When we made the decision to launch Frosting Cupcakery we knew our adventure was going to be a long and hard one, but with the hopes of also experiencing fantastic things along the way. We can now honestly say we’ve experienced more in our first year than most people will in a life time. The stress of opening your own business is one part of it, but each month we moved forward new things happened and more cupcake flavors were added to our list, so take a journey with us from how it started to where we are now and all the crossroads we passed along the way.
When we first held the keys in our hand to an empty room that was to become Frosting, we knew the building project ahead of us was a mountain to climb but heck, we had a stack of papers in our hands telling us we knew what we were doing. This stack of paper (our business plan) is not only the key to making a business successful, it is also the same piece of paper, written by yourself, that you use to convince yourself, you should never turn back. (sounds a little bit odd, but true)
In the summer of 2009 we opened our doors to a welcoming Langley City, and a parade of friends, family, and now close associates who followed us from the start to see the 
final results. With close to 15 different cupcake flavors when the doors opened, we figured our signature flavors like the Candy Shop Cupcake, Red Velvet Cupcake, Tropical Storm Cupcake, and a whole bunch more people would love. Well most of you spoke up and told us you did, so along came 35 more cupcake flavors for a total of over 50 cupcake flavors to date!
A couple of months into it, we became the coolest place in Langley for birthday parties along with our cupcakes. With so many people looking for the next neat thing to do for a birthday party, our cupcake decorating parties are introduced. Frosting stacked as high as a tower, mess all over the place, kids creating their first cupcake works of art and we knew we were now influencing the children of tomorrow with CUPCAKES! (just our little way of contributing to all the good things in life)
Along comes a fantastic friend of ours Kristi Ferguson with Fraser Valley Pulse and Fresh Fraser Valley whispers a little something in our ears about the country music awards looking for a cupcake sponsor to dazzle all the stars. Next thing we know we are shaking hands with Johnny Reid, Paul Brandt, George Canyon, and even Alex Burrows. OK, now the stress I talked about earlier is still around all the time, but at that very moment everything goes right out the door and we are standing in what we call “the spot light” and presenting our cupcakes to more stars than we ever thought possible.
Fast forward to the winter we present our first cupcake float – a chuck wagon style float with a handful of our little ones freezing cold along the way. (I think this again was our children of the future still learning right?) Our cupcakes are now all over the Fraser Valley with our cupcakes in Cloverdale, cupcakes in Surrey, cupcakes in Vancouver, White Rock, Pitt Meadows and on and on. (Did you know that we deliver cupcakes all across the Lower Mainland?) Then to top off our Christmas, our good friend Greg Neufeld stops by for an intimate and interactive candle light special at our store. (a local star performing right in our store. I don’t even know if I could have thought that one up)
Into the new year 2010 has been fantastic. New flavors like Neapolitan Cupcake, Chocolate Explosion Cupcake, even a Root Beer Float Cupcake bring us head on into a nice little invitation to Vancouver’s 1st Cupcake Challenge downtown in Yale town. Imagine us and a few dozen of the other larger cupcake companies in a contest for the title of the best cupcake. We brought hundreds of cupcakes that we handed out, but our Neapolitan Cupcake won 1st place for Judges Choice Award, and also 1st place for the Peoples Choice Award. Fun with cupcakes just got even better for us.
Full circle around, summer 2010 we entered into the Langley Summer parade. Traded in our chuck wagon float and decided to go big. Ok, maybe giant, with our Giant Cupcake Float! Somewhere I got the idea that carving a giant cupcake out of Styrofoam in our garage would be a good thing. Months later we are still finding pieces of Styrofoam all through our house, but this time the kids had fun in the sunshine and we won 3rd place for the best float in the parade and was presented the award from our close friend Mayor Fassbender. (Watch for our Giant Cupcake coming to a place near you…)
Wedding Cupcakes are now all the rage and we find ourselves doing over 20 weddings a month. Gone are the days of wedding cakes that sit at the bottom of a freezer for years to come and traded in are hundreds of little mouth-watering cupcakes. Fun, trendy, cute, elegant, exciting, any way people wanted them, we could create them so now introducing the “Wow look at that wedding cupcake display…” that is appearing at weddings all around you.
So there you have it. Over 50 cupcake flavors available, open 7 days a week, a store that can seat 25 or more guests, in-house cupcake decorating parties, 3 awards, stars galore, and no way to turn back. A journey with us through our little adventure meeting stars along the way and all the time convincing ourselves that the stack of papers that we wrote at the beginning stated we knew what we were doing. You’ll now find our cupcakes not only at our store, but at weddings, events, schools, even at the Cascades Casino and The Great Escape, so keep your eyes open for what next year will bring. We plan to make it as fun for you as it has been for us.
Special thanks along the way to so may people we don’t know where to start. Here are some of our great friends that we have met in our first year, but in no means the entire list. Cascades Casino, Far Coast, Fraser Valley Pulse, Greg Neufeld, Langley Advance, Langley Chamber of Commerce, Langley Chiefs, Langley Events Centre, Langley Tourism, Mayor Fassbender, Scoop n Save, Snow Cap, Splash Comunications, The Great Escape, & Webnificent.
Craig & Melanie McDougall
Frosting Cupcakery
www.frostingcupcakery.com
778-278-8832
