What is your most memorable wedding?
Honestly? My own! I made my own cake which took forever - hundreds of handcut flowers - but it was the cake that gave me the confidence so start my business and is holds a very special place in my heart for everything that it represented.
Describe your style in 5 adjectives.
Unique, elegant, original, showstopping, delicious
What about your business are you most proud of?
Starting something from the ground up, that grew from the odd cake here and there to multi big-orders weekly.
What is your No. 1 wedding planning tip for couples?
Throw the rule book out of the window! Make it yours, eat the cake, dance to the music, say the vows that YOU want!
What is your favourite personal touch you have seen at a wedding?
A farming family's son came to his parents to announce his engagement, swiftly followed by a request to hold the reception in a dilapidated barn on their farm! Over 9 months, the whole family came together to renovate the barn, replacing beams, rebuilding stone walls, laying a new floor. The love that went in to that space was amazing and the result... the most magical space I have ever seen!
Describe your typical process with a couple.
I invite every prospective wedding couple to a free, no-obligation tasting and consultation where I invite them to choose four flavours of cake to try and we can chat together about the style of the wedding and how they would like their cake to look. You can come with no ideas or a folder full! Usually there is lots of drawing, tea drinking and enthusiastic conversation after which I make a drawing of the cake and produce a detailed quote. I like to keep an ongoing dialogue with each couple and am happy for the design of the cake to evolve as the wedding planning progresses. I liaise directly with the venue with regards to set-up and delivery to try and make the cake part of your wedding one of the most enjoyable parts of the planning process!
What is your signature cake?
I am usually at my happiest when painting on cakes!
What is the most original creation you have baked for a wedding?
I created a Lord of the Rings cake for a couple of Tolkien super-fans, complete with a handpainted scene of Rivendell, sculpted tree roots from the forest and a secret message in Elvish. It was the star talking point at the wedding!
Describe how you got into making wedding cakes.
I studied sculpture at art school and spent ten years curating public artworks across the UK. After a career break to have children, I set up Claire Owen Cakes to enable me to work from home and parent without the need for childcare... by the time my children were in school I was running a full time wedding business!
What would be your show stopper in the Great British Bake Off?
A multi-tiered, multi-coloured, handpainted extravaganza with lots of exquisite detail - and filled with my signature chocolate orange cake!