Friday 30 January 2015

They said "I do!"

"A wedding is a party, not a performance.
If at the end of the day you are married to the person you love,
then everything went perfectly."


In my occasionally crazy and sometimes interesting baking journey, I have baked things for weddings before; like these cupcakes for display and for the guests to take home, and these shortbread biscuit bonbonnieres. I now add to that list: my first wedding cake!

With weddings often comes a lot of behind-the-scenes stress and frantic planning. One thing that surprised me in the lead-up to this wedding, was how relaxed the bride was.

In our discussions prior to the wedding day, she sent a photo of a cake that she liked, which was a white round tiered cake with some flowers on top. Though this was the style she preferred, it was added that she was happy for me to make something else if I wanted - whatever was easier.*

A week before the wedding day, I started practicing making fondant roses. The bride told me she wasn't fussed if the flowers were real or fake, so I used this opportunity to learn the fondant-rose-technique I'd been avoiding since I begun my whole cake making adventure. The time had come to learn.

The cake was simple but elegant, and actually reminded me a little of this jazz themed cake I had made earlier. The colour theme was white, black, and pink.

My main and only real concern with the cakes was making sure I could cover them completely without having to pinch and cut any of the fondant! Thankfully, I managed OK!


For the top, I'd made a small collection of pink roses, using a 'bud' and 'petals'. I wasn't sure how many I would need or want, because it wasn't until a couple of hours before the bride picked up the cake that I'd worked out exactly how I was going to arrange them.

That's right. The bride picked up her own wedding cake on the day of her wedding. This is how relaxed and carefree she was!

It was in the morning that I spontaneously made some miniature light-light pink roses using the technique from my practice roses, to fill in some spaces that may be on top of the cake.


I arranged the bigger roses all around in a circle, facing outwards, alternating between the two different shades of pink I'd used:


Unsure of exactly where to put the mini roses, I felt that they would work well in a ring around the centre rose. Once they were all arranged and looking presentable, I sugar glued them all into place :)


Since the cake was so big (i.e. heavy), multiple cake pop sticks were used to ensure the top tier didn't squish the bottom tier, which is something I often worry about with big cakes!

This is what the arrangement on top of the cake looked like from on top:


The tiers were attached, and it was complete! My first wedding cake, my second round of fondant roses, my third emotional roller coaster, and my fourth coffee for the day.


Congratulations Leah and Alan! :)

* ... So I made a Thomas the Tank Engine cake.

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