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Doctors see people when they’re sick. Lawyers see people when they’re in trouble. In Emily Nejad’s line of work, her customers come to her to celebrate the very happiest of life’s occasions.

For the 30-year-old Lincoln Square resident, that’s one of the best parts about owning her own custom cake business, Bon Vivant Cakes. “I get to swoop in and be a part of the most fun moments in their lives,” Nejad said.

Nejad launched Bon Vivant last fall and has since been perfecting her signature style: Think toweringly tall cakes with colorful marbled buttercream, decadent ganache cascading down the sides and a crown of adornments ranging from glittery rock candy to gold-brushed Oreos.

“I chose the name Bon Vivant because it’s a French term and it means a person who lives well,” Nejad said. “You want to live large and live fabulously and lavish in the finest things that life has to offer.”

CHANNELING CREATIVITY

Bon Vivant is Nejad’s latest creative outlet, but not her first. She studied musical theater at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., with plans to pursue it for a living. “Being a musician is a hard career, but making it in musical theater is like winning the lottery,” she said. “I got out of school and I was like … ‘OK, maybe not.’ ” She switched gears and teamed up with her best friend (and fellow Ball State musical theater major) Maggie Kubley to form Celine Neon, a high-energy pop duo that plays local venues such as Empty Bottle and Lincoln Hall. To make ends meet along the way, Nejad also waited tables at Three Aces in University Village.

The trials of making it in the music business are in part what led her to baking in the first place. “At that point in time, I was really kind of searching for something,” she said. “I got a KitchenAid mixer and started baking for enjoyment, because making anything with your hands is really satisfying.” She baked a cake for a friend’s birthday, to rave reviews from the partygoers. “People were like, ‘This is amazing. You should sell these cakes.’ I was like, ‘No, stop. That’s ridiculous. I can’t do that.’ “

As she continued to bake more and more cakes, that idea of going pro marinated in the back of her mind. “The point where I actually started to seriously consider it was when I was at the place where all good ideas come from—I was at Target,” she said. “Just roaming the aisles of Target like you do, and … [I thought], ‘Wait a minute, this is an actually good idea.’ I called my mom and was like, ‘Mom, what do you think about this? Do you think this is a crazy idea?’ And she was like, ‘No, I think this is a great idea and you should do it.’ “

AN INSTA-BOOST

Nejad launched the Bon Vivant website in October 2015 and baked on the side while continuing to wait tables. Prices start at $40 for her mini-cake of the month, and custom orders go up from there. This spring, business blew up enough for her to bake full-time. The surge can be traced back to a cake that Chicago Food Authority blogger Samantha Roby asked Nejad to create for her friend’s baby shower. Little did Nejad know that the friend was Erica Eckman of foodie blog Everything Erica. “I looked at Instagram the next day and realized … it was a party of all food and lifestyle bloggers,” Nejad said. The Instagram follows—and the cake orders—started rushing in.

When you go to my website and fill out an order form, it says, ‘What’s the occasion?’ I added a YOLO option to my menu, and I’m so tickled by all the people who are ordering for YOLO,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Yas queen! I see you and know you. You are my people.’ It’s so great.”

A look at Nejad’s Bon Vivant Instagram account reveals some unlikely inspiration: Along with other bakers and food bloggers, she follows a handful of coral reef and Turkish kilim rug accounts. “[Coral] inspires a lot of the elements on my cakes. They’re living things, so you have these naturally occurring colors and textures,” she said. “And [as for the rugs], besides the fact that I love them—I want kilims in every square inch of my house—the colors and patterns are really inspirational to me.”

LONG LIVE THE ’90s

You know how Coco Chanel’s famous motto was to take off one accessory before leaving the house? Nejad prefers to put one more on. She decorates her cakes with the same eye for color and whimsy that she uses to dress herself onstage for Celine Neon and in real life, too. “My style icons are like Lisa Frank and Fran Drescher from ‘The Nanny’ … Clarissa from ‘Clarissa Explains it All.’ Claudia Kishi from ‘The Baby-Sitters Club,’ ” Nejad said. “I love these really creative and kind of unafraid and confident sort of women that I really loved when I was that ’90s and 2000s teen.”

Now with the return of ’90s fashion, Nejad is thanking her middle-school self for her foresight. “I saved my favorite pair of overalls from middle school. I was like, I’m going to be first in line [to wear them when they’re back in style],” she said. “I’m so jazzed that all of that is coming back.”

FAM JAM

Nejad grew up in southern Indiana and also credits her parents for inspiring her to start Bon Vivant. “I get my love of food and baking and creating from my mom. … She’s like a badass Betty Crocker,” Nejad said. She also has tapped into her mom’s entrepreneurial spirit. With zero restaurant experience, Nejad’s mother decided to open a Mediterranean eatery in Indiana, and it’s become so successful that a second location is in the works. “I think I’ve really inherited this same characteristic: You get something in your head and you just decide you’re going to do it and somehow it just works.”

As for Nejad’s flair for the dramatic, she gets that from her father. “[He] was a plastics engineer for 30 years, which, objectively, is a pretty boring job, but he has this really incredible eye for design,” she said. “My mom is a white lady. My dad is a fancy Persian man. If you met him, that man is the most fashionable. … He’s rolling in, looking good, smelling good, glad-handing everyone. My mom is like very sort-of humble and doesn’t like the spotlight and just likes to create things. I’m a very even mix of both of them, and I’m lucky to have two parents who are insanely supportive.”

Lisa Arnett is a RedEye contributor.