CityView Magazine

22 March 2021 W hen they fell in love and married 22 years ago, the demands of dual military careers kept Marissa and omas Capel from thinking about things like engraved invitations and a china registry. "We never had a wedding," Marissa Capel said. So when they celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary on March 20, 2018, they wanted to do it up in style. Except that is, Marissa still wasn't interested in paying the going rate for a typical wedding cake. Instead, she remembered visiting a Nothing Bundt Cakes bakery in Raleigh and was able to order small "bundtinis" in a variety of flavors. e party was a hit, and a business idea was born. "I thought, if we're retired and wedding cakes seem expensive to us, how much more expensive must they seem to young couples just starting out?" she said. Marissa retired from the Army in 2008 as a sergeant major with the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, then worked as a an operation coordinator for L-3 Stratis, a soware development and design company. Meanwhile, omas Capel served 37 years before retiring out of Afghanistan in 2014 as a command sergeant major. He held the position of senior enlisted leader for the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces- Afghanistan. He also served as command sergeant major for U.S. Army Europe and the 82nd Airborne Division. It was a decorated career for the native of Ellerbe, a small community in Richmond County with a population of about 1,000 people. FEATURE BY KIM HAST Y is Retired Military Couple Serves Up Sweetness PHOTO BY CINDY BURNHAM Left to right, Thomas and Marissa Capel with son Calvin in their Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise in Freedom Town Center

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