"Teresa Finney, the owner-operator, insists she wouldn’t have given up making her own wedding cake: “Not even God could have convinced me to not make my wedding cake,” she says of her recent foray into the bride-baker role. She made a two-tier cake inspired by a 1971 edition of The Wilton Book of Wedding Cakes with an oil-based vanilla bean cake with a vanilla bean Swiss meringue buttercream for the bottom half-sheet layer and a hibiscus Swiss meringue buttercream for the adorable heart-shaped tier placed atop the sheet. She notes typical baker strategies—baking and tightly wrapping layers, freezing them weeks or days ahead, and keeping quarts of frosting and garnishes in the fridge—to ensure timing on the day, and treats imperfections with perspective: her main annoyance was time management (she’d allowed plenty of time for the cake but virtually none to get herself ready), yet she told friends she’d be happy as long as the cake “tasted and looked good.”" - Alicia Kennedy