Sunflowers and Roses

Last year, shortly after my brother and his girlfriend got engaged, my brother asked me if I would make their wedding cake. Of course I was delighted - and then a little nervous when he said he would design it! We talked about it a few times throughout the year but there were no real decisions made until a couple months before the wedding. He wanted the cake to be at least 5 tiers, decorated with sunflowers and roses (Shannon's favourite flowers!) and with pillars so the cake topper could be in the middle. The rest of it was up to me!

I pulled out my square and round cake pans, sat down on the basement floor and started stacking them in various ways. I'd text a picture of the cake pan cake to my brother and he'd make a suggestion and I'd adjust it accordingly and text him another picture. It didn't take long before we had one he liked - 5 tiers, with pillars. I told him he would have to find a fairly short cake topper if he wanted it to be in the middle. He told me he had it taken care of!

I started with making roses, adding lots of red colouring to make sure they didn't turn out pink! Then I switched over to sunflowers. I had never made sunflowers before, but following Wilton's directions they were surprising simple to make.

The tricky part of make this cake was the location of the reception - about a 2 hour drive from my place. I didn't know if I should haul all my stuff to the city and decorate there, or decorate it at my house and carefully transport it. I had this on-going list of pros and cons going on in my head for weeks. Finally I decided (the week of the wedding) that it would be easiest to decorate it at home and hope the cake made it there in one piece.

I started with decorating the bottom layers,

and then the top layers. As requested the cake was different flavours - lemon, chocolate, white and vanilla.

We loaded up the cake, an emergency cake repair kit, our wedding clothes and the kids. We hit the road just in time to make it to rehearsal (a half an hour late!)

The cake, much to my relief, survived the trip! The buttercream boarder didn't even melt despite the sun beating through the windows!

The wedding was beautiful, the reception was a lot of fun and the cake was completely eaten! I loved the cake topper my brother picked out - it was a perfect choice. And I was worried he wouldn't find one that would fit nicely between the tiers! He did a brilliant job of designing the cake as well. I don't think I ever would of thought to put sunflowers and roses together. It really was a great combination for a fall wedding. I might just have to consult him on all my cakes!