Final Wedding Recap-On Making My Own Wedding Cake(s)

I had more than one friend try to talk me out of this…I said when I first got engaged that I planned to make my own wedding cake, a 3-tier confection.  My best friend, her mom and I had teamed up before to make birthday cakes, they made confirmation and baby shower cakes, they have a whole collection of Wilton supplies–and together we were determined not to be talked out of doing this…

I had revamped our cake topper months before… It all started with choosing the recipes, and sending my best friend’s hubby to the store with the shopping list:

• 6 dozen eggs
• half gallon whole milk
• a pound of Crisco
• 3 pounds of marshmallows
• 24 oz. white chocolate chips
• 9 cake mixes
• 32 oz. vegetable oil
• 2 pounds of butter
• 3 boxes Jello gelatin
• 4 pints of whipping cream
• 16 pounds (!!!!) of confectioner’s sugar
• 2 pounds of sour cream

And, we had to make at least one trip back to the store for extra ingredients!   The cakes were baked on Wednesday evening (without me there) and the fondant was prepared…

On Thursday morning, we started by leveling the cakes…  Some of us (okay, one of us) didn’t think the fancy Wilton cake leveler really worked, so she went to the garage to get a different tool…

We had quite a laugh over that one, and we teased her relentlessly!  Once the cakes are leveled, two layers were stacked together with a buttercream/cream cheese filling, the fondant was rolled out, a design was embossed into it, and then it was draped over the stacked layers… 

 

The fondant was tinted an ivory color, so we used white buttercream icing to pipe details over the embossed design on the fondant…

I piped…

My friend’s mom piped…

I piped some more…I thought my hands would never recover from the cramps I had by late afternoon…  Finally the three tiers were complete and put away in the fridge until they would be stacked into the final cake presentation late Friday evening.  Then it was time to make the grooms cake.

Early in our wedding planning, I mentioned the idea of having pie or a non-traditional wedding dessert, but one thing my sweetie was adamant about was that we have cake, “not cupcakes, but a cake, chocolate with chocolate filling and chocolate frosting (and not the low-fat imitation frosting, and not fondant, but real chocolate creamy frosting).  And it should be a banjo cake.” (He was of course, just teasing about that last part, but I remember details of things people say, I filed this away for later).  I was determined to surprise him with a death-by-chocolate, no holds barred, banjo cake.

This one started as 12″ round layer cake and a 9′ x 13″ rectangular cake that I cut into a banjo neck and headstock shaped layer cake.  We used fondant over a cardboard disk to form the drum head…  There was more piping…

You can sort of see at the left of the photo above, we used bolts from the hardware store as the tuning knobs on the banjo.  The strings were a challenge, this was the last thing I did that day, and my hands were aching, the icing was dryer, and my strings weren’t the straightest… But who cares, it looked fabulous, looked professional, and it completely caught him by surprise!

It disappeared incredibly fast Saturday afternoon, and it tasted a*m*a*z*i*n*g!  Sweetie didn’t take time to eat any cake at the reception (I did, I had the white chocolate flavor!), but we made sure to save him a large piece that we finally shared Sunday evening.  He was quite pleased.

Would I do it again?  Make my own wedding cakes, make the mints, etc…  YES I would!  Not that I don’t think professional cake decorators earn every penny they make, they do!  But I had so much fun making these, spending the time with friends, keeping the surprise from the groom…it was a blast and I’d do it all again next weekend, if I could!

Wedding Recap #5–Location, Location, Location

For any successful production, you gotta have a good set or stage, right?   Well, the Church we attend is a beautiful setting for any event…

A historical building, construction on it started in 1905.  It’s as beautiful inside as it is outside… 

Italian Marble high altar, highly adorned with Easter Lilies the day of our wedding…

There is a wonderful pipe organ (998 pipes!) in the choir loft, and a beautiful stained glass Rose Window.

A wonderful backdrop for a wedding, or Sunday Mass…

And our reception was held at West End Architectural Salvage in downtown Des Moines.  They have a coffee shop/dining area at the front of the four-story architectural salvage store and warehouse.  They hosted three weddings there that weekend alone!

It was a lot of fun, a great backdrop for photos, with minimal decoration required on our part…. 

One Final Recap to come: On Making my Own Wedding Cake…

Wedding Recap #4-Final Edits

Unless you just found my blog, you know I designed and printed my own wedding invitation suite, with the help of friends Calee and Tonya.

