I am excited to share with you my first-ever blog (* trumpets sounding .. balloons released and floating into the air*), and take this opportunity to better introduce myself.
The "About Me" section of my website is nice and concise, but this first blog gives me a chance to be a little more personal for you to have the opportunity to know who I am, how I got here and what I am about when it comes to my business, for those that are interested.
In upcoming blogs my goal is to give readers and potential customers some insights into the DJing realm and the world of cake making to help you better understand what goes into these two businesses; to help you make educated decisions when hiring these wedding professionals. I will also use future blogs to answer many questions I often get when I am DJing or creating someone's celebratory dessert, as well as share various experiences I have been through over my 10-plus years in these career fields.
So, let's get to it! Shall we?
He asked me if I had ever thought about being a D.J. Now, like anyone else my age I spent a good portion of my childhood creating mixed cassette tapes with my dual-cassette player / recorder (Do they even make those anymore? haha). I told him I had thought of it, but wouldn't know where to begin. Unknown to me he owned his own DJing business. He then said, "I have some spare gear and even have an event you could do right now."
To make a long story shorter, he brought in his spare DJing gear, I tried it out for a weekend and ended up performing at my first wedding about a month later. I knocked it out of the park, playing music for seven hours including having been asked to stay longer than originally planned. That was 10 years ago! I bought some of his spare gear off of him which is how I started building my own DJ setup and have since increased and upgraded my equipment over the years.
I worked for his DJ business for several years, as well as with another Vermont DJing company my friend gave my name to that was in need of another DJ. As I gained experience and improved my skills, I started to build my own DJing business: Mix It UP! DJ and Cake Service. Both of the DJing companies I worked for were extremely supportive of my venture and gave me pointers as I started out. We all continue to remain friends and if I get requests for events that I cannot cover because I am already booked, I am sure to recommend their names. I would not be where I am today without them. Thank you Morrell and Shannon!
Something our family has always done is have our kids' birthday cake designs related to what they have an interest in during that particular birthday. In our daughter's case, it was Blue's Clues when she turned One. She loved it! (As does any baby eating cake for the first time, right? haha) As time passed, we eventually had two boys and I was up to making three birthday cakes each year, always with different designs. I've made Strawberry Shortcake cakes, Elmo, Giraffe, Toy Trucks and Cars, 45-lbs weight plates, Transformers and much, much more. I've only missed two of our kiddos' cakes over the years, and that's when I was deployed to the desert for the military during two of my daughter's birthdays.
There's a saying, "Children serve, too." It's examples like this one that are meant by that saying.
Back to the story. When I had first started out with our kids' cakes, social media platforms were not as popular as they are today and some were not even developed yet. Yes, I am that old. Go further back in my younger years and the Internet wasn't even a thing yet! *Gasp!* Still, we had our first 2.1 MP digital camera and took thousands of photos of our children as they grew, including their birthday cakes.
As I got better with birthday cakes, I started doing promotion cakes and retirement cakes for my co-workers, then graduation cakes, Anniversary cakes, holiday cakes and many other celebratory events. In my Fire Department we called some of those monumental moments, "Cakeable Events." (Ha!) Any excuse to have cake and celebrate, right? Of course, I had my trusty camera to snap a few photos to document the events and how my cakes were coming along. Introduce Social Media.
Family and friends started to see my cake images on Facebook. Those images led to inquiries about making cakes for their kids' birthdays and school graduations, parent's Anniversaries and so on. Eventually, I was asked to make my first wedding cake. I had admitted to them I had not made a wedding cake before, and they persisted. It was a three-tiered chocolate cake with a Snow White Buttercream frosting, with a special small side cake (because the Groom's mom was allergic to chocolate). They all loved it! They even saved their top tier for their First Anniversary and said it was as good as it was on their wedding day!
That was the first wedding where I was their Wedding DJ
and their Wedding Cake Baker! It was official .. I was now fully into the Wedding Business.
I did not isolate myself to the wedding industry; there are simply too many cakeable events! There are too many get-togethers outside of weddings where music helps make the event much more lively, entertaining and memorable! Word started to spread and I went from doing a cake here and there to booking cakes as far as six-months out, or even longer! I went from booking weddings and other DJing events during that month to booking a year in advance and now I see inquiries up to two years out. I've DJ's at pool parties, birthday parties, local baseball games, Cancer "Relay For Life" gatherings, holiday parties and such more!
Cake feeds your body .. Music feeds your soul! They go hand-in-hand. It was meant to be.
I joined the Vermont Association of Wedding Professionals, attended seminars, updated my gear, improved my decorating techniques, added flavor combinations to my repertoire, joined The Knot and WeddingWire (now under the umbrella of Wedding Pro), paid attention to what other wedding professionals (photographers, caterers, venue owners and wedding planners) did at weddings and what they needed, taking mental notes with each event. I continue to use what I learned, and still learn, with each event. I share my knowledge and experience in a "no-pressure" approach with customers to help them have a fabulous and stress-free celebration. That's my goal. It has
always been my goal.
