Wedding Week/Weekend

What takes about 8-10 bags of confectioner's sugar, 36 sticks of butter, 2 large bags of granulated sugar, 2 containers of cocoa powder, a gallon or so of milk, around 4-5 bags of all-purpose flour (in addition to cake flour), 40 eggs, and TONS of vanilla extract, plus other ingredients?  This......

 
It all started a couple of months ago when my two friends, Beth and Mark, asked if I'd be interested in making their wedding cake.  I was definitely honored by the fact that they thought of me and immediately said yes! I knew that I could not pass up this opportunity, because I've been wanting to make a wedding cake for awhile now. 

So of course, the planning started........

When I first got out my "cake notebook" and sat down with Beth to create ideas, she informed me that she wanted to have mostly cupcakes, 200 to be precise.  In addition to the cupcakes Beth also wanted a two tier wedding cake.  One layer so that they'd have something to cut into at the reception, and the other layer for their anniversary.  *The final numbers may have changed slightly from our first meeting.  Beth ended up asking for 250 cupcakes*

In addition to the wedding cake/cupcakes, Beth also wanted to have me construct a surprise grooms cake for her husband-to-be, and my friend Mark!  He is a BIG Pittsburgh Steelers fan, so Beth thought that it would be a fun theme to apply to a cake!

The best part about this cake......Beth left the design totally up to me!

Finally, after all of the planning, the week of the wedding was here!  I knew I had LOTS to do, especially on top of teaching during the day, so I had to set up a day-by-day plan for myself.  Some of the tasks I knew I could accomplish ahead of time, like drying out the flowers to go on top of the cupcakes, coloring the fondant (not too far ahead of time though), and sifting the powdered sugar.  The rest of the items would have to be done periodically throughout the week, but if I paced it just right, I knew I wouldn't become overwhelmed. 

The first item on my to do list was to bake the groom's cake and cupcakes.  Beth needed to have these ready for the rehearsal dinner that was to be on Friday night.  I also knew that if I made this cake first, then while I was going through the process of decorating it, I could be baking cupcakes for the wedding at the same time.  My plan ended up working out perfectly.

Steelers Cupcakes

Steelers Groom Cake

Once the groom's cake was complete, I directed my full attention to getting the rest of the cupcakes made, along with the wedding cake.  At this point in time, I had already baked over 100 chocolate cupcakes, and around 75 red velvet cupcakes.  All I had left to do was frost and decorate them, and then bake the yellow cupcakes and the wedding cake. 

I was very, VERY glad that Friday was Veteran's Day and that I didn't have to teach.  Having the whole day to work on this project was such a huge stress reliever!  I ending up starting the day off by baking the wedding cakes, and continued by baking the remaining 100 cupcakes. 

It always amazes me that something can start off looking like this....

And end up looking like this......

With the wedding cake now finished, all I had left to do was frost and decorate the cupcakes.  I decided that I would frost the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes Friday night, but because the red velvet cupcakes needed a cream cheese frosting, I planned to get up early and frost those Saturday morning.  It's a good thing that I decided to do that too, because decorating the 200, or so, chocolate and yellow cupcakes took me well into the night.

Saturday morning I immediately set to work again on mixing up a couple batches of frosting, but this time they were for the red velvet cupcakes.  After the frosting was made and applied, I decorated the tops with little gumpaste flowers!

When I was finished, I packed up the remainder of the boxes with delicious cupcakes........

put them in the Jeep, and set off to deliver them to Charlotte Country Club.  When my husband and I arrived at the club, they showed me where I could display the cake, and even brought out some beautiful decorative silver platters.

 It may have taken a few tries.....

but I finally figured out how I wanted them displayed.

Later on that day, the florist came to add flowers around the cake and they also placed out a little bride a groom.

Even though I was very pleased with how my cake turned out, the best part of the day was getting to witness the marriage of two good friends!  Congratulations Mark and Beth!!