I FINALLY get to make a wedding cake!

Saturday, September 15th marks the debut of my very first wedding cake (or tiered cake, for that matter); it's for my friends J. and K. who are *finally* tying the knot! I'm really excited about this whole thing, partly because I've always wanted to make a mega-sized cake but mostly because I love to bake so much. K. picked a really great flavor combo: chocolate cake with raspberry filling, enrobed in an ivory buttercream. Thankfully, she's also kept the design fairly simple, opting for Swiss dots and a bead border only. Adding a monogram or some type of flower bundle on top (daisies) is a possibility to round out the proportions, but we'll wait and see.

Last Saturday we spent some time in Hobby Lobby, taking up the aisle and making a racket while deciding upon the most aesthetically pleasing size configuration that would also yield the desired number of servings. We stacked pans on top of each other in the middle of the aisle, and not in the most quiet way either because some of the pans were bent and didn't sit level. They kept falling down, which I suspect is the reason they are bent in the first place. I've seen quite a few other prospective brides do the same stacking thing. It really is the only way to visualize the final size and scale of your cake beforehand. While most wedding cakes typically cater to about 100 people, we have opted for a 158 serving behemoth cake with an 8-inch round serving as the top tier. It was decided that we'd do an 8-12-14 configuration with a solid separation under the top layer (which will be served, not saved). Adding a smaller fourth tier to her design would skew it, so we'd have to come up with something new. It wasn't easy coming up with the first one! As for the tradition of saving the top tier for the couple's 1st anniversary... I may either make them a small cake to freeze but not stack on the actual cake, or wait until next year and replicate one for them.

Nothing is set in stone yet, so we'll see. There seemed to be some debate as to the number of guests that would need to be served. The groom's cake, which will not be done by me, will be a red velvet cake. Well dang, guys, if I had to choose between the chocolate/raspberry wedding cake or the red velvet groom's cake, I'd opt for a piece of both!(fast foward to wedding reception)

waiter: "Excuse me ma'am, will you be having chocolate or red velvet?"
me: "Yes."

You're forcing your guests to make a very hard decision. Shame on you both :) I should be getting my cake pans sometime soon, so a practice cake is definitely in the plans. Hopefully they'll arrive early next week so I can get to baking. I'm being so persnickity about the pans I'm going to use that I won't settle for the Wilton ones I can find so easily in town. I'm so excited about my new pans... (edited to add that my pans arrived and they are PANTASTIC lol)

Here is a rough mock-up I drew of what we're planning: