Wedding Cake Adventures

Now on to this weekend. Ashley Graham and Brandon Johnson got married yesterday!!! And I did their cake! I started baking it last week and froze it, then frosted it Tues and Thurs nights (the bachelorette party was Wed night) and we were going down Friday night so it had to be done before then cuz the wedding was at 11am yesterday and the reception was at 1:30pm, down in Columbus, GA. So I ended up taking Friday off from work to decorate the cake.

Ash and I went through a few different designs before I came up with the final result (she didn't know what it was till she showed up at the reception). First she wanted a red and black polka-dot square cake that was like the one off "Because I Said So." But after being informed that red and black are the worst frosting colors because they turn everyone's mouth's that color, we nixed that idea, but we were thinking marzipan might work. Then she sent me a pic of a cake with stripes/ribbons on it, which would be easy enough cuz I could just frost it (which is really the hardest part) and then put the ribbons on. Then she saw a pic of a cake with a different design on each tier that she really liked, and she didn't want to be pulling ribbon of her cake when it came time to cut it. And we decided to do the top and bottom layer white frosting and the middle layer chocolate. Soooo.....the only thing that didn't change was the square cake.

So, I decided to do a wide chocolate frosting "ribbon" look on the bottom layer, with polka-dots and cornelli lace alternating design on each one, as if it was a design on a fabric ribbon. The middle layer I just did small polka-dots. Then the top layer, Mom actually ended up doing it all over with cornelli lace pattern. That was the layer everyone liked!! Mom actually helped me ton on the cake, thank goodness. She's so amazing!

Well, a couple adventures we had were that I ordered the wrong separator plates and they should have been a couple of inches bigger each. Then I added WAY too much cocoa trying to get the chocolate frosting dark brown. Then we got that fixed. Then I thought black food coloring would darken it up...sounds logical, right?? WRONG!!!! It made it this LIGHTER ugly gray color. So then I thought we might could salvage it by adding some brown food coloring...it helped....a little....a very little!!! So then, cuz we didn't use up all the chocolate frosting in this first attempt, we mixed the rest of the plain chocolate frosting with the "colored" chocolate frosting and it actually did make this really pretty dark brown that I was going for.

Then we got them done and packed in enough time (thanks to my wonderful and extremely skillful dad) for me to meet Hillary and Mark Elton and David and Whitney Anderson to caravan down to Columbus, as we were staying with Hill's parents. I wanted to originally take the cake straight to the Stake Center and unload it there Friday night, and I'd just put it together when I got there on Saturday. But then I was informed that it would be an hour round trip to get there from the Swanson's house and that they would have room in their fridge for the cake. So I agreed to just take it there on Saturday. I didn't end up putting it in the fridge, cuz it was in the boxes and this was a 16", 12", and 8" cake....in other words...really, really big! So it went in the food storage room upstairs with me, to keep away from the grandkids and it had an ac unit in there I could crank down to keep it cool.

We got up Saturday morning and it's pouring rain! We get ready and load the cake in the car. I wanted to leave early to take the cake to the stake center again, but was informed that there was more than likely not going to be anyone there. So, I would just go there straight after the wedding. We make it to the wedding site, a cute little chapel in the woods. And we go in, in the pouring rain, through the mud. And it was so cute inside the building. Very nicely decorated. The wedding ceremony was very sweet and beautiful, and Ashley looked gorgeous!!

I leave the wedding site to go to the stake center to set up and assemble the cake and I'm following Hill to get back to the interstate. The last right turn I take to get on the road that'll take me to the interstate....I cut to close, and jump the curb...BIG TIME! I of course scream, immediately pull over and put my emergency flashers on and climb in the back to check on the cake, cuz though we packed it securely, that was a big jolt. The middle layer's ok, phew. Next I check the bottom layer. AHHHH, it's smashed into the corner of the box!! I jump out of the car and run around to the back, open the door and have to smash my fingers into the frosting (why it's a good reason to buy a separator plate a couple inches bigger than the cake you're putting on it) to move the cake away from the edge fo the box. I'm freaking out now and in a hurry to get to the stake center to see what I can do to salvage the cake. I then look at the top layer....YIKES!! It's smashed into the corner of the box too!! Just not as bad, and I can move that one away a little easier.

I jump back in the car and take off down the road, flying till I make it to the stake center. I run in, (it's still pouring rain) and recruit Taylor Burke to help me carry in the cakes. Jacob Terry's there, so he finds me a table I can work on, so as not to mess up the beautifully decorated cake table they have set up in the gym. They have no room in the kitchen with the other food, so I'm having to do the repair job right there! And it's 12:40pm and the reception starts at 1:30pm. I have no idea how I'm going to fix this cake either, it's smashed pretty bad. Though luckily there are two sides that look decent enough that I can do a quick fix job and turn those to the front. Ryan Smith was my amazing helper and found supplies for me and help me hide the bottom layer, which was the worst one damaged, with the tulle on the table and the roses we pilfaged from the other tables. In my opinion Ryan saved the cake. I don't think I could have gotten looking half as good without him! Thanks for marrying such a good man Heather!!

We set it up and assembled it and I put the border on, all as they're announcing Ashley and Brandon and saying the blessing on the food, yeah, talk about the center of attention!!! But it did turn out well, and looked really good after it was all over, and Ashley loved it, which is what mattered, and as long as you didn't look too closely at the back, you couldn't tell it'd been smashed...really.

But I had a good time and will definitely do it again if given the chance....though I won't drive all over Harris County (or whatever county it needs to go to) with the cake in my car for two days. I'm taking it straight from my house (or my folks house, wherever it happens to be finished at) to the reception site in one trip. Less, though I know it doesn't eliminate all, chance of anything happening to it the less time it's in the car.

But we stayed at the Swanson's all weekend, and ate like they do in the country, way too much of way too good food. I loved every minute of it and I'm going to be eating salads for every meal for two weeks to make up for it, but it was so worth it. But it was Hillary's niece's blessing today, so we stayed for that, then they bbq'd chicken and ribs for dinner. Mmmmmm, is all I can say for that, and we came on back home. I'm thoroughly exhausted and ready to get back to some semblence of normalcy! ;)

I'll post pics of the cakes when I get them...to add to my adventure, I didn't put my memory card back in my camera so I didn't get any pics on my camera from the reception. :(