This weekend I had the pleasure of making a wedding cake for a sweet young lady, Kayla and her (now) husband, Dustin. I got to know her as a teenager in our youth group. I’m pretty sure she’s still 16—only now she has a husband and a masters degree. Which, clearly is impossible, because I was her youth leader just a few days ago. Ahem…
The wedding was adorable. It had a gorgeous vintage feel with subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints of Disney everywhere. I thought I was a Disney fan—I don’t come anywhere close to being as big of a fan as she is! I should’ve taken more pictures, though truly, you would have had to have been there to really feel the magic. It was as if a little bit of pixie dust had been sprinkled throughout!
They had a gorgeous dessert bar and decorations in every nook and cranny that looked like they jumped straight off a Pinterest board. Every little detail was perfectly tended to. And the bride. Oh. my. She looked radiant! I hope this day lived up to every fairy tale hope and dream she’s ever imagined!
While she was putting the finishing touches on her hair and make-up, I was putting the finishing touches on this cake. I spent Friday baking, splitting, filling and stacking. Luckily, I had a friend, Phyllis, over to help me get through the tedious parts (and she did my dishes!). Friday night I frosted the cake and Saturday morning I assembled the cake on site and added the raffia with the help of my professional driver and schlepper (aka: Rob , my husband) and my baking assistant (aka: Leeann, my 11 year-old daughter).
This adorable cake topper was ordered off of ETSY by the bride months in advance, but through a series of unfortunate events it didn’t end up arriving until THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. I woke up on Saturday morning trying to figure out a plan B for the cake topper. I was trying to decide if there was any way I could manage to sculpt something similar out of clay in a few short hours. I think I could have recreated the Disney pumpkins but the replica of this couple’s dogs would have been far more difficult to perfect in a few short hours. Luckily though, the topper showed up at the post office just before I was about to head off to Hobby Lobby to see what I could come up with.
Which is great, because I also had someone coming to look at my house that’s on the market that afternoon. We “cleaned up” in about a half an hour by literally throwing all of my baking things into the dishwasher, just to get it off the counter and out of the way. I am constantly amazed by how much of a mess I manage to make when I’m decorating a cake. Luckily, like I said above, my whole family pitches in to help when I’m in baking mode!
In case you are finding yourself here from Pinterest-land and you’re wanting cake details, here are a few specs for you:
The top tier is 8”, the middle tier is 12” and the bottom tier is 16”. Each tier is 5” tall. An 18” cake board is supporting the cake. The raffia is twisted upon itself and fastened together with shorter pieces of raffia used to create the bows in the front of the cake. The rustic icing finish was done free hand with a spatula.
If you are new to wedding-cake making, let me encourage you to make sure you support and stack the layers well. There are a lot of tutorials out there that show you how to use dowels and cake boards to make sure your cake doesn’t fall apart. As a wedding coordinator and photographer I’ve seen enough wedding cakes tilt, sink, split or crumble to offer you this unsolicited piece of advice!
I am already looking forward to trying my hand at another wedding cake. It’s a bit stressful, but the end result makes all the work well worth it! It is my prayer that Kayla and Dustin enjoy life together to infinity and beyond. May they enjoy married life—the wildest ride in the wilderness. May all their dreams come true and may they live happily ever after! Thanks for including me in your special day!
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