Piece of Cake Part 3: Breaking The Mold

[Note to Pengy: Please put the second photo as the default on the WB post so Mr. Lab won't know what it is! Thanks!]

So I finally found someone to do our groom's cake at a price that didn't include an arm, leg, soul, or firstborn child! I'm working with Sonja of Art Cake Company in Savannah and can't wait to show you the finished cake! But since I can't share the cake with you quite yet, I figured I'd at least share a couple details about it not mentioned in previous episodes of my cake saga.

Mr. Lab: With only single digits left until the big day, I think you're more than capable of refraining from clicking on the link below! :)

First off, the cake flavor! How does bourbon chocolate with a Kahlua filling sound? Delish? Yeah, I thought so! ;)

Okay, here's the part I REALLY wanted to share! Remember the cake topper I wanted?

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Well, I loved it, but it was obviously missing something. I'm not sure if you've noticed it or not, but I don't exactly have the same skin complexion as that cookie cutter cake topper. I searched high and low for something similar to it but featuring an interracial couple, and came up empty handed. The closest I got were some custom toppers that cost a fortune. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I bought the cake topper and painted it!

I grabbed some leftover paint from other projects and started with the shoes. I figured they would be the easiest fix if something went wrong.


It didn't take long for me to get the hang of it and learn the best techniques. But as I was taking photos for this post, I realized something was still missing:


It was the red sole on my shoes!


But I didn't have any red paint laying around the house and I really didn't want to go out and buy a whole tube just for those tiny, Barbie-sized heels. *cue light bulb over head* RED NAIL POLISH! If nail polish good enough for Mr. Louboutin's first red-soled shoes, it's good enough for my cake topper!


This wedding planning business has really helped me become more creative AND resourceful!


And here's the finished topper! It's not perfect, but the flaws won't be noticeable in the dim reception lights. Not to mention it looks a LOT more like us now! :D


Have you had to customize any "cookie cutter" pre-made wedding items to better reflect you or your fiance?

Piece of Cake Part 2: There's Nothing Finer in the Land

Last Sunday my future in-laws and I stopped by Publix to pick up my cake samples. Boy were we surprised at Publix's idea of a "sample" size.

It was practically an ENTIRE cake! I honestly thought I wouldn't have enough to share with my FMIL & SIL when we went to try it. I was clearly wrong. Publix even threw in an extra flavor combo (half & half aka chocolate & vanilla). It was around lunch time when we brought home our sample, so we undoubtedly gorged ourselves. Hey, it's all in the name of wedding planning, right? ;)

Um, Mr. Lab, I am going to politely ask that you refrain from clicking the "read more" link below. K, thx!

As expected, I went with the red velvet and vanilla with raspberry filling, all in buttercream frosting. We managed to quit stuffing our faces long enough to wrap up some of the cake to take back to Mr. Lab when I visit him next week. Look how nom nom nom, er...yummy, they look!

The perfectionist dwelling inside me loves how the two flavors are alternating colors. It's going to be pretty even after the cake has been sliced and diced! As for the updated price for the red velvet flavor I mentioned in Part 1, Evelyn put down the same $165 on my order form! I'm assuming she gave me the prices with the extra 20% included already. Nonetheless, it's on the contract, so that's what I'm paying!

So now that the wedding cake was all settled, I excitely moved on the the groom's cake!

Some of you may remember my scare with Mr. Lab and his desire of a meat cake. Well, he assured me that it was mostly a joke. He definitely thinks meat cake is totally awesome and wants to try it one day, but he also said that he didn't really want it for his groom's cake. Whew! I'm was so relieved he felt that way!* It meant that I could move forward with my plans for a (surprise) cake that represents the pasttime we both share a love of: Georgia football games!

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I had a vision that our cake would be a replication of our beloved Sanford Stadium with a few added personal details. It would be presented soon after the cake cutting to the Georgia fight song and placed on a table full of photos of me and Mr. Lab at Georgia games.

Just some good-hearted fun with our arch enemies! :P

On the field would sit a "cake topper" of me and Mr. Lab playing some football, kinda like this:

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I love how the bride looks like she's tackling the groom. That's what I'm talking about! And to play on the idea of us in the middle of a "game", I'd have the jumbotron personalized with our "score": LeiLani (me) winning 11 to 7 against Chris (Mr. Lab). The 11-7 score reflects our wedding date and the fact that Mr. Lab scored a touchdown and made his PAT and I would have had to score a touchdown, miss the PAT, and kicked 2 field goals OR scored a touchdown, made the PAT, and gotten two safeties OR, well, you get the point! Can you tell I'm ready for the college football season to start? And can you tell that I take competition seriously? ;)

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Anyways, the first place we went for the groom's cake was Custom Cakes by Minette Rushing. She is Savannah's premeire cake designer. She's even making the wedding cakes featured in the movie Miley Cyrus is currently filming in Savannah! But because of her talent, she comes with quite the price tag. She doesn't sell any cakes under 100 servings or $550. I decided to still have a consult with her because I was saving so much with my wedding cake. So FSIL and I booked an appointment.

When we walked in the door, the first thing I saw was this:

I thought it was pretty ironic that I was there for a cake honoring the Georgia Bulldogs and ran into a gator! But I was helplessly in awe. I couldn't believe this was a CAKE! I felt extremely confident that Minette would be able to carry out my vision flawlessly. I mean, look at some of her other work on display around the room!




But alas! After the consultation, she sent me the price for what my vision would cost: $1200 plus tax! YIKES. I have expensive visions. For that price I would have to put the cake in a glass box and display it in my living room for the next 50 years.

So I went back to the search. I happened to run across a Sanford Stadium cake online and found out that the baker doesn't live far from Savannah. Thank goodness it's the weekend so I actually have the time to give her a call. Isn't this cool?!?

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So stay with me. This cake saga isn't over yet!

*Oh, and just because Mr. Lab was a good boy (hehe) about the meat cake, I'm planning to make him one in honor of our fourth anniversary in October! :D

All un-sourced photos are my own.

The one bad thing about my fall wedding...

...is that there's a UGA football game on it. When Chris and I picked out our date-before we even got engaged-it was originally a bye weekend. Chris and I are HUGE college football fans, so I didn't want my dream of an autumn wedding to conflict with a UGA game. But since picking the date, the university added some nobody football school to the schedule. Who's ever heard of Tennessee Tech? Nobody? That's what I thought.

What's worse is that it's a home game in Athens, where a handful of our guests (and us) are living now. I'm hoping people will be okay with missing this game. I'm guessing it'll be a 12:30 pm kickoff with an easy win (at least on paper), so Dawg fans on my guest list will be able to watch the entire game-if aired on a network in Savannah-before the wedding even begins. I'm looking into getting a TV in the reception area somewhere so people can stay up to date with other big games that day (including me!). I have to find out if they already have cable hookups to do this. I feel like the guys in those Verizon V-Cast commercials who are checking score updates during a wedding and honeymoon. I know Chris and I both will ask for updates at least a couple times during the reception from people with iPhones and whatnot. haha

Again, today is short on the wedding updates because I started spring semester and have to work until almost 1 am tonight. This is going to be interesting how much wedding stuff I accomplish now that I back at work and school... Thank goodness there's summer break before the wedding!