The design we came up with is full of meaning for us as a couple. 

I found a great set of Anna Griffin invitations on the clearance rack at Michaels, which were absolutely perfect for our ceremony programs.  I bought the three boxes they had left, enough to make 75 four-page, ribbon tied programs:

and then I decorated this crocheted basket from Hobby Lobby to contain the programs, 

We enlisted our two favorite six-year-olds to be greeters and hand out programs, 

We had their Dads accompany them to keep them in line, but I’m told they did a fabulous job.  These two served as greeters, in lieu of ushers, welcoming the guests and asking them to seat themselves.  Because our wedding was the Saturday after Easter, their mommies bought them the same outfit from Children’s Place and they both wore their outfit for Easter and the wedding.  Genius.  

I told you here about my idea for our guest book (actually a combined guest book/photo album).  We had this sign next to a heart-shaped box full of note cards and small envelopes…

Guests signed a business card size note, slipped it into an envelope and placed them in the card box I made.  The card box turned out great; the ribbon, lace, and pearl beads adorning it are from my Gramma B’s sewing stash, the lace bow is from my Mom’s 1963 wedding dress, and the flowers are made from the trimmings of my dress:

I did my best to infuse our day with sentiment, meaning, and family history. It all showed just perfectly!

Next recap:  Location, Location, Location!

Wardrobe Redux: On De-Constructing My Mom’s Wedding Dress

WARNING:  If you are a sentimental type, this post might make you cry.  The story has brought other friends to tears. If you like sentimentally sappy crafting stories, read on…

I bought my wedding dress the first day I went out to try dresses on, it fit like a glove, it met almost every criteria I had, and the price was right.  Then, I had immediate buyer’s remorse.  You see, my original dress inspiration was a 1950s McCalls pattern image of a scoop neck, all lace, tea-length, Rockabilly style dress.  My dress was none of those things.  But I couldn’t buy a second dress. 

So I proceeded with wedding planning, reminding myself daily, that I really did like my dress, I hemmed it to make it the length I wanted it to be…but inside, I kept thinking about my “dream dress”.  On a visit home to see my Mom, I got up the nerve to ask her if I could take her wedding dress with me, and oh yeah, did she mind if I cut it up?  (She and my Dad are the couple on the right, they shared their wedding day with her sister and his brother)

You see, I am a size 10.  My Mom’s dress from 1963 was a size zero.  No one in our family is likely to ever be able to wear that dress at their wedding, as no one got Mom’s “small frame” genes.  My original plan was to remake it into my dream dress.  Here it is after I got it home and cleaned (the photo was taken on March 28.  My wedding was April 30th.

Lots of lace, tulle petticoat, some bows… (my dress would not have any bows, btw)

A fitted bodice with scalloped, beaded neckline…

lace covered buttons on the sleeve and down the back…

So over the course of the first week in April, I proceeded to deconstruct the dress, one section at a time until it was in pieces.  Eventually reality took hold and I realized that unless I stopped going to my job every day (NOT an option if I wanted to continue to eat and be able to power up my sewing machine) I was not going to make my own “dream dress” before April 30th. 

So, here I was with a dismantled wedding dress that I hoped my Mom really was okay with me cutting up, and oh yeah, that bodice of my Grandma’s wedding dress that I was trying to work up the nerve to cut into, and the pile of cuttings I had saved from removing the whisper train and hemming my own dress.  The dress I would wear on April 30th.

 

So, I didn’t have time to make a new wedding dress, but how could I use the remnants of these dresses from two of the most important women in my life, in some special way for my own Wedding Day?  My solution?  I made a clutch for me to carry with my dress: 

The main body is the dutchess satin I cut from my own dress, the lace band is from my Mom’s dress, and is also on the reverse of the clutch:

The rust colored lace is from Grandma’s dress, and the fabrics flower is constructed of fabric from my Mom’s and My dress combined.  The lining of the clutch is crepe-backed satin, also from my dress.  

