Firstly, the bakery that was in Amesbury, MA is no more, HOWEVER, Amy at Hippie Chick does still make wedding cakes, specialty cakes, and cupcakes. The deal is this, you need to call and make an appointment. She will only see you by appointment.
Where do you go? It seems as though you go directly to her home, in Kensington, NH (more info. on the website).
Now, onto my review.
I was married this past July, and I knew from day 1 who I wanted to make my wedding cake, and this was the place. I had tasted her cake at the Boston Veg Fest, my sister had her wedding cake made by Amy in 2004, and she has also gotten a birthday cake from Amy/Hippie Chick Bakery. I had never ever ever had a bad experience with Hippie Chick.
So, my then husband to be and I set our appointment for our tasting in Oct. 2006 (you still went to the Bakery in Amesbury at that point). We sampled, we discussed design (we had found a gorgeous mehndi design on cake in a magazine, that we wanted similarly done on our own cake), we picked the size, the shape.... and, not to worry, laid back Amy said that if anything changed, to call her and we'd work it out.
Fast forward to May or June 2007.... we realize that the doing red henna/mehndi on our cake will clash with the color scheme at our wedding. I contact Amy, and we decide that brown (the color of henna when applied) will work and still look nice, and we'd put our shocking pink roses on the top.
During our phone conversation, she asked if I was online, and if I could look at her galleries, because she had a cake that had a brown design on it, but the cake was turquoise (I had told her that we were going to have turquoise decor that evening, thus the change from red henna/icing). I went to her website, and she directed me to that one cake. And, me thinking we're still talking about just the brown and that particular shade of brown, I said "yes, like that".
So, thinking we're all straightened out, we move on.
Come my wedding day, my father tells me, 1hr & a half or so before the reception that he saw my cake, it was there, and it's "blue". What? Well, as you can probably imagine, she copied the design from the cake she'd shown me on the website. Clearly, somehow, we got VERY mixed up., as when I said "yes like that" she interrupted the WHOLE design. I must say, a huge change from the original.
I was so upset and so stressed out that I just..... cried. I can usually handle most things, but on that day, and, having known for soooo long what we both wanted for our cake (and at times, to be so stressed out in the planning stages to even quip "I may not know anything else, but at least I have my cake") Ugh. I just lost it.
It's a good thing I found out then, and not when we walked in to the room. My cousin's wife had snuck in and taken a photo of it on her digital camera, and showed me. Honestly, I hate(d) it. It was so far from what we had originally discussed. It was one of the few details my husband cared about and had a lot of input on.
I had to break the news to my husband before going into the room. We both weren't happy, but we faked it. We received a lot of compliments from guests, and said thank you to most and moved on (close family knew it wasn't right).
The cake, itself, of course, was delicious (well, all he & I got were the bites we fed each other -- but it was tasty -- as I expected it to be).
After the wedding, and things calmed down, maybe a week later. I emailed Amy to find out what the heck happened. Maybe I should've just let it go, I don't know. But it was eating at me.
She was SO apologetic, and asked, what, if anything, she could do. The answer, really, is nothing. You can't go back and make it right for the wedding day.
So... where do I stand on Hippie Chick, ha. Well, I still think Amy makes great stuff, and does a fantastic job. Am I disappointed? Hell yes. It wasn't what we wanted. I don't plan on getting married ever again, so nothing I would ever potentially get from her again would hold the weight that that cake did..... but, I would consider ordering something from her again. I know it was an unintentional error, and clearly something was missed in the communication over the phone. I'm disappointed in myself for not going over it ALL again with her, and likewise with her (which she said to me, she regrets not going over the whole order again with me).
Such is life. read more