake look however we want. I thought that it was absolutely amazing of them to suggest that.

They also showed us a little sample of what else they can do for dessert tables, wedding favors and the like. There was a small tray of a few items laid out. How cute are some of them (below)?!

They offer so many other things on their website than just wedding cakes. They have macaroon and strawberry towers, Cream tarts and cookies, just to name a few. If you have a celebration of any kind coming up, go to www.patisseriesthlm.se to see more! Also, check out their super pretty Instagram account @patisseriesthlm. I'm already a huge fan of this place and I haven't even ordered my cake yet. LOL! But... "Dun dun dun dunnnnn", I think we may have found a winner, people!!! I will definitely update Y'all again after our next cake appointment. I have a really good feeling about this place. <3

Until next time,
💖Kramar💖