Anne and Colin at the Walker

I met with Anne and Colin while they were in town on a wedding planning whirlwind tour. It's difficult enough to plan a wedding, but to plan one from a distance is a whole other complication. Luckily, they made an awesome team. I met with the two of them, then finished up the design session with Colin while Anne moved on to her next meeting.
It's not too often that the groom is involved in designing the cake, but (as I found with Colin) most guys really get into it if given the chance. We had good source material...their invitations had a beautiful floral vine motif, and the reception was at the ultra-modern Walker Art Center.

These two elements dictated a clean, sophisticated design. We sketched up several options varying the pattern from black to pale silver, and playing around with round vs. square tiers. The design finally evolved to a square fondant-panel cake with the pattern on alternating sides of the offset tiers. Colin came up with the coup de grace...the color of the pattern would deepen on each tier from pale silver to black. The cherry on top? Well, we were at the Walker, so how about a frosting version of that Iconic Cherry and Spoon Sculpture right outside the venue?


Everything was in place, until about two weeks before the wedding, when I laid out some cake pans to figure out the placement for the cake plate centerpost holes to be drilled. The original design was a three tier cake, but once I stacked the pans, it just didn't work. So, I emailed Anne, told her that I didn't like the silhouette, and changed it to a four tier. You'd think a last minute design change might make a bride a little jumpy, but she was all for it. And happily, all three of us got our dream cake!