And the cross?  It is a pendant my Mom had made for me in 1998 after the sudden death of my Dad.  It is made from the gold of his and her 1963 wedding bands melted together.  (My sister has an identical cross).  I was so pleased with th result of this one evening of sewing.  I had a something to hold onto all day that gave me the feeling of having my Dad and my beloved Gramma with me.  The next best thing to having them there in person…

I used the wrist band from my Mom’s dress on my bouquet:

And one of the bows from her dress on our card box:

And, I still plan to make a dress out of the remaining pieces of her wedding dress, and maybe dye it yellow…or pink…  

Wedding Recap #3-Prop Department

Anyone in the entertainment business will tell you how important good props are to a production.  And what is a wedding, if not a production of sorts?   I talked about the crafting my sweetie and I were doing for decorating the tables at our reception… our tissue paper flowers were placed on aqua colored tulle runners, atop white paper tablecloths, and they just infused the entire room with festive color!

We wanted to incorporate a display of the family photos we had rounded up… so I used this vintage sideboard at one end of our reception area to create a “something old, something new” display:

The “something old, something new” sign is decorated with the scroll artwork I created for our invitations.  This display was quite a conversation piece throughout the afternoon…

The “something blue” was covered with my jewelry, a vintage bracelet/earring set I purchased from Etsy, and a vintage necklace that came from a family member (technically not borrowed, as I own it now)

My bouquet consisted of pink sweetheart roses surrounded by dark pink and white tulips.  When I was growing up, my Mom’s tulip bed was one of the best things about our yard.  The stem of the flowers were wrapped with satin ribbon, and a piece of the sleeve/wrist band of my Mom’s 1963 wedding dress, and adorned with a silk flower made from the trimmings of my own dress, held on with a vintage hat pin that my sweetie’s Mom gave to me:

The clutch purse I carried was imbued with special meaning, too, but that deserves it’s own post (Thursday!)

The flowers we made into bouquets provided decorations for the reception, as well the one large vase of “leftover” flowers. 

We cut some corners on our wedding, to keep the budget under control we did a lot of the work ourselves.  Some of it was not all that enjoyable, such as cleaning up after the rehearsal party that we hosted (we opted to rent a room and provide food and beverage, rather than go to a restaurant so we could include out-of-town guests/more people), etc.—but we had fabulous friends who were there to help with anything we needed, and who we are forever indebted to. 

And our day was beautiful, the hard work leading up to April 30th showed in all the details, everyone was smiling and having a good time, and it didn’t feel like we had cut any corners when it was all said and done.

Next Recap: Final Edits

Wedding Recap #2-"Wardrobe! Makeup!"

(click on any photos to enlarge)

Another good title for this post could have been “it takes a village”–all of the pre-day prep leading up to the wedding, and then everything it took just to get everyone primped, dressed and ready…

The women and I started the day out at a salon day spa, where I treated everyone to a shampoo and style for the big day.  Here’s my finished do, (the final decision) with my veil headpiece firmly in place for the day:

Then it was on to the Church, flowers, dress, veil, shoes, makeup, and perfume in tow (as well as programs for the ceremony, & maps to the reception in my car).  I was driving myself, and realized I had received a call while I was having my hair done.  I didn’t recognize the number, so I listened to the voice mail.  It was my friend Dawn calling from Afghanistan to tell me she loved me, wish me a wonderful day, and other sweet things that made my cry like crazy (the only time I was brought to tears all day!) 

Everyone got busy applying their makeup, getting dressed, assisting the bride with getting dressed (I first showed you a sneak peek of my dress way back here, and then again when I cut into it here)….

My best friend zipping me in…and my Mom and sister attaching my veil to the vintage headpiece..

 My shoes (I go for pretty WITH comfort)…

Bouquets were distributed, corsages and boutonnieres were pinned on…

Our lovely mothers recessing out of Church at the end of the ceremony (with the corsages I made for them):

 The bouquets we made the day before (and the necklaces I made):

Me with my beautiful niece, sister and best friend… (note the necklaces, made with beads, ribbon, fabric and vintage brooches.)

 

A little easier to see in this shot (the ones with pearls were for our two groomsgals–my sweetie’s daughters):

Notice the dresses the wedding party are wearing, all different, all off-the-rack, yet they blended together beautifully.  My lovely sister, (25 weeks pregnant) in the dress I added length to:

A lot of prep went into getting to this moment… but I wouldn’t change a thing, not the late nights of sewing and crafting, not the stress of the rehearsal the night before the wedding, not a thing….

Next recap:  Props and Details (all you crafters will enjoy this one!!)