I have met my cake-related soulmate. On Saturday, the Fiasco and I embarked on an epic road trip to my cousin’s Sweet 16. Along the way we planned to stop at 3 bakeries to try wedding cakes. We only made it to 2 because the second bakery was just. that. good.

Supported spinning in the car!

In truth, I liked the place based on the name alone: A Little Something Bakery in West Hartford, CT. The owner, Beth, does some amazing things with cake.

Don’t lie, you kind of want an ombre purple goth cake now, too, don’t you?

We had just come from a bakery that didn’t even offer to let us try their cake, we had to sort of awkwardly ask for it and they only had 2 different flavors (one of which was cryptically named ‘bride’s white’), so we were extra thankful when Beth pointed us to trays brimming with about 10 different flavors of cupcakes and let us have our pick. I gotta say — I’ve been on a low-carb diet for 6 months, and those cupcakes were a revelation.

Scrabble tile wisdom.

She had so many flavors and such amazing combinations… eventually we ‘settled’ on coconut cake with lemon cream filling and red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I showed her a photo of the simple sprinkle design I wanted and she didn’t bat an eye when I requested only teal and green nonpareils instead of rainbow — while the other place basically told me I’d have to buy my own sprinkles to get the look I wanted. AND she’s going to make the red velvet cake in a blue/green color to better match the exterior decorations (I’m ridiculously excited about the blueness of the cake. It’s a silly little detail but I love it.)

Handknit cupcakes!!!

Perhaps best of all — she’s a knitter! (Of course she would be, since she’s so awesome, amIright?) The knitting kinda clinched it, not gonna lie. It feels silly to be so excited about one detail of one day but honestly, it makes me incredibly happy to work with a wedding vendor who happily works within our budget, offers quality services, and truly seems to love what she does. She made us feel so welcome and wanted even though we didn’t have the largest budget and couldn’t afford one of her bigger and more elaborately-decorated cakes. It’s like that didn’t even matter to her — she was happy to have our business and we’re thrilled to be serving a fabulous cake to our wedding guests.

If you’re ever in West Hartford, consider swinging by for a cupcake or two. You won’t be disappointed. We were so giddy and excited by the whole thing that we got 20 minutes down the road before we realized we should’ve bought some cupcakes to bring to my parents (seeing as we were on our way to their house). We turned around, sheepishly purchased the cupcakes, and then when we reached the same stretch of highway we had gotten to before — there was a giant accident that held us up for 45 minutes. Those cupcakes cost us an hour and a half of our time but man, they were worth it! I can safely say that ordering the cake was hands-down the best part about wedding planning. (Though maybe that’s the residual sugar high talking…) If only everything could be this easy!