TamaraLynCakes

Aaaaahhhhh!!!  That about sums it up!

I thought about and planned for this cake for months leading up to the big day…one might think it was my own wedding with how much I thought about it.  I know how special that day is and how important it is that all the small (or not so small) details come together to make one magical day.  When I was asked to make a wedding cake for Paul and Marisa, I was so honored to be entrusted with this large, important task.  While at times stressful, I have truly loved the experience.

I am by no means the best at what I do, in fact, far from it.  However, I do feel that the Lord has blessed me with a gift and an ability for this art and I am grateful to Him for giving me this passion and talent.  There is great joy and satisfaction that come from seeing my finished work and knowing I put my all into it.  I am equally blessed to have a sweet, patient, loving and supportive husband – Steve, I could not do any of this without you cheering me on – literally (he and the kids were clapping Sunday evening as I walked in the door from the wedding)!! 

The few weeks prior to the wedding, I started to get anxious about it all coming together well, and I worried about whether or not it would all fall apart in the end.  I started asking people to pray for me and God showed up in my life in a big way.  I experienced a peace this past week about the whole thing (even when the groom’s cake threatened to completely collapse) and I know that the glory for that goes all to my Lord.

I learned so much through the process about what to do and what not to do – it was an invaluable experience.  I now feel much better equipped to take on a task such as this, should I have the opportunity in the future.  I feel SO proud of what I have accomplished and I am pleased to be able to share these pictures with you.  A special thank you to my dear friend Talinda – thank you for being there with me, helping me with the last minute details and for taking the beautiful pictures of this and all my cakes!  Also, Jamie thanks for lending a hand with the tree – it turned out AWESOME!

The wedding cake:

The groom’s cake:

Now, after it is all over, I can sit back a relax a little bit – at least for a few weeks before my next cake!! 

Well, this past week, I officially started the construction of my very first wedding cake.  When my friend first approached me about doing a wedding, I was nervous and excited all at once.  I was nervous because I have never done a cake that large before, but I felt that I had enough experience and I was excited to take on this project.  I have to say it has consumed my thoughts much of the time since I began to go down this path – I couldn’t wait to start on it.  I am loving the new challenge of it all, but once it is all said and done, we will see if I ever want to do another wedding. 

The designs of the wedding cake and the groom’s cake have been decided for some time now and I have just been thinking over and over about how to actually construct what I have designed.  Gumpaste is a new medium for me and I am finding I really like working with it.  I was told it is hard to work with and time consuming.  When I first heard that, I thought perhaps I should just buy the flowers for the cake and not spend the time on it myself.   But hey, that would be too easy right?   I also considered taking a class to learn more about gumpaste, but since I have not taken any classes so far I figured why start now!!  That takes all the fun out of trying to figure it out on my own.  LOL!!   So I started playing with gumpaste a few weeks ago when I made my daughter’s tea pot cake.  I loved the way they turned out and I enjoyed the process of creating the cute flowers.  It is really therapeutic for me.

So, after spending a few days making a total of almost 30 cups of butter cream icing and baking the layers for the groom’s cake, I started making the leaves for the cakes.  The wedding cake will have many purple flowers “flowing” down the front of the cake along with greenery and the groom’s cake will have a tree coming out of the top layer (the groom is a landsape designer and we wanted to create something that reflected that).  Suffice it to say, we need  a lot of leaves!!  I think there are somwhere between 100-150  leaves here…I just hope it is enough!! 

You can also see a little green dome in the pictures - that is going to eventually be the cake topper for the wedding cake.  I took a styrofoam sphere and cut it in half, mounted it on a cake board and then covered it in the green gumpaste.  Later I will cover it with the leaves and flowers and then set it on the top layer of the cake.

Stay tuned for more details to come!  T minus 9 days and counting!!