Clare Vaz is a Cake Angel #AtoZChallenge

Millie and Matt did not have the best start to their wedding week. Millie - who loves baking - had painstakingly made her own 3-tiered dream cake for her wedding and the couple had driven down carefully to the venue the previous day only to find to their horror that the cake had fallen to pieces in the trunk of the car. While her fiance was devastated, Millie was more calm outwardly though she watched sadly as the hotel took the smashed cake away, promising to have an alternative cake ready for her wedding.

Which is why the couple were gobsmacked the next morning when they found themselves staring at the exact replica of Millie's cake for the wedding ceremony.

Millie's cake angel turned out to be  Clare Vaz of Patty’s Piece of Cake bakery.

The couple on their wedding day with 'The Cake'

Clare Vaz had gone to the hotel to drop off some cupcakes when she heard of the bride's fallen cake. Clare took it upon herself to try to help the bride have her dream cake and so began repairing it segment by segment. As luck would have it, she had an extra cake with her which she used for the smashed middle tier of the original cake, retaining the rest before crumb-coating once more and re-covering it with white cream.

She spent the whole day and a large part of the next, ensuring it was as close to what the original looked like. The best part? She had never even met the bride or groom about it. She had never spoken to them. She just did it because she wanted this couple she had never met to have a happy wedding. She did not even take money from them.

I got to talking with Millicent, the bride.

When did you find out about Clare Vaz's gesture?

I was disappointed that the cake may not be salvageable as I had spent days making and decorating it. But I was marrying the man of my dreams so it seemed trivial to get upset about the cake.
It wasn't until the next day, which was the morning of my wedding that I found out what Clare had done. As I was getting ready in my bridal suite, my sister came upstairs with her phone in hand and showed me a picture of the cake. It looked exactly like how I had decorated. She then went on to tell me what had happened.

One of the hotels chefs was married to a cake baker. She just so happened to be delivering some cupcakes to the venue the day before the wedding for another function and heard about my cake.
She took no hesitation in grabbing the cake, ordering a taxi to take her back to her home and spent her evening fixing up the cake and delivered it back to the venue in time for our wedding.

I saw a picture of the cake which had fallen apart. Yikes! Did you imagine it would be salvageable at that point of time?

When I saw the cake, I thought it wouldn't be salvageable. It was a mess, with buttercream and icing all over the place. I thought it would've held up okay as I had inserted cake dowelling in each layer with a sturdy base for each. Hitting traffic on one of the hottest days of the year just melted the buttercream and left the top two tiers in a big heap.

The original cake, the fallen cake and the dream cake remade!

My husband was most devastated as he was driving, and he had seen me take all that time decorating the cake. He obviously knows me as the "worrier" and I think he probably felt I would've reacted differently. But I was cool as a cucumber.

Have you and Clare stayed in touch since the wedding?

After the wedding, I didn't actually know the name of the baker who saved our day, nor did I know how I could contact her. Luckily, while looking on my Facebook timeline the day after I noticed a picture of our cake on Clare's business Facebook page.

I was rushed off to our honeymoon so I didn't get a chance to meet Clare in person. Instead, I messaged her and thanked her absolutely lovely gesture. We had been asked by the hotel to pay a fee of £60 for the repair of the cake which we ensured was paid directly to Clare for all of her hard work. When we got back from our honeymoon, we had a handwritten envelope waiting for us from Clare with a lovely card and the £60. She said she wouldn't accept the money, and was just so grateful to have been a part of our special day.

Is there a special message you and your husband would like to tell Clare?

Most little girls dream of how perfect their wedding day will be, they plan every detail over and over again as they envisage moments of their day. Then they meet the perfect partner that they want to share it with, and lets be honest... the details tend to stay the same because the men just want them to be happy. And then we grow up we learn that life isn't all rainbows and fairy-tales.

Sitting here now, I can honestly say that with all things considered, our wedding day was perfect and I wouldn't change it for the world. You hear about these "random acts of kindness" in movies but you never imagine that it'll happen to you.






From our conversations I can tell that Clare is an amazing, proud and loving mother to her beautiful children, she runs a busy business that she is so incredibly passionate about and she puts her all into everything she does. She truly is one of the best of humanity. Clare put aside her busy life and an evening of family time because she wanted me, a complete stranger to have a perfect wedding day.

Just talking to Clare, you know she is the kind of person that would do anything for anyone. We are blessed that we could be some of those people. ❤

You can find Patty's Piece of Cake Bakery where Clare Vaz works online here

Author's note:

This is part of my #AtoZChallenge where I will be focusing on Real Life Heroes of Kindness and Compassion.

The list for this year's (2018) Heroes of Kindness can be found here.

Of course, I have been tracking these lovely human beings for years now and have found children as young as six years old and old women in their eighties from across the world who will restore your faith in humanity. You can find the entire list of Real-life Heroes of Kindness and Compassion here.