This commission was our biggest to date. A four day wedding in Scotland and we were commissioned to design two cakes. An eight tier wedding cake extravaganza for the wedding on the Saturday at one castle plus a 5 tier circus themed cake for the pre-wedding party at a different castle for the Friday. It was a lot. It was hard work, it was incredibly stressful and we loved every single minute of it!
The Circus Cake
The circus cake for the pre- wedding party was the first one we designed. We met with the planner - Melanie from Cranberry Blue - at the client’s home 8 months prior to the wedding and brainstormed for hours.
With any commission our first go to for inspiration is the stationery. The stationary had already been designed so we had an amazing starting point. If you look at the images here you will see the ‘Sepia Circus’ images that we worked from. You will also see how we recreated the ‘Come all, Come all’ Invitation, on the cake, handcrafted from icing. Esme wanted a carousel, she wanted the inspiration from the invitations used and she wanted it big, but not so big as to over shadow the wedding cake on the Saturday.
We are pleased to say that the client and the planner were absolutely delighted with what we produced.
The Wedding Cake
Esme wanted HUGE. That was the first requirement. We do huge and we do it very well indeed. No problem at all
Having already worked for Esme on a few smaller events, she was very happy to be lead by us and trusted us to go away and play with a few ideas. So, Esme and Melanie shared various images and ideas and we went away to have a good think and do our research and exploration.
One thing we wanted to include was a ‘nod’ to the ‘castle’ perhaps a castle wall? A rustic icing surface? Somehow we had to come up with a way to get this into the design.
The inspiration that we decided to work from (pictured below):-
- A cake featuring a ‘wafer paper’ fold effect, which was actually very new at the time.
- Somehow bringing the ‘castle’ element - see the rustic castle archway
- The charger plates. The plates were commissioned for the wedding, the dominating colour being a beautiful sage green with intricate brushed gold detail
- The flowers - for the initial design, we didn’t know what specific flowers would be used, but were knew that they would be incredible!
The sketch of the wedding cake here was actually our first sketch. Esme and Adam LOVED it. We did have another couple of ideas up our sleeve just in case but they weren’t needed.
As you can see, alternating tiers of delicate folds, contrasting with tiers covered in the sage green, with intricate replicas of the charge plates.
The ‘folds’ were actually made from flower paste and not wafer paper. Wafer paper does not respond well to humidity and if the weather ended up being humid we would have experienced big problems. So, each piece was hand rolled and cut. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
The castle ‘nod’ was included at the bottom of the cake. A castle wall surrounding the bottom tier, slightly worn and damaged from standing for hundreds of years(!)` We also added a rustic vase of flowers on the top to give the design the absolute wow factor
The flowers.. my goodness the flowers! They were 4 months in the making. The most incredible undertaking. The studio was literally taken over. We met with the florist Amie Bone, to discuss in detail the specific flowers that were going to be used. We then replicated every single one in icing and, to an incredible scale.
The floral installations were also to be very ‘foliage’ heavy. So you can see that we included hundreds of sugar crafted leaves.
A last minute addition was that of butterflies. Delicately resting on and around the flowers.
The small matter of delivering two enormous cakes to Scotland, storing them and setting them up over a two day period. No small task. The planning and the execution of this job was huge. Melanie at Cranberry Blue was exceptional.
We are honoured to have been commissioned for this wedding and very proud to show these images of our work.
Nicola
