And They Lived Happily Ever After. . .

A couple weeks ago, I had the immense pleasure of attending my little brother's wedding.  It was a full-fledged Indian affair -- an almost a week long festivity, chock-full of vibrant colors, mouth-watering foods, and a near-constant atmosphere of delightful ebullience. A perfect celebration of love and a promising start to their "Happily Ever After."  It's really wonderful to attend a wedding of someone you love, while not actually being the one getting married. You get to fully immerse yourself in the experience, while experiencing not a bit of the actual stress.  Which is one of the reasons why, when asked if I would make the wedding cake -- I said 'no.'  It actually broke my heart a little.  Because if there is anyone in the world who I would love to make a wedding cake for, it's my little brother.  But after taking a moment to really, really think it through, I realized that: a) I didn't want to be responsible for the potential food poisoning of 300 people and b) I really didn't want to be the one that ruined the wedding if something horrible happened in either the composition, transit, or placement (or all three) of the cake. So I decided on a compromise.  I'd make a dummy cake.  Still a little stressful in that the final product would have to be as close to perfect as possible (and anyone who has read this blog over the past few years knows that that's not a given -- ever.) But at least it's slightly less stroke-inducing to transport sturdy styrofoam cake tiers over 200 miles than tender fluffy layers of cake (not to mention the sheets of slippery buttercream.) I also wouldn't have to worry about that food-poisoning thing. (I'm the type-A sibling, if anyone had any doubts about that.) And most importantly, I'd still be doing something special for my very special brother -- he sang at my wedding, and I had already resigned myself to the fact that I'd never be able to top that (if you've ever been unfortunate enough to hear me karaoke you would whole-heartedly agree) -- but this was something small that I could do at least.

The cake was to be in the "love-story" style.  It first was featured a year or two ago, and had become very popular, since the story of the couple can be (very briefly) told in the illustrations on the tiers. My brother and his fiancee (now wife) met while in college and dated when in medical school.  They got engaged during a post graduation celebratory trip while in Prague, and now were getting married.  Obviously, (very) abridged version -- but there's only so much you can fit on cake. The tiers were covered in a red fondant with a gold splash finish to go with the wedding colors, and, while love-story cakes typically use black Mexican gumpaste to create the story silhouettes, I went with white to create more of a contrast.   Lastly, were the almost half a dozen sugar flowers to crown the monogrammed top tier (made of about a million petals, give or take).

After all of that even, I still managed to break a petal off of one of the flowers while transporting the cake to Michigan (which my perfectionist husband, insisted -- no really -- insisted I fix -- even though it was in the back of the cake, and no one at all would have seen it.  I mean I have 20/15 vision, I made the thing and I freakin' didn't even notice it!) And then in an entirely unexpected twist of fate (as they always are,) the rear window in my Jeep decided to independently roll itself down and refuse to go back up.  Not sure how many of you have driven in Michigan but the expressway may as well be the Michigan International Speedway since everyone thinks they're driving for NASCAR. (Including me -- I mean, don't get me wrong, MI drivers are the most skilled best-est in the world and I love them, but this just wasn't the greatest time.) But in spite of the wind tunnel that was my car, the cake managed to get to the venue unharmed.  And I got to celebrate the fantastic event that was the wedding, while focusing all my energy on admiring the lovely bride and groom!
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Courtesy of Rosy and Shaun Wedding Photography