My first wedding cake...sorta! :)

I had the privilege to take part in a wedding shoot here in my area. A local wedding coordinator, Dani Ross, put together a shoot with another local photographer and asked if I'd make the wedding cake. They staged the entire shoot at a beautiful studio in downtown Portland and had everything from a model bride to a beautiful table scape to amazing dinnerware and silverware all set up. The sneak peek pics look wonderful! I can't wait to see the rest of the shoot. The photographer and coordinator are sending it to a few publications, so I can't show you the cake from the shoot or any other pics, but they said I could post my own pictures of the cake, so here you go! :)

When I got word of this shoot, I was given these plates from Anthropology as inspiration. These were going to be used for the place settings. From there I created this design based on the wedding being white on white. What was super amazing was when I saw the sneak peek pictures, all of the elements I put on the cake were part of the wedding decor...and I wasn't even trying to do that! It was a pleasant surprise...the cake fit perfectly! So, I can't wait to show you the rest of the shoot. Stay tuned to Dani's blog or mine when the pictures are published.

Now, something super funny happened after I put the cake together for the shoot. I had to get the cake down to the shoot and had limited time, so I glued the cake together, took pics, loaded it in the car and headed down to drop it off. The whole way there, I kept looking at the cake wondering what it would look like if I flipped the bottom tier upside-down. I liked the cake as it was, but there was something about flipping it that totally intrigued me. So, when I got the cake back after the shoot, I took it apart and flipped it. I loved it even more!!
Here it is flipped:

Pretty funny how flipping it totally changed it's look. It almost looks like a dress now. Pretty funny!! Oh well, either way I like it! :) And I really enjoyed working with a dummy cake!!

A few tips/tricks I learned from my first dummy cake experience...
1. I ordered the crazy sizes from this place: Dallas Foam. They were AWESOME to work with. They customized the sizes I needed and with shipping I didn't pay more than $15! - and that included 6 little 2.5"x3"h dummies for each place setting.
2. I used crisco to adhere the fondant to the dummy. Worked awesome! Oh, and I used a fine sanding paper to smooth out any rough edges on the dummy before putting on the fondant.
3. Fondant dries INCREDIBLY fast on a dummy!!! So, I couldn't take as long tweaking things, smoothing things, etc like I could normally! So, I got some cracking on the ruffles that I wasn't expecting. So, work quickly! :)

That's it! It was super fun and I have sooo many more ideas for wedding cakes! I might have to make some more dummy cakes just to try some more techniques! Stay tuned!