As promised, there are so many more vendors to cover from the speed dating vendor’s mingle last Sunday in Birmingham. As I mentioned in part one, many of these vendors are earning Passion Circle honors!

Calling all west side brides, that is west of I75! This Passion Circle vendor is located in your back yard. Located in Twelve Oaks Mall and on 7 Mile in Livonia, Just Baked has been providing sweet and delectable cupcakes to mall rats for the past 2 years. But little do they know this confectionery delight provides bride’s and groom with much more than the average wedding cake. Displaying elegant and unique cupcake style wedding dessert, Pam and her handful of bakers demonstrate much needed “out of the box” thinking for their receptions!

While traditional cakes are still available, I love Pam’s unique blend of traditional and fun cupcakes to create a tower of goodies. Many of her creations are topped off with a small traditional cake for the bride and groom to cut, but offer guest an assortment of cupcake flavors to eat. Voted the best Michigan Bumpy Cake cupcake, Just Baked also serves carrot, traditional chocolate and vanilla, and my favorite, pineapple upside down cupcakes (and they are truly upside down with the cherry on top, or should I say bottom!). Pam and crew are also masters of gum paste, creating adorable custom figurines for the bride and groom, or maybe for the bridal shower, a solo bride topping her favorite shoe box. I just love their style, and welcome them to the Passion Circle.

Now to be fair to all of you brides on the east side, or potentially more north, another notable and equally sweet addition to the Circle is the Sweet & Savory Bake Shop in Oxford. My first yummy run in with them, you might recall, was at the Brides.com mingle. Their incredible assortment of mini cannolis, fruit tarts, cheesecakes, white chocolate and chocolate mousse cups can only be matched by their exquisite cakes! Nancy pairs antique jewelry with sugary confections whenever possible, resulting in elegant and sophisticated towers of perfection! And the cake is just as delicious as the exterior look! Heaven knows, beautiful cakes but icky taste makes a very poor wedding night!

My sweet tooth satisfied, I need to move onto another vendor category, or right sugar shock! So let’s move from taste to smell! Carolyn and Gabrielle, of Flowers by Gabrielle are a creative duo passionate about their work. When we began to run out of time on our dating adventure, these two ladies were determined to share their information with everyone and tracked us down. Pam and I were excited to here this was the team responsible for the impressive floral display on the coffee table. Filed with cyan orchids and topped off with every flower imaginable, the impact of the arrangement was colorful but not gaudy! They also showered us with super cute handmade circle and flower shaped favors containing tasty chocolate truffles. What a creative and simple idea for a garden wedding or perhaps a wedding shower. I am looking forward to working with these ladies in the future, because their love for what they do certainly qualifies them for the Passion Circle.

If you’ve been to a wedding in the past year, I hardly doubt you haven’t seen a ShutterBooth display. It is the latest trend on guest reception entertainment! But, if you haven’t seen one (and if that’s the case, where have you been!) let me fill you in a little more. Do you remember as a kid, sitting in a little booth with your friends and taking a series of pictures that printed up minutes later on a small 2 by 4 inch strip? Take that concept, put as many people as you can possible cram into a 3×5′ space, say cheese, and here you have ShutterBooth. The pictures that come out are of you and all your friends at the event. Serious, funny and down-right hilarious images often develop when people’s imagination starts cooking. Pam and I had a go at it ourselves.

What I love about Nolan and Kim, the Southeast Michigan Shutter Booth Team, is their willingness to take the booth to the next level. Their team includes artists, who work individually with the bride to custom design a logo and page layout/scrapbook for your preservation. They are also super flexible about the booth requirements. Advertising or no advertising, wrapped in pink, black, or any color in between, even Louis Vuitton logo, the team delivers a booth specific for your event. One more thing they are adding to the list – Shutter You! It’s a great way to share photos from your event with people all over the world. Check out further information here. There are also known to save the day when other booths aren’t working! All the more reason to welcome them to the Passion Circle.

And there you have it, the crème de la crème of my vendor speed dating experience!

Lia