Weddingbee Blog

The other night, FMIL Mary Jane called and said she wanted to come over. She had books full of cakes to share with me! Personally, I would have preferred Tupperware containers full of cake. But I still let her come over.

She brought me four books: three “Wilton Cakes” books and a photo album showing some of the cakes that her friend has made. She told me that the friend could make any cake in the books. I was impressed! There were some really elaborate cakes in there. What an awesome talent.

Some of the many cakes she’s made:

FMIL left to run some errands, and I sat down to look at the books.

After several pages, I was a little disheartened. They were very detailed cakes, but most were just not my style at all. I briefly considered going online and finding my *own* cake inspirations to print out and have FMIL pass them on to the cake baker. Then I got down off my high horse and considered what’s being offered here: an opportunity to have a kind local woman bake us a cake from one of these books. And I looked a little harder.

I didn’t check the publication dates on these books, but a lot of the cakes looked pretty… umm… ’80s, to me. Some had plastic bridges, staircases between layers, and even puffy-sleeved bride cake-toppers on them. I also had to use my imagination because most of the cakes were huge. We’d be getting (at the most) two tiers, or possibly just one. This cake will feed just 9 people: ourselves and the guests of our wedding ceremony. We won’t need a 5’ tall masterpiece with cascading color-change fountains and pillared separations.

I first bookmarked this one.

Yes, it’s more “birthday cake” style than “wedding cake” style, but it was practical. This is pretty much what a cake purchased from the grocery store would look like, and I figured it’d be more than enough to feed our small group. I love frosting, too, and those roses look tasty to me.

Then, I found this next one. Obviously this is a portion of a much larger, multi-tiered cake, but it’s about as big as we’d dare make ours.

I love those tiny little flowers and simple piping! The skirting at the bottom? Not so much (especially since I was trying to avoid fondant and/or gum-paste in favor of my beloved buttercream icing).

Then I came across this next one. Boy is it elaborate. (And, again, a small section of a larger cake.)

Picket fence. Church + steeple. Real flowers. Pillars. Yikes. But looking past all of that, it has those tiny flowers again. And many more of them, placed in a delightfully imperfect pattern. And it has that simple piping I liked as well. Bingo! I had a winner.

Having seen how talented this woman is at replicating the very elaborate cakes in these books, I decided I’d write a “few notes” about my simpler “vision” for this cake. My “few notes” turned in to a full page, complete with picture!

Let’s get a close up on that picture. (Yes, I’m the next great art sensation. You can all say you knew me before I was famous.)

I did request a white base for the frosting (buttercream of course), and I suggested that the flowers be pastel pink, bright pink, and orange. You can read all of my notes on the photo above. FMIL was surprised that I didn’t want to stick with the green theme of my shoes and sash… but I thought green flowers might look weird. Their leaves will be green, anyway.

I really hope she doesn’t get offended by the amount of changes I made to the cake. (But it’s not as though she designed this cake: Wilton did!) If she chooses to ignore all of my changes and make it just like the picture (picket fence and plastic pillars and church and steeple and all), I promise I won’t pitch a fit. It’s damn nice of her to make it.

I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Are you trusting someone else to turn your (possibly poorly-sketched) vision in to a reality? Did you have a limited amount of cake styles to choose from?

*Note: While I did take the photos above, they are primarily photos of pages from Wilton cake books. Just giving credit where credit is due.