A Wibbly Wobbly Cake

Making a wedding cake is a process. The planning, the shopping, the baking, the icing and stacking, and the decorating. Oh, and the transporting! We've done many cakes, starting with my sister's wedding cake thirty years ago. My sister took a chance on Fran even before I did when she asked him to do her cake. Fran made the cake with tools from my Dad's wife Doris, and with my grandmother's old Kitchen aid mixer.

Eight months later, he made our cake. I don't remember where or how, or what he did to get to that point. I grabbed this photo because I love all of it. I see the simplicity. Cake, coffee, sandwiches, and who knows what is in that big bowl. Crepe paper streamers and a backdrop in our college cafeteria. I remember one friend specifically brought in his floor buffer from work and shined the floors for us. Jerry there on the left is our photographer. I gave him two rolls of film, a 36 and a 24. He gave us the rolls at the end of the night and
we got them developed. Boom. Done. Thanks, Jerry! Then we added photos from Doris and it completed the story. Caterina, my maid of honor is down in front in the red taffeta dress I made for her. I don't think I had much to do with anything at my reception. Becky took it in hand and made it happen. That was a gift; I had my own wedding coordinator before I even know that was a "thing". Thanks, Becky! 

Here is short video that Erik made a few years ago during the process of building a wedding cake for dear friends of ours. Enjoy!

 Another precedent was set when we made the cake for our first "child's" wedding. This was in 2011.

When Adam and Sarah asked if we wanted to do theirs, we of course agreed to it! The baking took place on a rather warm day that week; I didn't pause to take photos. It was a jumble of measuring amounts for each cake layer, and timing in the oven, then leveling and freezing and cleaning up. On Friday Fran created this humoungous "That's a Bowl" amount of icing.

With Erik's I see we used a square platform. We wrapped it in brown baking paper to match the motif of the wedding. This time that wouldn't do, so we bought an 18" round table top at Lowes and covered it with White Wilton foil. Who knew they sold 18" round table tops? It was exactly what we needed.

When we remember, we print these signs off and tape them to the car. I put it on both sides and on the back. It was a long drive through vacation traffic so we wanted people to be warned that we'd be taking slow stops and turns!

Fran got the cake this far, then we transported it to finish it off at the church.

The coffee stop. Gotta do it when you are driving north on route 1 on a Friday afternoon. Bumper to bumper traffic until Red's Eats and the Sheepscot bridge.

Safely arrived at church, and here is the result after a few hours. Adam made the Tardis, and they ordered the couple figurine. They found that idea and the cascade of flowers idea online. We put it all together!

It turned out pretty and tasted ymmy; we can't wait to put the photo in our little scrapbook.

Just as with anything, if you start early to make a plan and try to map out a time table, the process will work out with less stress, and the result will be beautiful.

Even if the bride and groom figurine did take a tumble, and the cake icing needed to be repaired a bit, and more flowers were added to cover the spots! No worries, it was ready for the main event the next day with no more Wibbly Wobbly troubles. Marriages are like that. Wibbly Wobbles here and there, but all in all a beautiful picture of the love of God smoothing out the rough spots. With so many multifaceted steps, the process can be challenging. The steps sometimes require quick thinking and redirection, but the randomness of the pretty times, easily cover the multitude of scuffs and faults.