Celene is back to blogging!

Happy New Year!

We've been away from our blog for awhile but Celene is back and there is lots of information to share with you!

First let's review some of the highlights from last year. It was just plain crazy busy for us. We picked up lots of new clients and of course we kept in touch with some of our long standing customers.

We did more weddings than ever before and 2010 promises to have the same results.

Celene to advantage of the use of social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. What a great decision that was because not only have I connected with classmates, friends that I lost touch with but gained several customers. Bravo!

Alright so let's move into this year.

Celene's is pleased to welcome Mary to our team

Welcome Mary! Celene is pleased to welcome Mary Pavelecky to our team.

Mary comes to us as a recent graduate of the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute.

I first met and interviewed Mary back in October 2009 in between wedding cake appointments. At the time of our interview Mary was already working at another bakery for her externship so I had to wait my turn to reap the rewards of her skills.

Celene is very fortunate to have Mary on our team. She brings mega skills including but not limited to pulled sugar art, big picture thinking, humor and the girl just has skills.

We have already seen her abilities payoff by responses from customers who have received items that she has created.

Bravo Mary, now get back to work!

2010 Today's Bride Show Cleveland IX Center

Once again Celene's stepped outside and walked right into the Cleveland IX Center on Sunday, January 17th as a participating vendor for the 2010 Today's Bride Show.

This year we had our own booth and also displayed cakes in the Cake Gallery.

We had an awesome time and feel that this was a successful event for us especially since we ran out of all our business cards right around 2:00. Our samples were out too but that did not detour brides from stopping by the booth to write down their information for additional contact.

We have emailed over 1000 brides in the last week, booked several wedding cakes and our appointment calendar is growing.

Thank you to everyone who assisted us in having a successful show.

Special thanks to my friend Lurleen of Distinctive Wedding Connections for creating fantastic marketing materials. Lur as I fondly refer to her made our inspirations boards, our powerpoint presentations, got the graphics over to the printer for the banner and so much more.

Linda(aka Mary's mom) who by day manages a sales team for a corporate company offered to run our sales game. All I can say is "Touchdown" ! Linda worked her magic for a good part of the day in the cake gallery and had brides running to the booth for more info. This is a perk that I can honestly say we couldn't have accomplished without her.

Last and certainly not least Mary worked tiredless hours to create with me our display cakes and wedding cake cookie favors. We took a total of 10 display cakes to the show. This was no easy task but we did it and the response to our cakes was awesome!

Top Cake of 2009

Last year Celene's created many special occasion cakes. We increased our wedding cake sales over the year before.

As I reviewed the cakes that were done there was one cake that keeps popping up. It is a simple designed cake topped with multiple color gerber daisies. This was a wedding cake that we provided to Danielle and Dan for their wedding on June 20, 2009. The cake flavor was a combination of pistachio and vanilla cake with a raspberry mousse filling finished with a vanillar buttercream frosting. Their reception was held at the Nightown located on Cedar Hill in Cleveland Heights.

This cake has been highlighted on many brides inspiration boards on wedding planning sites such as WeddingWire

During appointments multiple brides have mentioned this cake as a design they like and often order something very similiar.

A Little Vacation Not Really

It's been awhile since I have been able to post but things although busy are at a point where postings will become regular again. Where have I been well for starters there was a bit of a family emergency when my father in-law suffered a major heart attack and had to have quadruple bypass surgery.

I can't express my Thank Yous enough to all who sent prayers, words of encouragement to myself and family. That had to be one of the hardest times for us that I can remember.

I am very pleased to say he came home about three weeks ago and he is healing well. Thank goodness

Celene's highlighted on GlutenFreeInCleveland Blog

It was a huge surprise and delight to be featured on a local blog http://www.glutenfreeincleveland.blogspot.com/. The piece was written before I had knowledge and I can thank one of my brides whose wedding cake we did back in June. The picture here is of the wedding cheesecake that we provided.

Since the first post on the blog Celene's has been highlighted again and based on that posting receive several inquires and orders.

We are honored to help those customers who have special food needs. We strive to work out what we can to accomodate these customers to the best of our ability.

Today's Bride Feature

Celene's is honored to have some of our cakes included in the 20th Anniversary Edition of Today's Bride.

Last May I made the decision to step up my advertising exposure so Today's Bride was my choice in accomplishing that task. I have to say I was very nervous and not sure how this was going to work or not work.

The owner made the delivery of magazines to me and said we'll bring you the brides it is up to you to seal the deal. I thought great will I be able to do that? Answer, yes we can and yes we have. Participating in the January '09 bridal show was a great success.

The moral of this story is stepping outside of your comfort zone will be rewarding if you are willing to be patience, work hard but most of all believe that you can do it.